About

Ampydoo is the cartoonist Alan Michael Parker, who in another life is a novelist, poet, and essayist, and generally ebullient culture vulture. He gabs ‘n blabs, he harrumphs, he pshaws, he listens, and he makes Ampydoo cartoons, over 200 of which have appeared in print in the last five years. He has also written a book about cartoons, Bounce! A Guide to Single-Panel Cartoons, that Duke University press will publish in 2027. (That’s a famous publisher.)

Ampydoo’s cartoons have appeared weekly in Identity Theory since January of 2022, and in many other magazines including Action/Spectacle, Heavy Feather Review, The Lincoln Review (UK), Orange Blossom Review, and Terrain.org, He exhibits his work in galleries nationally, and has served as Cartoonist-in-Residence internationally at La Porte Peinte (FR), Seaside Institute, “A Position on Retreat” (CA), and VCCA. His first European solo show, “Where do you think you’re going?,” will be held in La Storta Galleria in Venice, Italy from July 1, 2026 until July 21, 2026.

As a writer, Alan Michael Parker has written four novels, a book of stories, and coedited five other books. He has won multiple awards for his work, including three Pushcart Prizes, the Fineline Prize (UK), two entries in Best American Poetry, the Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Balch Award from Virginia Quarterly Review. He has judged the Marfield Prize (the National Arts Writing Award), the USA Artist Fellowships, and juried for six different residencies. In 2021, he judged the National Book Award in fiction, and in 2024, he judged the PEN/Faulkner Award in fiction. He serves on the Steering Committee of the American Library in Paris.

As a professor, Alan Michael Parker is the Chair of the English Department at Davidson College, where he also coordinates the Abbott Honors Program. He teaches classes in Cartoons and Comics History and Practice, Film Studies, Fiction Writing, 21^st Century American Fiction, and in a new trans-disciplinary field called “Creativity Studies” that combines Studio Art, Creative Writing, Art History, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Psychology.