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Author Archives: Violet's Vegan Comics
Adi’s Saturday
Jean’s Saturday
The following morning …
Who’s got the power?
So how can we get good electricity?
Eco friendly AND animal friendly?
We love birds
It was Friday …
Venus #4 starts tomorrow!
Venus Aqueous Episode #4 starts tomorrow!
Don’t miss it! 😉
By the way, you can go to the 8 years and up page to find the earlier episodes and get the story so far if you want to 😀
Compassion. It’s universal.
Catskill Animal Sanctuary rescues farmed animals, ignites social change to end their exploitation, and champions vegan living. Subscribe to their e-news, Herd Around the Barn: casanctuary.org/herd
The best friend anyone could want
Two best friends, Tillie and Phoebe, had a brilliant time, sneaking off to play when someone left the door open at their guardian’s house party. But it all went horribly wrong when 4 year old Phoebe got stuck in a hole she couldn’t get out of.
She might have known she would be ok though, since 11 year old Tillie was with her. Tillie stayed by Phoebe’s side for a week, leaving only for a quick runs to look for help each day before coming back to wait with her friend.
Residents witnessed Tillie running through a back yard several times over the course of the week, but they didn’t realize what was happening until a volunteer group called Pet Protectors put out a distress call on Facebook. Pet Protectors soon received a lucky tip from someone who had seen Tillie several times.
Read more here, including the wonderful happy ending as the girls reunite with their guardian: http://www.care2.com/causes/old-dog-watches-over-trapped-buddy-for-a-week-until-help-arrives.html#ixzz3mYwGGtc5
Edmund’s Lunch was a peculiar lunch, so everybody said
Edmund’s Lunch is available as a little paperback which includes the recipe for his delicious vegan, gluten-free lunch.
It is also one of the stories in the collection Why are you a vegan? and other wacky verse for kids (not including the recipe)
Don’t Be A Volpar!
Emmeline Rose said ….
To see the story/rhyme bigger go to the Emmeline Rose page and read it in silence 😉
For more vids go to the vids page 😀
Vegan Children
The ‘Pretend you’re not vegan’ game
More Venus Aqueous coming soon!
Not familiar with Venus?
Why not get to know her in episodes 1, 2 and 3 (all on the 8 and up page)? Then you’ll be all caught up by the time episode 4 begins.
See you soon 😀
Story Time #7: What’s Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Panda
Recommended Reading: What’s Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Panda
As soon as I saw this I just had to order a copy! It’s made completely of collage!
Lavender Laine has written and illustrated the whole book completely by cutting out bits from old magazines, wrapping paper, food packaging, yarn and buttons! Talk about recycling! Even the copyright page is written in collage!
Laine’s story is about a panda called Patty who has woken up hungry but doesn’t know what to eat. She meets lots of people willing to share with her but finds that what they’re eating isn’t necessarily her cup of tea.
Each picture is made with different materials so they are all very different, and some are more abstract than others, which will encourage children to make art out of whatever they’ve got lying around.
The story is rhyming, with one verse per page, and every page is a feast for the eyes. Children can read it slowly, or have it read to them, while they study the unusual images and try to work out what they are and what they’re made of.
You really feel like you could pick at the paper and peel off the layers – not that you would. It just looks so tactile.
The story is absolutely lovely and can be enjoyed again and again. It makes the point that we are all different, and what’s good for one might not necessarily be good for someone else. No wonder it is dedicated to the Safer Medicines campaign 🙂
From Honestly Books. Available on Amazon.
Tongue Twister: Friendly Felix
Tongue Twister: Vegan Velma
What’s In A Name?
Once upon a time there were three humans and their names were Dowatiwant, Dowateewants and Dowatheywant. They did everything together. Dowatiwant was the one who decided what they would do, Dowateewants would copy him and Dowatheywant would copy them.
One day Dowatiwant went into the cornershop, followed by Dowateewants and Dowatheywant.
Dowatiwant bought a packet of crisps and a can of fizzy pop. Then Dowateewants bought a packet of crisps and a can of fizzy pop. Then Dowatheywant bought a packet of crisps and a can of fizzy pop. All three left the shop, one after the other, and walked to the park.
