Grad student's comic catches on online

Today, the Chronicle picks up on Animals Have Problems Too, a local online comic phenomenon from 24-year-old Sam Houston State grad student Zach VandeZande. His drawings — which, as you'd expect, are of animals with problems — are just doodles that VandeZande sketches, scans and computer colorizes. But his non-sequitur captions, which rarely have to do with the animals themselves, are the great part. For example, the Gecko That Uses Words He Doesn't Know the Meanings Of ("These tacos are so Kafka-esque!") and the Grey Fox That Can't Talk to His Friends About Rhetoric ("How was I supposed to know his dad died in a freak debate team accident?"). Um, maybe you have to see them to understand. They're funny.

VandeZande said he started AHPT after he finished writing a novel, Story Slash Mix Tape:

"I got bored when that (manuscript) was finished. Found a job and I hated it. So I started drawing comics," he said. "I was looking for something that was more fun and more immediate and that I didn't have to think so hard about character development and things like that."

VandeZande is working on another novel, but he's been focused on AHPT lately. A collection of his comics, Legitimate Art, is coming out this summer, and he's working on his master's in English at SHSU. VandeZande said he gets the ideas for many of his cartoons from readers, who e-mail in thoughts: "I get a lot of suggestions late at night. Maybe [readers are] drunk," he said. Judging by some of the captions, that just might be true.