A Lack of Subtlety

i'm in agony, SOMEbody please help me remember what the childhood book series was that centered around critters that looked like this:

Little Critter?

alright smart-aleks, what about THIS one huh?? the dude had a really cool shading technique where he just swirled (colored pencil?) around??

ok my partner wanted in on this, I have no idea what this is

i'm never leaving this fucking site i stg i love you all.

ok i lied i'm back bc this is fun and i get to share some of my most deeply cherished childhood books with you all

The first one looks like The Spider and the Fly, though the poses are a bit different.

I think I found the third one, though I’m the least confident about this one. Is it Creature Tech?

Okay so this comment got me googling because I hadn't heard of Isabel Fall

I had heard of the whole messed up situation with this story, but I hadn't ever read the synopsis of the story before, and WOW

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

Some woodpeckers make dainty little holes that barely damage the tree.

this was actually really good in some instances though because i started having insomnia and intrusive thoughts very young and when little me was like “mom i don’t like the thoughts in my head but i can’t make them go away and i can’t sleep” she replied with “oh honey. active thought suppression never works. in fact, wegner et al. (1987) tested this when they told a bunch of people to talk about whatever they wanted, and they told half of them to try not to think about a white bear. people thought more about the white bear when they were trying not to think about it! but when they told the people to think about a red car whenever thoughts of the white bear came to mind, the people had a much easier time not thinking about the white bear. so you see, you can’t force the thoughts out of your mind. you just have to let them pass through, and pick something else that you want to focus on”