Dowatiwant sat down on a bench and opened his packet of crisps and his fizzy pop. Dowateewants sat down next to him and opened her packet of crisps and her can of fizzy pop, and Dowatheywant sat down next to her and did the same.
There they sat, talking and laughing, eating and drinking, crunching and slurping, until their crisps and their fizzy drinks were all gone.
Dowatiwant dropped his crisp packet on the ground and tossed his drink can over his shoulder. Dowateewants laughed, dropped her crisp packet on the ground and threw her drink can at a tree. Dowatheywant held on to his empty can and his empty crisp packet and picked up those tossed by his friends.
“What are you doing?” asked Dowatiwant.
“Why don’t you do what we did?” asked Dowateewants.
“I’m changing my name,” said their friend as he deposited their rubbish in the bin, “to Sharperthanimaner.”
“The connection between chucking bits of plastic on the ground and cute animals dying of starvation is a demonstrable fact. It’s not even one of those join-the-dots facts like fossil fuel use and homeless polar bears. It’s a dead-hedgehog-with-its-head-stuck-in-a-plastic-cup fact,” wrote Alex Proud, in ‘If you drop litter, you’re an idiot and must be punished’, The Telegraph, 17 February 2014
“… I’d ramp these [litter fines] up and enforce them with the kind of zeal that would have Dirty Harry gasping with mute admiration.”
Z is for Zoo
Zoo noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: zoological garden: public garden or park with collection of animals for exhibition and study.
Our definition: Place where wild animals are kept and/or bred in captivity. Zoos are prisons. Prisons in which innocent individuals are kept incarcerated for their whole lives, though they have committed no crime.
Elephants, for example, in the wild, are used to travelling many miles a day in herds of about ten related adults and their offspring. They are very social animals.
In zoos, elephants are usually kept in pairs or even isolated. Their enclosures are incredibly small, compared to what they are used to in the wild, and as a result they often show many signs of being stressed out or bored, like engaging in repetitive movements. Stress behaviours can include repetitive movements, pacing back and forth, head bobbing, rocking, repeatedly retracing their steps, sitting motionless or biting the bars of their enclosure or themselves.
What makes life so difficult for zoo animals is that they hardly have any privacy and lack mental stimulation and physical exercise. Even though you might think that zoo animals would get used to a life in captivity, they really don’t. Even animals that are bred in zoos still retain their natural instincts after many generations of captive breeding.
Animals like polar bears or felines are used to hunting; this habit is replaced by the zoo with regular feedings. Most animals kept in zoos would naturally roam for tens of miles a day.
Zoos claim to help with conservation. However, hardly any zoo registers their animals on an international species database and most zoo animals are not endangered at all.
Even though there are thousands of endangered species, zoos have only been able to return about 16 species to the wild with varying level of success. Most zoo animals released in the wild don’t survive. This is because zoos don’t provide the right environment for a successful captive breeding project. The animals would need to live in habitats resembling their natural ones, especially in terms of climate and fauna. The animals would also need to be raised with minimal human contact and in populations large enough to provide a natural social balance and a suitable gene pool.
Surplus animals are the unwanted animals for whom there is no more space, when zoos have bred yet another cute little baby to attract visitors. They can even be the cute babies themselves when they’ve stopped being cute at the end of the season. Zoos have a systematic “overproduction” of animals. These surplus animals are either killed – and sometimes fed to their fellow zoo habitants – or sold to other zoos or dealers. Selling animals is a profitable way for zoos to dispose of them. Dealers will sell them to hunting ranches, pet shops, circuses, the exotic meat industry and research facilities. Surplus animals are also found for sale on the internet.
To sum up: DON’T GO TO THE ZOO! If a school trip is being organised, tell your teacher why you don’t like zoos and ask them to take you somewhere better. If they won’t listen, explain what zoos really are to your friends and then get together to petition the school. If they still won’t listen, just ask your parents to let you stay home from school that day. Maybe they could take you on a better trip instead, such as to a museum or art gallery.
