My kids never know what they'll get for school lunch each day. While they expect there will be a sandwich involved, what they don't know is which eye-rolling pun or dad joke will adorn their brown paper lunch bag.
My name is Dave, although I'm much better known as the "Sandwich Bag Dad". For the past decade, I have been drawing dad joke cartoons on my children's lunch bags. Just to make them smile and yeah, more often than not, groan and exclaim "Daaaaaaad!"
Over the years, my daily drawing ritual has evolved into a collection of thousands of sandwich bag cartoons, a global social media following, a coffee table book and even a recent exhibition at Australia's National Cartoon Gallery.
Over the last year, my tradition of drawing 3 unique cartoons per day for my each of 3 daughters has continued. Below is a collection of some of my favorite recent efforts.
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#1 Egg-Cellent Likeness?
If you're wondering, each bag takes around 10 to 30 minutes to draw and yes, they are absolutely, positively genuine lunch bags that my kids use to ferry their sandwiches to school. While a few drawings might make it onto the classroom wall, the majority are actually discarded into the recycling bin. What you are seeing are just the "before" photos that I collect and post on my social media pages.
#2 I Really Digged This One
#3 Sometimes It's Hard To LEGO Of Loved Ones
I’ve always loved to draw and paint. As a kid, I would spend many hours after school doodling away in my bedroom and I also have really lovely memories of hanging out in my paternal grandmother’s art studio and watching her create masterpieces while I would hopelessly try to emulate her but really only succeed in creating lots of mess!
I never pursued art during high school or university (I was intent on becoming a lawyer, or so I thought!) and only began drawing again many years later when the whole lunch bag art journey started. My art teacher in primary school always said that art is something that will find you later in life….and she was right!
#4 This One Was Inspired By The Soup-Er Bowl
#5 This One Deserved More Credit
The original idea for the lunch bags was actually my wife's, not mine! It all started in 2012. My eldest daughter, Sharni, had started school after the birth of her baby sister. To make Sharni feel special and loved, my wife started carving little love hearts and other shapes into Sharni’s school sandwiches. After a few days, I took the sandwich-carving duties, and from there, things escalated quickly.
The daily sandwich cut-outs became more and more intricate, and I was soon fielding ‘carving’ requests from Sharni’s friends and teachers. One day, as I was about to slice up a new sandwich masterpiece, I spied a marker pen on the kitchen benchtop and was struck by an idea. Instead of cutting shapes into the actual bread, why not draw the designs onto the actual sandwich bag itself? And the rest, as they say, is Sandwich Bag history!
#6 A Play On A Song "You Know"
#7 This One Took My Daughter's Breath Away
I don’t actually remember Sharni’s reaction to the first lunch bag cartoon, but it was probably an eye roll and a groan! That is certainly the usual reaction I get for most of my bags these days from each of my 3 kids, although I know deep down they do appreciate them (really, really, really, really deep down). While I originally started doing this just to bring a smile to my kids, I just love seeing that my drawings are now able to make so many people around the world chuckle too.
#8 Switching Things Up
#9 "Whale Dad, That Was Wheely Funny"
Coming up with 3 bags each day is definitely a huge challenge! I try to tailor each bag to my kids’ interests and what they might be learning at school that week. I draw inspiration from what is happening around the world and what tickles my fancy on the day. My aim is just to find a way to bring out the dad joke that’s hidden in practically any situation. With everything going on in the world right now, I think it’s more important than ever to smile.
#10 You Get A Lunchbag. You Get A Lunch Bag....everybody Gets A Lunchbag
#11 Dishing Out The Laughs
I can proudly say that I have never “skipped a day” over the last 10 years. The only time my kids haven’t taken drawings is when they are off sick from school (which is pretty rare) or on the odd occasion when one of them might want to buy lunch from the school canteen. Even then, I’ll still have to prepare at least one bag that day, so it's pretty relentless….but also lots of fun. I usually use the weekends and school holidays to build up a buffer of bags so that I don’t have to be under any pressure to come up with 3 new bags each night.
#12 I Louvre'd This One
If you are interested, you can check out more of my art on my website or follow my adventures on Instagram or Facebook. And if you think you have enough dad joke immunity, check out my prior posts on Bored Panda by clicking here, here and here!
#13 You Only Laugh Once?
#14 I Gave This Bag Eleven Out Of Ten
#15 This One Was Really Bed
#16 "This One Is Rubbish Dad!" She Complained. Yeah. I Know. I Have Bin Funnier
#17 Shakespeare Was Never So Cheesy
#18 Mary Had A Little Lan. It Flashed And Beeped All Slow. And Every Website That Mary Surfed, The Lan Was Sure To Know
#19 A Week Of Spiderman Inspired Toons? What A Marvel-Lous Idea
#20 My Bags This Year Are Better Than Abba Before
#21 Not Even Bruce Willis Escaped Being Sandwich Bagged This Year
#22 Tool-Tally Groanworthy!
#23 I Always Wondered Why People "Carry-On" About Harry Potter So Much
#24 Raisin Hell With This Cartoon!
#25 Not Bad For A "Ruff" Draft
#26 "Dough Not" Resort To Peer Group Pressure
#27 Weight For It
#28 Might Tweet This Advice Later
#29 I Use My 'Toons To Espresso Myself
#30 There Are Plenty Morgan Where This Came From
#31 A Stretch
#32 "Eeek, I, Eek, I Owe!"
#33 A Pitcher Is Worth A 1000 Words
#34 Coiny. Very Coiny. I Know
#35 Some Bags Are Just Plain Odd!
#36 She Regretted Chews-Ing Netflix-Related Bags As A Theme
#37 One From My Week Of Netflix Inspired Bags
#38 Just Karate-Kidding Around
#39 My Name Is Dave And I'm A Wordle-Holic. It's Been 12 Hours Since My Last Game
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