The Marine Mammal Center Collab Behind the Scenes!

Hello my friends!

In this newsletter update I wanted to talk a little bit more about the collaboration between The Marine Mammal Center and I, including the why and how.

Why The Marine Mammal Center?

Every year I try to do some work with Sarah’s Scribbles that benefits an organization I care about. In early 2024, I listened to an educational podcast about entanglement—the phenomenon where fishing gear or other debris wrap around an animal, causing mobility problems, injury, or even death. I also learned about what an enormous undertaking it can be to save an animal from entanglement, particularly larger species like whales.

It was listening to that podcast that made me curious about what organizations do this important rescue work, and I came across The Marine Mammal Center. The Marine Mammal Center’s expert team is a leading first responder to cetaceans—whales, dolphins and porpoises—in distress. As I learned more about the center, I became more and more impressed by their hands-on rescue, conservation and education efforts, and I reached out.

What does the collaboration process look like?

For this collaboration, we chose to create three new otter comics because September is the sea otter themed month at TMMC. There was so much to explore artistically, especially because otters have such unique (and dare I say iconic) behavior. We went through many different sketches before we landed on our final pieces. Here’s one that didn’t make the final cut.

The thing that most exciting to me about working with The Marine Mammal Center is that I not only get to support an organization doing incredible work, but I get to draw a lot of fun comics. I think Sarah’s Scribbles is often strongest when I write about nature, and working with TMMC allowed me to experiment with drawing animals I haven’t turned my lens to yet; first seals in our initial fundraiser, and now, otters!

Here's another sketch for a piece that we did wind up using.

Here are the final pieces, and as a reminder, we have made hand signed prints available with a portion going to TMMC. There’s only two days left so if you’re interested, snag one now!

The Marine Mammal Center is the largest marine mammal hospital in the world and advances ocean health through marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation, research, and education. It’s been a blast to curate this collection to advance their cause!

-Sarah