That reminds me – see what Luke Walker, ‘animal stick up for-er’, did when he was forced to go on a trip to the zoo – now that’s a boy who acts on his conscience! (Though he is sadly unappreciated by those who know him 😉 )
W is for Winkle
Winkle noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: edible sea snail.
Our definition: A winkle is a small herbivorous shore-dwelling mollusc with a spiral shell. Winkle is also a common name applied to numerous different species of small, round snails. These are often species of sea snails, but also some small round freshwater snails, and even some land snails that have an operculum (a secreted plate that closes the aperture of a gastropod mollusc’s shell when the animal is retracted).
Click here for the W page, and here for the rest of the vegan dictionary 😀
W is for Whiting
Whiting noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: small edible sea fish.
Juvenile-whiting
Our definition: Whiting (Merlangius merlangus) fish are similar in appearance to their larger relatives, cod, haddock, coley and pollack. They have three dorsal fins separated by small gaps, the third fin extending almost to the tail fin. The tail is not forked, having almost a square end. The two anal fins are very close together, nearly touching one another and, together with the anterior fin, are elongated. The pectoral fin is also long and projects beyond the base of the anal fin. A whiting’s upper jaw projects slightly beyond the lower, and the lateral line is continuous along the length of the body. In colour, individual fish vary quite a lot, and there is often a small dark blotch at upper base of the pectoral fin. They can grow to up to 50 cm long.
Whiting matures at between three and four years of age, and spawning takes place at a depth of 20 to 150 m. The time of the spawning varies from location to location: from January to spring in the Mediterranean; from January to September in the area between the British Isles and the Bay of Biscay; and throughout the year in the Black Sea. A large female can produce up to one million eggs. The eggs float in the open ocean and the larval whiting swim with other sea plankton until they have attained a length of around 10 cm. The fish grow quickly, with females growing faster than males, and can live to about ten years of age. The diet of the whiting consists of bottom-living organisms, such as crabs, shrimps, small fish, molluscs, worms, squid and cuttlefish.
The biggest threat to whiting is “over-harvesting” (euphemism) by the fishing fleets of many nations (of course).
Click here for the W page, and here for the rest of the vegan dictionary 😀
V is for Vegan
Vegan noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: person who does not eat animals or animal products.
Our definition: To be vegan means to try to do no harm to all animals, including humans, and the planet on which everyone depends. This means a vegan will do their best to avoid all animal products in their food, clothes and possessions. They will choose only fair trade and organic whenever possible, and will reduce, reuse and recycle to protect the world and its inhabitants from plastic pollution. They will also avoid any activity or practice which exploits or abuses animals, such as visiting a zoo or buying animal-tested toiletries.
Just try to do no harm. Easy 😀
Click here for the V page and here for the rest of the dictionary.
Have a lovely weekend 😀
U is for unethical, unprincipled, unkind ….
Killing animals is unethical,
It’s unprincipled and unkind.
Eating meat is unhealthy,
***
So why do humans do it,
This unsightly unwholesome crime?
It’s unwarrantable, it’s unwarranted
And entirely unjustified.
The U page is right here, and the whole dictionary is just there 😀
“I’m not dinner!” The Movie
T is for Turkey
Turkey noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: 1. large originally American bird bred for food. 2. Its flesh.
Our definition:
- Turkeys are known to exhibit over 20 distinct vocalisations. Including a distinctive gobble, produced by males, which can be heard a mile away.
- Individual turkeys have unique voices. This is how turkeys recognise each other.
- Turkeys are intelligent and sensitive animals that are highly social. They create lasting social bonds with each other and are very affectionate, rather similar to dogs.
- Turkeys have outstanding geography skills. They have the ability to learn the precise details of an area over 1,000 acres in size.
- Like peacocks, male turkeys puff up their bodies and spread their elaborate feathers to attract a mate.
- Baby turkeys (poults) flock with their mother all year. Although wild turkeys roost in the trees, as poults are unable to fly for the first couple of weeks of their lives, the mother stays with them at ground level to keep them safe and warm until they are strong enough to all roost up in the safety of the trees.
