About

The Comic

One Nation, Thunder Dog is a comic strip about the people who run Washington, and the people who run around after them.

At its heart are twin sisters. Deb is a Democratic Congresswoman with great faith that voters love facts. Carol is a Republican lobbyist who used to have Deb’s job. Over the years, as each won and lost elections, they were meant to keep trading places.

The first story starts with one tiny mistake: Deb flubs the pledge of allegiance. By the end of the week, Carol’s strategist, a cable news host and a Tea Party protest have made it much, much worse, and only Deb’s dog comes out ahead.

Where It Came From

I made Thunder Dog in 2009 and 2010, while I was drawing Bassist Wanted, my comic strip about music. I wanted to do the same for politics: a cast of characters in and around it, all trying to get through the week.

It was a world I knew. In 2008 I was an organizer for the Obama campaign in Virginia, which that year voted for a Democrat for president for the first time since 1964.

I was also doing comedy, and Thunder Dog began as a writing packet for shows like The Daily Show. After the first storyline, other work took over. I still love these characters, and I may come back to them one day, maybe in a different form.

The Cartoonist

I’m Porter Mason. I have published comics since I was 13. Besides Thunder Dog, there’s Johnny the Mediocre Human, about college life, and Bassist Wanted, about music, whose book All Local Bands Suck (Except Ours) was nominated for Best Book at the 2009 ECNY Awards.

I also used to perform and teach comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and Los Angeles. In my spare time, I raise millions of dollars for nonprofits online.

These days I draw Roonie the Rabbit, a comic strip about a bunch of cute little animals with some very big feelings. I just Kickstarted its first book, Cute Animals for Flawed People, a beautiful hardback collecting the first 301 comics.