Today's cartoon is the result of two tantalizing stories in yesterday's Hamilton Spectator. One involving a theatrical debate between two city councillors over a transit fare increase, and another regarding the low ticket sales for an upcoming local event featuring former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Here are the actual newspaper clippings along with the resultant thoughts (boxing posters) and sketches:

I boil the concept down to a face to face boxing advert that allows me to sketch in the featured speakers at the original Copps Coliseum event, Bob Rae, and Bill Clinton:

Time to go over the pencil lines with India Ink:

Inked line drawing gets scanned into my computer:

Drawing needs a background. Let's go with a archived screen shot that sorta resembles a crowd:

The white background is isolated and deleted letting the crowd scene show:

Clip off the outside stuff and add shadows, some constrast, and voila...it's done.

The future is animation...

For over a year I've been dabbling in the animation of my editorial cartoons. Actually, the real hard work in bringing life to my cartoons is done by longtime friend Scott Blackett. We're both rather new at this and we're learning about it and getting better as we go.

The seal hunt was our first animated movie. At 30 seconds, it's also our longest. It's a bit graphic but it puts out a clear message about the seal hunt with great effect. White backgrounds, it seems, work best in terms of clarity with our type of animaton. Another cartoon about Victoria and David Beckham meeting the press after arriving in Hollywood came out rather blurry after it was uploaded to YouTube.

My end of the job is pretty easy, although there are extra steps taken as l execute each cartoon if an animated clip is in the offing. Specifically, the background and features need to be drawn separately. If a lot of movement is required, extra limbs need to be created.

Once all the parts are drawn and separated they're shipped off by email to Scott who's based in Toronto. I don't know exactly what he does to bring about the magic of the movement but I always get a huge kick out of the end result. I'll let him explain the process later.

So we've begun uploading these videos onto YouTube with hopes of getting some hits and feedback. You can find our profile here.

I threw this one out to the for the little papers across Canada to run if they want it. It's a revision of a cartoon I drew for budget day during the Chretien era which predated my syndication days:

It worked better as Chretien's time in office was winding down, but I'd say given the enormous size of the federal surplus the cartoon could apply to Harper as well. I'll be working on a barand new one for tomorrow's Spec.

* * * * * Update * * * * *

It's experimental, a bit crude, but today's cartoon is animated:

 

Another one of my occasional rants. This one's on those discarded roll up the rim cups you see all over the place in any urban space. It seems as though it's a national issue according to this CBC Nova Scotia news clip I found. I'm not alone in my disgust it seems.

Here's a shocking display of a pile of cups collected in one day at the University of Western Ontario.

Here's an article about someone who at least used the losing cups to create art. Be sure to check out the photos. Can't you just imagine that dried horton's coffee smell?

It seems as though Tim Horton's is concerned. At least they were 2 years ago.

* * * UPDATE March 15, 2008 * * *

Well, this cartoon might have had the shortest shelf life on record. This morning the Liberals launched its Green Plan.

Oh well.

Anyway, this is the first St. Patrick's Day editorial cartoon I've ever drawn. With all the talk of green this and green that over the past 3 or 4 months I've been waiting for the arrival of this day to feature some politician dressed up as a leprechaun. This is the second time within 6 months... the last (and probably first ever leprechaun I've drawn since probably grade 4) was in this cartoon related to Toronto's Simcoe Day.

Many people think that because I've got a pretty celtic name... my middle name is Patrick, by the way, I'm one of those Celtic-philes. Especially one of those North American 'celts' who try hard to understand their heritage by scoffing at the notion of green beer and acting like they really enjoy stout beer... and not necessarily Guiness, but one of those micro brewed Irish stouts. Scottish wannabes will act like haggis is the greatest delicacy on Earth. And of course extreme Celtic-philes will listen to obscure celtic music and set aside time on Saturday mornings to watch television highlights of British and Irish soccer... I mean, football. Every few years they'll go over to the old country and wander around cemetaries looking for long lost relatives just to assure themselves that their backgrounds go beyond their large suburban garage doors in Blandville, North America.

I've been to both Scotland and Ireland on a couple of occasions. I lived in London for nearly two years in the 1990's. I was one of those Celtic-philes, and my life in the U.K. gave me enough exposure to the ways of life over there that I'm more than happy to be back here. I think it was the aftermath of downing 7 pints of Guiness in a row at that St Patrick's night party at the Irish Club in Sloane Square 14 years ago when I realized Celticmania wasn't all the 'craic' I had been lead to believe.

My grandfather, the MacKay one, emigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1885. That's 1885. He'd be 129 if he were still alive. Needless to say I'm pretty far removed from the Celtic world. So if we ever bump into each other in person don't be surprised when you don't see me in a gaelic kilt and speaking with a heavy Scottish brogue.