Living in Wasilla, Alaska, in recent months, it might seem natural for a cartoonist to find images of the presidential election creeping into his work. Not so for Chad Carpenter, the creator of the comic strip "Tundra" who lives in the city which is also home to former vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Political issues, in fact, are the furthest thing from Carpenter's mind when it comes to his comic strip, says the cartoonist whose wildlife characters (animal and human) will begin appearing in the Journal Times on Monday.

"I totally stay away from politics," Carpenter said in a recent phone interview from his Alaska home. "I take my job very seriously and my job is to make people laugh. I don't want to offend anyone."

Some of Alaska's animal kingdom might want to take issue with that statement, as Carpenter's depictions of bears, beavers, squirrels and more, while humorous, aren't always flattering. But, neither are his interpretations of the people who inhabit "Tundra."

The truth is that Carpenter really loves animals. His affection for furry and feathered creatures was nurtured during his childhood when his father, who was an Alaska State Trooper, used to bring home injured or wayward creatures from his work as a fish and wildlife trooper.

"You can't do those kinds of things anymore, but back then you could and he used to bring home seagulls and ducks and we'd take care of them."

One of Carpenter's fondest memories of those days is the time his father brought a baby moose home for a couple months when the cartoonist was about 12 years old.

"Being around those animals was very important to me in my development as a cartoonist," he said.

Goofy guy

Making a career out of cartooning, however, was not something Carpenter had originally planned to do. While he has enjoyed drawing since he was a young boy, he used to consider his cartooning more of a hobby than a job, he said. His plan was to follow in his father's footsteps as a state trooper.

"I was in the process of going through the (State Trooper Recruit) Academy when my first book came out in 1992," said Carpenter. "When I saw that the book was selling so well I started thinking that maybe I'd rather be a cartoonist."

His "goofy" personality seemed to fit better with cartooning than it did with a trooper's duties, he said.

"I realized I'd rather make people laugh."

These days, Carpenter is sharing his Alaskan sense of humor with the readers of more than 235 newspapers across the nation and across the ocean.

He was surprised when publications in places like Germany, Switzerland and the Caribbean decided to publish a comic strip about life in the tundra, he said.

"I thought it would do OK in places like Canada and Minnesota, but I was shocked to hear that people in places like Arizona and Hawaii find it funny," he said.

Carpenter knows how readers feel about his work because he hears from them via his Web site,

http://www.tundracomics.com

The cartoonist even encourages readers to send him ideas for his strip and a lot of them do. While he enjoys such feedback it can be somewhat overwhelming on those mornings when he opens his e-mail and finds hundreds of messages in his in box, he said.

"I try to respond to as many as I can."

For every 75-100 ideas he receives for use in "Tundra" he will probably end up using one, Carpenter said.

"I wish I could use more, but I need ideas that will appeal to a good size demographic."

He does appreciate his readers' efforts to help because he knows how difficult it is to come up with a good idea.

"That's the hardest part of my job," he said.

Award-winning humor

Apparently the National Cartoonists Society feels Carpenter is generating plenty of good ideas because they picked "Tundra" as the best newspaper panel of 2007. He and his wife, Karen, went to New Orleans for the 62nd Annual Reuben Awards (where he received his award) last May and the experience was a surreal one for Carpenter.

"I'm pretty much isolated up here, as far as cartoonists go, so to be there among 400 other cartoonists who do the same thing I do, it felt like the mothership had come down to pick me up," he said.

Despite the lack of peers in Wasilla, Carpenter likes living in Alaska with his wife, three children, one dog and two rabbits.

There was a short period in his adult life, before he started drawing "Tundra," when he lived in Florida. But it wasn't long before he moved back to Alaska because he was "starting to melt."

"I missed the mountains, the hiking and the cool air," he said.

The cold air just might be an elixir for the cartoonist because since moving back to Alaska, Carpenter has grown his book publication to a dozen volumes and has produced an interactive CD-ROM and lots of other "Tundra" products.

He has also been contracted by organizations and businesses throughout the U.S. for projects involving his art, including the National Association of Search and Rescue, the Alaska State Troopers and the U.S. Navy.