My niece and nephew made a comic panel (sorta):

We now interrupt our regular comics coverage in order to present some niece placemat art...

At the last big family outing to a restaurant, Niece #1 filled her placemat with drawings of various family members as Lalaloopsies (if that's the correct spelling of the plural of Lalaloopsy), which are pretty much her favorite thing in the world at the moment (If you're not familiar with them, here's the website; they are a line of plastic dolls and collectable plastic figurines that are supposed to be rag dolls with button eyes come to life).

Above are her Lalaloosy-ized versions of, from left to right, her mom, her uncle (that's me!), her sister and her dad. Each Lala comes with an accessory or two and a stuffed-animal pet.


She gave me a book for an accessory, and asked me what kind of pet I wanted. I asked for a penguin, as my favorite stuffed-animal as a small child was Pengy, a stuffed penguin.

"There aren't really any bald Lalas," she said while drawing, "But we'll just have to make an exception for you.


And here are two more. These are my littlest sisters/her aunts, who also appeared as the models for some of the superheroes in a previous work of niece art you may remember.

Niece #1's Super Lala

Are you guys familiar with the Lalaloopsy line of dolls and toys?

If you are not a young girl, or don't spend much time in the toy aisle of stores with a young girl, or don't watch many cartoons in the company of a young girl, you may not be. It is a toy line based around these little button-eyed rag dolls that magically came to life, taking on cute little two- or three-word names and the characteristics of whatever material they were sewn from (So, for example, Crumbs Sugar Cookie was made from a baking apron and likes baking, while Peanut Big Top was made from a piece of clown costume, and so on).

Niece #1 is crazy about 'em, and she collects the Mini Lalaloopsy line, which consists of little plastic figures with a couple points of articulation and which I find kinda weird, in that they are little plastic action-figure like toys that you pretend are actually rag doll toys, but whatever.

When she's not playing with them and has paper and pen handy, she makes up her own Lalas (just like I used to do with He-Man and G.I. Joe figures!). Today at breakfast she made me a superhero one, pausing to ask what kind of pet Superman had (they all come with little plastic stuffed animals, which are their pets). I of course told her about Krypto the Super-Dog and Beppo the Super-Monkey, and that Superman's cousin Supergirl had a pet cat named Streaky the Super-Cat and Comet the Super-Horse. Since this is a girl and horses are hard to draw, she gave her Super Lala a caped cat pet.

Affection for the superhero concept: Fully restored

Perhaps inspired by briefly hearing the names and powers of some of The Freedom Fighters, Niece #1 created her own superheroes today, each of which is the superheroic identity of a young, female relative of mine (Niece #1, her sister, a cousin and my littlest sisters).

Who are these super-girls? And what are there abilities and modes of transportation? Niece #1 explained them all to us after she finished coloring in their costumes.


Flower Power: Flower Power, seen standing on grass she made grow in the above group shot, has the power to shoot flowers at people and to make giant flowers grow. She rides around on a giant flower that she makes grow super fast in the direction of wherever she needs to go.


Peace Sign: She throws peace signs at people that can cut them in half. "Wait," I asked for clarification, "she throws peace signs that cut people in half?" Yes, that is her super-power. Not very peaceful, if you ask me. She has a peace sign car, which is not drawn, but I imagine is a Volkswagon bus.


Lamb Girl: She is, of course, the one in the above image pictured with a lamb on a leash. Her sidekick is, apparently, a lamb. Her superpower is the ability "to control all of the lambs in the world," and she travels around by controlling a stampede of lambs to carry her wherever she needs to go. She might not sound like a formidable superhero, but I imagine she's more powerful than Chinchilla girl (not pictured, as she was invented later), who has the power to control all the chinchillas in the world. Please note that her icon is a lamb's head.


Shooting Star: She's clothed an awful lot like Supergirl, although Niece #1 probably hasn't been exposed to images of Supergirl (her sister, Niece #2, did dress up as Supergirl one year for Halloween, but her store-bought costume was a pink and silver version of Supergirl's Silver Age costume). Shooting Star's name reveals her powers: She can fly as fast as a shooting star, and she can shoot shooting stars from her hands.


Sea Girl: Finally, on the far right, pictured standing on the surface of shark-infested water is, is Sea Girl. She has the power to control all sea creatures—even sharks! Which can tell to bite people!—and is the fastest swimmer in the world. Her icon is an orange, fish-shaped symbol...which looks an awful lot like the type of cracker Niece #1 was served at lunch.


Other superheroes created this afternoon, but drawn on a separate, un-scanned piece of paper, include the Gymnastics Girl, whose costume consists of a gymnastics leotard and cape and whose power is that she's really good at gymnastics, and Ice Breaker (aka Ice Girl), who can break ice and freeze things in ice. She wears a light blue skirt and tunic with a cape and ice skates, and has an ice cube symbol on her chest. She uses her power mainly to break ice for whales that are trying to swim around northern, frozen waters, and thus presumably has a lot of team-ups with Sea Girl, Whale Girl and Orca Girl, Niece #1's other oceanic heroines.

Finally, here's a "jam piece" she and I did of our dogs as superheroes (I drew the two dogs on the right, and she drew the accessories and the dog on left):

If you're curious about their powers, star and peace sign powers are the same as those previously discussed. And heart powers? "She can use the sharp part at the bottom of the heart to poke people," I was told.