- Wild turkeys are able to fly at up to 55 mph for short distances. Most domestic turkeys however are unable to fly due to being selectively bred to be larger than would be suitable in wild circumstances.
- The male is substantially larger than the female, and his feathers have areas of red, purple, green, copper, bronze, and gold iridescence. Female feathers are duller overall, in shades of brown and grey.
- The area of bare skin on a turkey’s throat and head vary in colour depending on its level of excitement and stress. When excited, a male turkey’s head turns blue, when ready to fight it turns red.
For the rest of the T page, click here; for the whole vegan dictionary click here 😀
Farm Sanctuary
New Release: What’s Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Panda
Wild and Fruity
It’s that time of year again 🙂
Remember the No Bake Blueberry Flapjacks? Well, I didn’t have any blueberries so I decided to improvise with something wild – the blackberries are ready!
So many blackberries and we only needed a few so we left plenty for others 🙂
And we saw plenty of others enjoying them.
I did sustain a nasty bramble injury – ouch!
But we got what we needed 😉
*****
No-Bake Sugar-Free Apple and Blackberry Flapjacks
You’ll need:
4 small apples, peeled and chopped.
Washed, freshly-picked blackberries
Fresh dates, pitted and soaked for 1 hour.
I didn’t measure how many blackberries I had but you can tell from how they look on the plate (it’s a small sandwich plate). The dates weighed 200g before they were pitted and soaked.
Put the apples and blackberries into your food processor together and whiz for a few seconds until well blended.
Then add the dates and…
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S is for Sturgeon
Sturgeon noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: large edible fish yielding caviar.
Our definition: Sturgeons are native to subtropical, temperate and sub-Arctic rivers, lakes and coastlines of Eurasia and North America. They are distinctive for their elongated bodies, lack of scales, and occasional great size: sturgeons ranging from 7–12 feet (2-3½ m) in length are common, and some species grow up to 18 feet (5.5 m). Most sturgeons are anadromous (migrating up rivers to spawn) bottom-feeders, spawning upstream and feeding in river deltas and estuaries. While some are entirely freshwater, a very few venture into the open ocean beyond near coastal areas.
Sturgeon are primarily benthic feeders (feeding on the river bed or ocean floor), with a diet of shells, crustaceans and small fish. They feed by extending their syphon-like mouths to suck food from the benthos. Having no teeth, they are unable to seize prey, though larger individuals can swallow very large prey items, including whole salmon. Sturgeons feed non-visually. They are believed to use a combination of sensors, including olfactory sensors, tactile chemosensory cues on the 4 barbules, and passive electroreceptors (ampullae of Lorenzini).
Many sturgeon leap completely out the water, usually making a loud splash which can be heard half a mile away on the surface and probably further under water. It is not known why they do this, but suggested functions include group communication to maintain group cohesion, catching airborne prey, nuptial behaviour, or to help shed eggs during spawning. Other plausible explanations include escape from predators, shedding parasites, or to gulp or expel air. Another explanation is that it “simply feels good”.
Sturgeon can live 100 years and have been around since the dinosaurs. Because of their long reproductive cycles, long migrations, and sensitivity to environmental conditions, many species are under severe threat from overfishing, poaching, water pollution, and damming of rivers. There is also a noticeable decline in sturgeon populations as the demand for caviar increases (see Roe on the R page). According to the IUCN, over 85% of sturgeon species are classified as at risk of extinction, making them more critically endangered than any other group of species.
Click here for the S page, and here for the rest of the dictionary 🙂
R is for Rat
Rat noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: 1. large mouselike rodent. 2. colloquial unpleasant or treacherous person. verb 1. hunt or kill rats. 2. colloquial inform on.
Our definition:
- Rats take care of injured and sick rats in their group.
- Without companionship rats tend to become lonely and depressed.
- Rats have excellent memories. Once they learn a navigation route, they won’t forget it.
- When happy, rats have been observed to chatter or grind their teeth. This is often accompanied by vibrating eyes.
- Rats make happy “laughter” sounds when they play.
