Readers of today's printed Hamilton Spectator probably didn't know that my cartoon appearing on the editorial page was only half finished:

For whatever reason I forgot to save the final version of the cartoon before sending it to the big computer which laysout the pages. So what readers end up with is a bit of head scratcher for a cartoon. The unfortunate thing missing is the mud I had drawn on Dalton McGuinty's face, which is pretty much the most important element in the cartoon. Here's what the final version was supposed to look like, in black and white:

Fortunately no one will know the name of the idiot who drew this cartoon since his signature was left off the printed cartoon as well.

Readers of the Hamilton Spectator will see the sanitized version of this cartoon in today's paper. The part of the above caption which reads "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll", actually appears in print as "girls, cars and rock 'n' roll. We don't want to give any impression that we advocate teenaged sex and the use of drugs. Rock 'n' roll is acceptable, even though rock 'n' roll might as well be lumped in with big band music to the ears of the hip hop and electronica generation of youth.

The cartoon loses its edge with out the well known phrase that emerged from music from the 70's. To a parent of a kid charged with plotting to blow up Canadian targets in the name of Islam, the normal indiscretions of youth, such as sex, drugs, and whatever dubious music is being listened to must take on greater insignificance.

Oh, and happy 06-06-06. Whatever bad things happen today on the planet will be blamed on Satan, so if you want to rob a bank and you get caught you have this day to take no responsibility for the evils you commit.

A great many visitors to the site will see my local cartoons and move on without having a clue about what I'm drawing about. The cartoon above refers to the perpetual story of a decaying building in Hamilton's downtown and the lack of political will to decide its fate. I post the brief explanatory to the right of each 'toon hoping it'll put some context to each cartoon.

It is often said that the it's the local cartoons which are best appreciated by newspaper readers. They often bring in the most feedback, and may occasionally cause some to cancel their subscriptions. Perhaps that is why some of the tamest cartoons I've ever drawn are subject to greater scrutiny by my editors due to their potential for local provocation. It's far more acceptable to spear a national leader with the same degree of satire than it is a local mayor or councillor. If an editor kills a local cartoon because he thinks it goes too far, then you've basically wasted 4 to 5 hours on something that will never get published anywhere else.

So while local editorial cartoons often beats any chance that some generic cartoon drawn by some freelancer hundreds of miles away will get printed, there's still a greater chance that the local cartoon will be under more scrutiny. Increasingly, I'm finding the local cartoons to be more of a hassle to draw than the non-local cartoons. The result is that I've been doing less the local stuff, which is unfortunate, because a city like Hamilton could use more satire.

The above cartoon might be regarded by some as a cheat since I relied so heavily on Photoshop to achieve the result. I believe in recycling so I don't see incorporating images from past cartoons into present cartoons as an evil thing.

Components of this cartoon have appeared here, and here. The first appearance of the parliament buildings component appeared almost exactly a year ago. Anticipating more cartoons involving images of Parliament will come, I've banked it in my personal clip art archives. Expect to see it in one shape or another in the future.

Added to my clip art bank is the Capitol dome, which I created yesterday. Considering it symbolizes politics in the U.S. so significantly you can expect to see that reappear sometime again. In the past I've toiled with drawing the same image from the same angle. This isn't to say I'll never draw this perspective of the capitol dome ever again, but at least I'll have one banked if time presses me in the future.

Is this cheating? You tell me.

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.