Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Well, they finally went and did it. They combined the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and the Schleswig LEADER into their flagship, Mapleton PRESS. I threw this scan up here in case web readers don't know or believe that I'm actually published in a real newspaper.
I hope/think that readers will like the new paper. I like that it's a heafty 14 pages as opposed to 4 or 6. Except that we didn't have color, I think it stacks up pretty good next to about any other weekly or biweekly I've seen.

I have to admit, however, that it's kind of intimidating. For one thing, I went from two newspapers with around 500 subscribers each to one that (before the merger, already) had a circulation of about 2,535 with an estimated readership of around 5,070. I realize that the Denison papers are over 7,000 and the Des Moines Register is in the neighborhood of 302,896, which pales by comparison to papers in Chicago, L.A., D.C., and New York, but it's still intimidating to me.

I'm also intimidated because Mapleton is where my wife works. Now, not only can she be embarrassed by me in front of her relatives and neighbors, but her colleagues, administrators, students and their parents may occasionally say something to her about her obnoxious, over opinionated husband.

I guess this all hit me when I got my copy and opened it up to page 6. Everything was so huge! For years I felt bad because my cartoons were squeezed into a 3.792 inch space atop of a two-column wide column. So now, a full 5.750 inches seems ENORMOUS. And, in what Garrison Keillor would tell us is typical Midwestern/Lutheran fashion- I feel like I don't deserve it. It's so conspicuous that I feel a little guilty. It LOOKS just like a major metro daily. Yikes.

Well, guess like the Country band 'Big and Rich' like to sing, I'm livin' in the big time. Well, okay, so it's still not the big show, this is still the Farm Leagues, but it is probably like going from the B-Leagues to "AA." I sure hope I'm up to this. Hope I can fill the space and prove myself worthy. I just wish I wasn't feeling so scared about just continuing to do what I love doing. Let's face it, it may be a dream to make it big, but basically it's just a hobby.