- Rats succumb to peer-pressure, just like humans. Brown rats are prone to disregard personal experiences in order to copy the behaviour of their peers. The urge to conform is so strong that they will even choose to eat unpalatable food if they are in the company of other rats who are eating it.
- Although very curious animals, rats are also shy, and prefer to run away than confront a potential threat.
- Rats are extremely clean animals, spending several hours every day grooming themselves and their group members. They are less likely than cats or dogs to catch and transmit parasites and viruses.
- A rat can go longer than a camel without having a drink of water.
- Rats’ tails help them to balance, communicate and regulate their body temperature.
Click here for the rest of the Rr page, click here, or go to the sidebar on the right, for the whole dictionary 😀
P is for Pig
O is for omelette
Omelette noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: beaten eggs fried and often folded over filling.
Our definition: Omelettes are made from eggs laid by birds (usually chickens) kept in unnatural, confined conditions, more often than not in over-crowded barns with no access to the outside and no natural light or fresh air. Their miserable lives are short, ending when they begin to lay less eggs at about 12 to 18 months of age (naturally, healthy chickens could live into their teens if not taken by a predator, though those rescued from chicken farms don’t usually live longer than 4 years due to their harrowing start in life). Contrary to popular opinion, buying free range is not the cruelty free option since these birds’ lives will also end in brutal slaughter by the tender age of 18 months. NB farms can label their eggs free range if there is access to an outdoor area from the chickens’ barn even though most of the birds in the overcrowded barn are never able to reach the door. Male chicks are horribly killed en masse shortly after hatching.
Buying tofu, on the other hand, is the cruelty free option and if you love eggs, you’ll really love tofu 😀
Spinach Tofu Scramble. Photo by Evelyn Oliver
For the rest of the dictionary, click here
N is for Nutria
Nutria noun
Oxford Dictionary definition: coypu fur
Our definition: Nutria (also called coypu) are large, rodents who are more agile in the water than on land. They live in burrows, or nests, never far from the water. Nutria may inhabit a riverbank or lakeshore, or dwell in the midst of wetlands. They are strong swimmers and can remain submerged for as long as five minutes. Their average lifespan in the wild is eight to ten years. They are varied eaters, most fond of aquatic plants and roots, and are very very cute. Quite beaver-like 😀
Nutria can be rather social animals and sometimes live in large colonies, reproducing prolifically. Females have two or three litters every year, each consisting of five to seven young. These animals mature quickly and remain with their mothers for only a month or two.
Tragically, many misguided humans have cruelly exploited nutria on fur farms (“Originally native to subtropical and temperate South America, it has since been introduced to North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, primarily by fur ranchers“) and, when these ventures failed and the captive animals escaped or were released into parts of the world where they didn’t belong, they bred fast and caused a lot of damage to wetlands. This has resulted in many attempts to cull them worldwide including, in the US, incentives being paid to people to hunt and trap them. They get $5 per nutria tail handed in to a Coastal Environments Inc. official.
Click here for the N page and here for the rest of the vegan dictionary
Join the club!
Want to join the Violet’s Vegan Comics Club?
Just make one of these cards and then send us a photo of it with your name –
or your secret alias 😉
Unlimited Culture: Vegetarian Food
Free Postcards!
Babs wanted you to know that we’ve got some postcards up for grabs, although they’re disappearing fast!
If you like sending postcards through the mail, or if you like this website and would like to share it with others by leaving them in library books or some such, then drop us a line using the contact form below and tell us your name, address (anywhere in the world) and how many you’d like – up to 24, that’s as many as will fit in the envelope 😉
You are so kind 😀
Now Babs is ready for her close-ups:
Henry David Thoreau
‘One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw materials of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle.’
Henry David Thoreau
from Walden in the chapter named ‘Economy’
What they don’t tell you at school about Leonardo da Vinci
And Pythagoras and Wilberforce are far from alone. Leonardo da Vinci was of the same brilliant point of view 😀
WHAT THEY WILL TELL YOU:
- Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps best known as a painter, with his legendary works including the Mona Lisa, the Vitruvian Man and the Last Supper, among others.
- Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t just an incredible artist, he was an inventor, scientist, mathematician, engineer, writer, musician and much more.
