I hated the blog editor my web host provided me. So I ditched it. So now blogdrive.com will generate my random thots from now on. My apologies for those of you who left comments on the last blog. What follows below on this page are the blog entries I made on the old blog host. I didn't transfer the comments. But you can find the old blog here. It was quite ugly .

I like this one. It's easier on the eyes and it's a lot less clunky to operate...

So my latest cartoon:

...has the invisible fingerprints of my editorial masters all over it. Dumbing this one down was the choice I made to prevent a repeat on the PoHamilton Adventure from May 14. That one was completely axed with no chance of editing it for the sake of getting it in print.

This time the concern was dishonouring the many brave men and women whose duty it is to serve and protect and the defend the laws of the province of Ontario. Despite all the bars indicating the high ranking commissioners of the O.P.P. it was felt I needed to actually spell out that the monkeys depicted are the goofs who commanded the troops to turn their backs on lawlessness perpetrated by certain bad eggs during the recent native road blockade in Caledonia.

If I was allowed to go with my original plan, I would've simply had a silhouette of the road barricade in the background and a caption reading just "Ontario's Petrified Police".  Oh well.

... I know, the old monkey see no, hear no, speak no cliche is really tired... but, it's actually the first time I've ever used it.

I guess there's been some time elapsed to reflect on the last cartoon of contention. The internal temperature has lowered and life does indeed go on after one of your cartoons has been spiked.

It turns out the cartoon drawn last Friday was killed due to its vulgar nature. The boss made it clear it was not because of it's hardline opinion against the Liberal's wishy-washiness over extending Canada's military mission in Afghanistan.

He apologized for not letting me know before I opened Saturday's issue of the Spectator (which was subsequently tossed into the recycle bin.)

More importantly in our conversation he mentioned the cartoon seemed to be angier than usual. I agreed, and on further discussion we resolved that angry cartoons aren't the best cartoons. They certainly make a strong point but that they often piss off a major chunk of the newspaper's audience. Hopefully I'll remember to better manage my anger in the future rather than ink it on paper.

This one came close to being put on the chopping block. Perhaps it already has and I won't know until I wake up and sit down 9 hours from now only to find its absence. (I waited around 2:00 this afternoon to cartoon on it after abandoning a startling, though dubious story from the National Post about Jews and Christians in Iran being required to wear Nazi styled badges.)

The boss thought it was a tad vulgar. He wasn't comfortable with how I showed Liberals with their heads up the @$$e$! to illustrate the typical wishy washy Liberal stance concerning Canada's role in Afghanistan. Then came the awkward discussion of what the term "head up your @$$!" actually means. I define it as self centeredness, stupidity, ignorance. It went offly well with the gag line " must be their defence position."

So other editors were canvassed and I suppose their reactions moderated my immediate supervisor's revulsion at the image. I can't blame him for his queasiness though. It'll be up to him, after all,  to answer to offended grannies and higher level editors put off by the scene. I just wonder if the impeding outrage (if any) will actually be less about the image and more about my editorial dart directed at the precious federal Liberal Party.  

* * * UPDATE - January 21 2007 * * *
Folks at the conservative news forum, FreeRepublic.com ranked this as number 9 out of 44 finalists for best cartoon of the year.

Did anyone even get this cartoon? I sense it was a classic head scratcher combining pop culture and news from the recent Auditor-General's report.

But at least give me some credit for trying to illustrate the eye opening news this week that $18 billion is still owed to the government by people and businesses whom I suppose don't feel like paying what they owe.  For the vast majority of people who casually monitor the national news that startling aspect of Ms. Fraser's report was all but lost to the  repeat of news that the old Liberal government oversaw and hid the costs of  gun registry $1 billion boondoggle.  

For those few who did catch the news of how much money is being evaded from the national treasury, I should've taken into account of how many of those folks would even know who Dog the Bounty Hunter is.  Several I heard from had no clue.

On the other hand, how many fans of the A&E show "Dog the Bounty Hunter" had any knowledge of the $18 billion news story? I suspect only a few.

So, there it is, the creation of a dud cartoon. But in my world, the cartoon makes perfect sense.

My boss got the heebee jeebies over the weekend by imagining the wrath he might've faced after letting the above cartoon run for all to see on Monday morning.
It's the first time I've been called in on a Sunday to kill one of my local cartoons only to see it replaced with a generic freelance federal cartoon.

It's funny how it's always the local cartoons that raise the most red flags in the minds of my editors. I've always thought local cartoons are what newspapers prefer to run rather than the syndicated stuff which really don't provoke much reaction from readers.

The above cartoon would rattle some people for sure. But for the vast majority of readers who have watched numerous blunders and acts of stupidity carried out by City Hall staff over the past couple of months the cartoon simply illustrates what has been going on.

No, absenteeism hasn't been the issue, but a lack of urgency and unprofessionalism is at the source of what's so srewy in Hamilton's City Hall.