But now that she publishes Birdstrips, she’s learned more about birds from her community of followers. Thomas grew up in a small town with a bird-enthusiast mom, so she had been able to identify the common birds in her childhood neighborhood from sound or sight. “I even know the scientific name for a lot of species of birds now that I draw, and that comes from just trying to find reliably good reference pictures.” “I thought I was generally aware of what bird species were, and I was not,” he says.

Barkman says he’s learned a lot about birds out of necessity, as he works to avoid common missteps, like drawing a raven when he really meant to draw a crow.Ī post shared by Janie Stapleton on at 3:22pm PDT While observing bird behavior and using reference photos can lead to realistic depictions of their subjects, there has also been a learning curve for artists worried about being scientifically accurate. They’re my absolute favorite animals to watch.” “They have their little social cliques, and they're kind of petty. “They’re a lot like us,” says Stapleton, who started drawing comics regularly about a year ago. Janie strip make light of life’s common challenges, like stress and flirting.įor many of these artists, it’s the fact that birds are social and expressive-the sparrows bopping around stealing food from one another the crows with their disgruntled faces and confident swagger-that makes them such great subjects to project human behavior onto. Meanwhile, the birds in Janie Stapleton’s St. In Birdstrips, a comic started in 2017 by Montreal-based artist Jess Thomas, birds grapple with feelings of aimlessness and uncertainty. Barkman’s comic-which has an Instagram following of nearly 200,000-isn't as serious as Mullin’s his birds ponder life questions from time to time, but they also poke fun at humans and other avians. Take False Knees, a comic strip by Joshua Barkman, who’s been drawing birds (and other city animals) since 2011. And in the process, they’re helping spread their appreciation of birds to the online masses. They, like other comic artists, are finding a home on Instagram, a social platform that’s a natural fit for the square images and minimal text of the comic strip. Mullin is part of a small but passionate group of comic artists who have found birds to be excellent mediums for depicting life’s ups and downs. “If people could be a bit nicer to pigeons, then that’s amazing.” But there’s another reason why Chuck Mullin, the London-based creator of the strip, draws these comics: to spread her undying love of pigeons to the world. On its face, Chuck Draws Things is a web comic about mental health featuring relatable scenarios about the anxiety and depression felt by a plucky, googley-eyed pigeon. A post shared by False Knees on at 6:24pm PST

False Knees by Joshua Barkman