So when I started What You Need To Know About Nature, I promised myself it wasn’t going to become just another “talking animals” nature comic with a punchline at the end of each. It’s a fun format and I very much enjoy reading them, but I wanted WYNTKAN to primarily be educational and informative. However, a while back I was looking at some photos by Trish Carney of a river otter following a coyote along a river bank. Even though I know that the otter was actually harassing the coyote to try to get it to go away, it looked a little like an over-eager, dweeby otter was tagging along behind a very annoyed coyote who was just trying to play it cool. That of course expanded into the idea of this otter thinking she could be the coyote’s partner, in the same way that coyotes sometimes team up with American badgers.

So here, have something a little more character driven; if people like it (and, more importantly, if I have fun with it) I may create one every so often mixed in with the usual informative comics. I do want to give a shout-out to a few comics artists whose style and writing inspired this diversion from my usual fare: Roberta Gregory (Bitchy Bitch, True Cat Toons, and many more), Ben Hed (Pixie and Brutus), and, of course, Walt Kelly (Pogo).

Species portrayed: Coyote (Canis latrans), North American river otter (Lontra canadensis)