- The Mona Lisa is perhaps the most well known painting in the world. It is a half-length portrait of a woman who, along with the composition, background and other details, has been the subject of much speculation and discussion. It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa around 1503. It has been on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris for over 200 years.
WHAT THEY PROBABLY WON’T TELL YOU IS THAT HE WAS WIDELY REPUTED TO BE:
We know this because Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici (Leonardo’s patron for three years, from 1513…
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Vegan Story Time #6: How many friends could a Bibbolybob make if a Bibbolybob came to Earth?
What they don’t tell you at school about Pythagoras
And while we’re on the subject of what they don’t tell you at school …
They’ll tell you a lot of stuff about Pythagoras at school, like:
- He worked out that in a right angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides: that’s Pythagorean Theorem
- Pythagoras is often referred to as the first pure mathematician.
- He was born on the island of Samos, Greece in 569 BC.
- Pythagoras was well educated, and he played the lyre throughout his lifetime, knew poetry and recited Homer. He was interested in mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and music, and was greatly influenced by Pherekydes (philosophy), Thales (mathematics and astronomy) and Anaximander (philosophy, geometry).
But they probably won’t tell you that:
And “Pythagorean diet” was a common name for the abstention from eating meat and fish, until the coining of “vegetarian” in the 19th century.
Stick that in your triangle and measure it!! 🙂
Recommended Reading: Wibbolywub and the Earthlings
Most enlightened people have become that way only after working hard to un-learn “facts” that they were taught as children, such as ‘humans are omnivores’. That’s why it is so wonderful to find an early learning book which tells the truth.
How many friends could a Bibbolybob make if a Bibbolybob came to Earth? (aka Wibbolywub and the Earthlings ) is one such book by Edward Benn, illustrated by Juliet Mahoney.
This book is first and foremost an engaging story, full of bright, colourful illustrations, about an alien visitor to Earth who is eager to make friends. It is secondly a lovely, friendly way to introduce the numbers 1 to 10 to young children. Numbers (digits) appear throughout the illustrations as Wibbolywub counts his friends and the readers can count with him. Once he has made ten friends, they play a few counting and measuring games which show how much fun numbers can be.
And thirdly it is an honest and straight-forward illustration of the simple truth that omnivores, carnivores and herbivores have recognisable anatomical attributes appropriate for their particular diet and, as an alien with no previous knowledge of Earthlings would clearly deduce, humans are herbivores.
There is even a fun post script at the end, in the form of a peak inside Wibbolywub’s notebook, which contains three of the charts (those with numbers in) from Dr Milton Mills’ The Comparative Anatomy of Eating – the work which inspired the story.
A lovely big book with a lovely big story that would delight any child and sit proudly on any bookshelf.
Published by Honestly Books
Available from Amazon
What they don’t tell you at school about William Wilberforce
It’s William Wilberforce’s birthday! Happy William Wilberforce Day everybody! 😀
What they will tell you:
- William Wilberforce (1759-1833) is one of the best known British abolitionists. He was a Parliamentarian, writer and social reformer.
- He was a close friend of William Pitt, the youngest Prime Minister in British history.
- Wilberforce campaigned for health care, educational and prison reform and legislation to prohibit the worst forms of child labour. However, his greatest political efforts concerned the abolition of the slave trade and slavery.
- In 1788-1789 he presented his Abolitionist Bill before the House of Commons for the first time. In a moving speech, he recited the horrific facts of slavery for three hours and ended with the words: “having heard all of this you may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know”.
- Despite Wilberforce’s efforts the bill did not pass. Year after year, he re-introduced anti-slavery motions but to no avail…
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Three Simple Rules
“Thou shalt not steal!”
Said Sam to Neil,
“You should not lie,”
Said Jane to Si.
“It’s wrong to kill,”
Said all to Jill
As she ate her big pork pie.
***
“I’d never steal!”
Replied cross Neil,
“I do not lie!”
Outraged was Si,
“I would not kill!”
Snapped back young Jill
As she swallowed piglet pie.
Violet's Vegan Comics 