Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life

Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life — page 3 — FOREWORD y favorite place to collect insects is a little pond or a large ditch depending on how you look at it behind the baseball field of the small college where I work This is an unlikely place to experience the wonders of nature A supermarket is only about a hundred yards away the Doppler shifts of car wheels hum on the road up the hill and the ground is covered with rusting bits of metal And yet in this pond dragonflies hunt small frogs sing love songs and fish dart among the reeds And a huge snapping turtle hides in the muck I only saw her once a living island that disappeared the minute I tried to get a better look But knowing she was there unseen and powerful was fuel for my imagination I returned to the pond several times throughout the summer to get another look but I never saw her again And then with a fateful kaplunk I discovered Matt and Carol Dembicki s Mr Big Matt and Carol are excellent storytellers who take you deep into their wonderfully realized pond and allow you to get up close to the snapper and gaze into its unblinking eyes The pages themselves are alive with swirling and bubbling panels In Mr Big's pond you will discover strange new faces speaking in familiar voices and struggling with the idea of a power beyond their control Where do they fit in the world Is Mr Big the terror of the pond creatures or their protector The difficult answer is that he is both but not because he has chosen either role Mr Big

Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life — page 4 — just is And in the hands of a talented cartoonist like Matt Dembicki we get to experience all of the wonder and terror and complexity of his world This lovely book will allow us to return to Matt and Carols pond whenever we want and watch the frogs skitter away from circling crows or see the crayfish give wisdom on the pebbly bottom Or perhaps you'll return for the same reason I will to get another glimpse at that big snapper and let his stare spark your imagination When you do remember that it was the el egant imaginations of Matt and Carol Dembicki that made your visit possible Jay Hosler Jay Hosler is the six time Eisner Award nominee and Xeric Award winning creator of Clan Apis and The Sandwalk Adventures He teaches biology at Juniata College in Huntington

Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life — page 5 — INTRODUCTION n high school I volunteered as an aide for a youth camp with children of physical exceptionalities As many of the attendees were wheelchair bound planning camp activities took some effort One activity that was greatly anticipated by the entire camp was the induction of three newly acquired ducks for the camp pond We lined up the children to ensure the best vantage point for them to witness the ducks release As the three young ducks began their first swim the audience watched in horror as the last duck was silently and efficiently pulled under the water Of course the younger kids immediately began to cry while the older ones began to ask questions The head counselor attempted to say the duck was diving for food but the children insisted on waiting for the duck to resurface After fifteen minutes and many tears the counselor confessed that the duck was probably serving as a meal for an unknown underwater predator What could have caused so much terror and destruction A snapping turtle Twenty years later Matt and I found a relaxing spot at a small pond tucked away from the biking trail that runs near our home in Northern Virginia We would spend lazy weekend mornings lounging on the pond s dock feeding the resident population and watching nature unfold During one of our visits we spotted a giant snapping turtle slowly making its way toward us in the murky water It occasionally surfaced to breathe and to observe the surroundings The closer the snapping turtle got the more animals seemed to flee despite

Mr. Big: A Tale of Pond Life — page 6 — the number of breads and cereals floating on the water It seemed like the pond critters were aware of the snapper s presence and knew to get out of its way unlike that poor duck so many years ago We enjoyed watching the turtle whom we dubbed Mr Big and his habits that seemed to challenge natural rhythms given the impact of human interference such as ours It was during one of our visits that I mentioned doing a little comic about what we witnessed Matt liked the idea so we did The original concept was to create a one shot self published comic with full page panels But a funny thing happened The people who purchased the short comic liked it In fact we received emails inquiring about more installments So Matt developed the next book and soon the trials and tribulations of our Mr Big began to unfold This book serves as a collection of the Mr Big minicomics in a larger format We hope you enjoy it Carol Dembicki

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