I started drawing sketches of a bear during my freshman and sophmore year. Why bears? The inspiration came from a manga character named Kon from a popular Japanese manga/anime called Bleach. Kon is actually a lion, but I sometimes mistaken him as a bear. I then started sketching circles, eyes, and mouths. Soon, the bear character was born. It wasn't until my junior year, that I started drawing dialogue and additional characters. Some of the jokes come from personal experience in both high school and college. Others are jokes that my friends told me and some are from online forum signatures, online quotes and jokes.
Drawing style:
My drawing style is a mixture of manga and American. The bear character and one of the other main character, Dave, are both in manga style. Then I drew the third character, Matt, in an American style. I like to use the manga style because you can portray hilarious character expressions.
I draw the characters on my 6"x4" ordinary Wacom Bamboo tablet. I know most manga artists and cartoonists prefer the Wacom Intuos, but I think the Bamboo tablet serves just fine.I use Adobe Photoshop CS3 to draw, edit, and produce my comics.
Website:
This website is designed with Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. It is done in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Updates:
I will try to update the comics weekly with an addition 5 comics unless I am extremely busy that week - especially during vacation, breaks, and holidays.
Newspapers
The Diamondback, University of Maryland College Park September 2009 – present
The Daily Orange, Syracuse University January 2009 – present
The Cavalier Daily, University of Virginia December 2008 – April 2009
Critiques and Public Reception
1. "My school paper now carries http://www.bearoncampus.com a furry comic. This is the cancer that is killing the newspaper industry.
Edit: I have to admit though, it's an improvement over the comic ..."- Tucker (Slightly Damned Forum)
Tung: What I get from this quote is that the Diamondback, which is the school newspaper, is the cancer that is killing the newspaper industry, but it's better than my comic? Go figure.
2. "Hopefully no one's going to be writing about Bear On Campus in ten years." - Anonymous (Diamondback comments)
Tung: Hopefully, I won't be writing "Bear on Campus" in ten years.
3. "“I’m drawn to comics that don’t have too much text and are easy to follow,” Olson said. “Comics are meant to be fast. I enjoy Pham’s strip.” - Zach Olson (Public Asian)
Tung: First compliment!
4. The_Franchyze I gotta meet this Tung Pham guy...his cartoons are hilarious in the Diamondback
