Miss Officer and Mr Truffles

About

Miss Officer and Mr Truffles is a fan created cartoon duo consisting of a female police officer and her bear cub sidekick created by Tumblr artist Lemonteaflower. The comic is based on a photo featuring a police officer and a bear cub that circulated widely on Tumblr.

Origin

The original photograph of the bear standing upright next to a police officer was featured in the print edition of St. John’s daily newspaper The Telegram^[7] on June 9th, 2011. According to the report, the photograph was taken at the Terra Nova National Park earlier that month when a bear cub suddenly appeared before the police officer, Const. Suzanne Bourque of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), as she was interviewing witnesses regarding the bear’s reported encounters with the public. Although initial rumors by reporters said the bear was subsequently euthanized after being captured by the wildlife enforcement officers, in an interview^[9] with the Daily Dot on January 17th, 2014, Bourque stated that the RCMP was chasing two bear cubs and her corporal told her that the one they later euthanized wasn’t the one shown in the photo.

In November 2012, Tumblr user teamcocket^[1] posted the photograph (shown above, right) with the caption reading “officer, come quick, there’s been a robbery.” On January 6th, 2014, Tumblr user Typette^[2] reblogged the photo saying it would be a great concept for a cartoon about a police officer and a bear cub going around solving crimes. On January 11th, Tumblr user Lemonteaflower^[3] responded to Typette’s idea by reblogging the original post along with a concept image for the proposed cartoon (shown below, right), naming the duo “Miss Officer and Mr Truffles.” As of January 17th, the total post has gained over 170,000 notes.

Spread

On January 13th, 2014, Lemonteaflower expanded on her initial concept of Miss Officer and Mr Truffles,^[5] posting 3 more images (shown below) of the pair. As of January 17th the post has gained nearly 200,000 notes.

On January 14th, 2014, YouTuber Flikkof^[8] uploaded a animated short based on one of Lemonteaflower’s illustrations depicting Miss Officer and Mr. Bear listening to Spice Girl’s “Wannabe.” The video has received over 32,000 views as of January 17th.

On January 16th Suzanne Bourque, the officer in the original photo, created a Tumblr blog on which she reblogged several of Lemonteaflower’s posts on the same day, alongside a post^[4] in which she thanked Lemonteaflower and showed her gratitude for the sudden attention her picture had received (shown below, right). On January 24, Bourque posted a photo on her Tumblr showing herself sitting at her desk with one of Lemonteaflower’s images as the desktop background on her computer (shown below, left),^[11] which managed to gather over 25,000 notes within the first 24 hours.

“So I must say I’m really honoured that my photo got out and fell into the hands of someone as talented as lemonteaflower. I was told about this from our RCMP media relations and had no idea that this photo would still be as popular today as it was two and a half years ago. It was a wicked experience to be around the little cub and no less get this awesome picture taken of me with him by my partner at the time.
These comics really made my day! I hope you continue your awesome art! I know we’re enjoying it up here in Canada… ;)”