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.

Not your father's GOP

We have friends visiting us from California this week. One of them has his PhD so it's really intellectually challenging to debate politics with him. He suggested the idea for the above cartoon to me. This will run in the Aug. 30 issue.

Good Riddence

After our back-to-school teacher meetings, I SHOULD have been cleaning my classroom or getting ready for school to start Wednesday, but I was so excited about the great architect leaving, I had to do this one a week early.

Roid Monster

So, first I drew each of the baseball legends. Ruth as a little frumpy and tubby, Aaron as pretty much a nice guy, and Barry -as Bob Costas recently described him, "super-human."
Next, I put them together in PhotoShop and saved it as a TIFF to use in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig LEADER.

Finally, I went back to PhotoShop and added color so that it would be a little more fun on by blog and other webpages. Then I emailed it to my favorite baseball fans. Who no doubt, will chastise me because I used the Atlanta Brave's logo rather than the Milwaukee Brave's logo and I got the Giant's uniform all wrong. But hey, like I said on my column blog, if he played for Oakland, he'd be green like the Incredible Hulk that he is.

Bush #43; Nixon II

Did you know that John Mitchell was the commander of JFK's PT boat group in WWII? Weird coincidence. But hey, Rupert Murdoch supports Hillary Clinton, and Ken Starr's law firm has contributed more to her campaign than to the top 4 Republican candidates combined.

I don't know, maybe this is dull as political cartoons go. I was to lazy to use color this week. I like the smoke from Mitchell's pipe, though. I'm worried that I'm getting in a rut of just doing caricatures with captions. Hopefully my brain will come up with something different next week.

Contempt

Sensational Pseudo-Journalism

Note; It really tans my hide when people whine about the "Liberal Media." Duh, how about the Corporate-tool media, as in NBC=GE, CBS=ViaCom, ABC=Disney. Or how about the COMMERCIAL media, as in selling something and making money- hello? THAT's what all TV news is, selling us exactly what we want- and guess what? "The customer is always right." Oh, except of course, FOX News, which of course is SO fair and SO balanced (and NOT Republican propaganda in any way shape or form at all, NOOO.)

What ever happened to Aaron Brown, anyway?

Sooome pig!

Editorial Cartoon for the July19, 2007 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader.

Another agricultural oddities. You can't ALWAYS have a political point- besides, politics is a little too surreal lately. Besides, E.B White would be proud.

Paris and Scooter

Gulliver's travels

Here is my comic for the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader for July 5, 2007

And by the way, here's the sketchbook page that I originally scanned into PhotoShop

Mayorial Mogul

No sooner than I posted this, than I seem to want to draw one about how Dick Cheney is his own rogue nation, since he's neither part of the Executive nor the Legislative branched of government! Man, truth is stranger than political cartoons lately!

The Pupettmaster

Undeclared heavyweights

Wow, these guys were hard to caricature. I'm still worried that my Fred Thompson looks too much like Jack Cafferty on CNN. My Al Gore has come a LONG way- I did a pretty weak one back in January. Gore has my vote, although, between the three of them, I'd most like to have a President Jack Cafferty!

Blood for Oil?

Editorial Cartoon for the May 31, 2007 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader.

Man, this guy burns me! Everyone is angry that the House Dems gave Bush what he wanted on the Iraq Funding bill, but the fact is that part of the pressure they're facing from Republicans is because of this dweeb from Connecticut. If only South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson would get healed-up and head back to DC.

On the technical side. I spent WAY too much time on this cartoon and I'm afraid that I relied on the "warp" tool in PhotoShop too much, instead of my own caricaturing skills. Be that as it may, I kind of like how it turned out. I think it looks like some REAL professional cartoonist somewhere did it, instead of me.

HillBillies

I'm not a huge Hillary fan, but there is a bizarre affectionate place in my heart for 'ol Bill, so I hope you Republican friends appreciate this one- it wasn't easy for me. My charicatures of them crack me up too. Not a bad Bill, eh?

Ronnie Copies

Yipee- an excuse to get to draw 'ol Ronnie! Long may he haunt political cartoonists!

Learn it in a book

Johnny Haircut

Proof for my Republican friends that I CAN criticize Dems too- at least when they do things that are absolutely STUPID like Edwards did. As a liberal, it made me very sad because he really was the only one who was talking about poverty. Such are politicians. Vanity of vanities.

Go Gonzo