Compelled to draw, write, and otherwise create throughout my life, my impetus for single-panel cartooning was sparked ca. 1977 while earning a BA in biology from the State University of New York in Oswego. There, my roommates and I in Onondaga Hall came upon two books entitled, "Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head and Other Drawings" (1976), and "Whack Your Porcupine and Other Drawings" (1977); collections of simple single-panel black-and-white cartoons by B. Kliban, who is most often associated with cat cartoon humor. This was further enhanced almost concurrently by the emergence of Gary Larson's "The Farside," which began to proliferate ca. 1980. Most recently, I have been given added inspiration by Dan Piraro's syndicated "Bizarro" strip, which I read daily in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Thus, the trifecta of Kliban, Larson, and Piraro. Oddly enough, I was not as much influenced by Shel Silverstein, whose work I do admire, though.

   After college, I went on a circuitous, yet rewarding, 40-plus-year career in the environmental and ecological sciences, but never stopped sketching cartoon ideas. Thus, there must be some reason the "arts" and the "sciences" are often linked together. On rare occasions over those years, I would dip my toe into the publication inkwell, submitting cartoons in the hopes some might even get published, but with no success. Now I am actively doing so since retiring in 2020, submitting to any online and printed publication accepting submissions I can find. Finally, on January 1, 2023, my first of two cartoons was published in The American Bystander, which is self-described as "...the first new national humor magazine in 30 years." Check it out @ https://www.americanbystander.org/.

   With all of that, while continuing to submit, needing a place to put some those hundreds of rejected cartoon other than a desk drawer--where many have resided for quite some time--this website and my accompanying Instagram page @mreloslesen and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089259836378) will now also become the repository for some; so they can see the light of more than my computer screen and light table. 

--To the memory of Bernard "Hap" Kliban​

 (1935 – 1990)

While one cartoon has no relation to the next,

they can be put into these loosely defined categories: