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Cartooning on Election Day

Today is the day after the Alberta provincial election.  To set the stage, there were four parties, the right-wing Progressive Conservatives who’ve been in power for 41 years, the Wildrose Party, a very new party even more right-wing than the PC Party,  the Liberal Party and the Alberta New Democrat Party.  The last two didn’t really stand a chance of winning, and all of the polls were indicating the the Wildrose Party could not only win, but might get a majority.

Alberta’s election was making headlines nationwide, because this province has huge deposits of natural resources which makes it a very wealthy province in that department.  Many in Canada were watching this one closely.  For example, a cartoon I did about Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Party, a couple of weeks ago was published in a number of my Ontario papers.  I didn’t expect that.

Again, ALL of the pollsters were predicting that the Wildrose Party was going to take the election in a big way.

Without getting into the reasons why, the results last night had the PC Party win their 12th consecutive majority, taking 61 seats.  The Wildrose Party got 17, making them the Official Opposition, the Liberals and the NDP each got 4 seats.  It wasn’t even close and nobody saw it coming.  There is an article in the Vancouver Sun this morning (obviously gone to press before the results were in)  by Andrew Coyne that reads, “Unless something astonishing happens, the Wildrose Party will form the next government of Alberta.”

As a syndicated cartoonist, my job yesterday was to put out cartoons that would cover almost any reasonable outcome.  Many of my papers publish weekly, and a number of them publish today.  They needed to have a cartoon to put onto the editorial page at the last possible moment, right before going to press.  No time to draw something once the results were in at 9:00 last night, so I had to anticipate different outcomes, knowing that most of these cartoons would end up in the trash.  Considering this led to a 12 hour day at my desk plus a couple of hours on Saturday when I was taking a weekend off at the cabin, I worked for very little money yesterday.

It’s part and parcel of the profession, however, and while none of the cartoons addressed the sweeping majority, there were still a couple that would have been ‘good enough’ to do the job, even though I don’t consider them really ‘good.’  Let’s take a look at what I sent out yesterday.

This cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with the election.  Even though Canada was watching this one, many of my weeklies in other provinces were wanting a cartoon on something else.  I knew this without their having to tell me, so this went out first to cover them.

There was some talk that there could be a minority government, and if that happened, there had to be a cartoon for it, because the others were all talking about who won. This cartoon went out second.

A lot of people were doing a lot of talking over the past month, and everybody sounded like they were sure of the outcome.  Happens in every election.  The day after, however, stories change and everybody boasts that they knew it all along.  That’s about as predictable as politicians breaking election promises.  This cartoon was pretty easy to swap out.  Change the name and…

…this is one of the cartoons that works.  Premier Alison Redford is the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and won her seat, so any of my papers could have put this one in and it would have been appropriate.  Not a great cartoon, granted, but if I’m being honest, I was more concerned with it being right than great.

If the Wildrose Party had won, I would have liked to have seen the above cartoon printed in a number of papers.  I kind of like it.  Seemed an appropriate theme for our western province, especially if a Wildrose win upset 41 years of rule by the previous ‘brand.’  Unfortunately, this took me a couple of hours to paint and nitpick, and the results rendered it completely useless.  That being said, I didn’t want to see the Wildrose Party win, so I’m fine.

This is the last cartoon I sent, just after 5:0o yesterday evening.  Danielle Smith, the leader of the Wildrose Party had promised (there’s that word again) to give every Albertan a cheque for $300 from the Alberta Energy Dividend Fund once the province was boasting a surplus again.  It was dubbed ‘Dani Dollars’ by the press and ended up being a significant part of the campaign, one met with mixed reviews.  This cartoon works for today as well, although I’m not sure how many papers will actually use it.

As an Alberta citizen and voter, I was relieved with last night’s results.  As an editorial cartoonist, I know I didn’t hit any home runs with the usable cartoons. More like base hits.  But my papers were covered, so I did my job.  I’ll still do a couple of post election toons this week, but none will be wasted as we now know the results.

It was an interesting election and I don’t say that often.  Most importantly, voters were involved and I’ll be anxious to hear what the official turnout numbers were, because it’s expected to be significantly better than the dismal 40% from 4 years ago.  That being said, I’m glad it’s over, as my illustration contracts and painting commissions have had to simmer on the back-burners this past month.  I’m happy to get back to those this week.

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The genius next door

Steve Jobs truly was a diamond in the rough.  You need only look at his extensive list of accomplishments, his patents and his rise from an average existence to his becoming the man whose life so many are reflecting on today.

Despite his faults, (no, he was not perfect) his legacy will be that of a genius and a tenacious innovator who not only took the path less travelled, but made a new one when even that proved too worn for his liking.

I’ll admit to being a little uncomfortable with some of the tributes I’ve seen today, and the almost deification of the man by so many people that didn’t know him, and yet are speaking of him as if they have lost a close family member.  I was even uncomfortable creating my own cartoon about it today, because even though I knew my newspapers would want one, I don’t like memorial tribute style editorial cartoons.  Often overly dramatic, they do seem to be widely published, however, which is why I keep doing them.

Our society has become addicted to celebrity worship and mass emotional displays on social media.  People have been talking about how Steve Jobs changed their lives, how Mac computers changed the world, how without him, they wouldn’t be who they are today.  Yes, it’s true that your life would be different had Steve Jobs not created Apple.   But if the invention of a newer, better computer hadn’t come to pass, would you somehow be less than you are today?

Now forgive this tangent, but I assure you it is relevant…

Earlier this week, I read the story of 70 year old Daniel Schechtman, a researcher at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.  Schechtman is this year’s Nobel Prize winner in the field of chemistry for his work in discovering quasicrystals.  Now, I won’t pretend for a second that I have any knowledge about his work.  I barely passed high school chemistry.

But reading about his story, I found it fascinating that Schechtman was openly ridiculed, actually vilified for his discovery when he first suggested it in 1982.  His colleagues in the science community called him a disgrace, laughed at him, and booted him out of a prestigious research group for “bringing disgrace on the team.”

It took years before his work was recognized and you don’t find much better vindication than the Nobel Prize.  But, I wonder how many of his colleagues that dismissed him as a lunatic are now telling their friends how they believed in him all along.

So, it’s not the products Steve Jobs created that I find myself thinking about today, but the person he was almost 40 years ago.

I wonder what the reaction would have been in the beginning, if a young dropout Steve Jobs had told somebody at the local Hare Krishna temple where he went for free meals, that he would one day design computers that would change the way the world works and communicates.  Somehow I don’t envision a long line of eager investors.

Makes me wonder what the neighbors and colleagues thought of the bicycle repairmen, Orville and Wilbur Wright or the apprentice printer, Ben Franklin, or a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein who had a hard time getting noticed by his boss.

Steve Jobs changed the world.  Of that, there is no doubt.  He deserves our respect and admiration for his vision and accomplisments.  But it is easy to support someone after they have achieved monumental success, because it’s a pretty comfortable bandwagon.

And no, buying a Mac in the 80’s doesn’t count.

I’d like to meet the two or three people that believed in him early on, because those people change the world, too.  They do so by encouraging the dreamers, the idealists, the ‘different thinkers,’ when everyone else dismisses them as lunatics.

What if your own neighbor, or better yet, your neighbor’s kid, told you he or she was working on an interstellar propulsion drive that would be cost effective, have no pollution, could achieve light speed travel and would run on a microscopic amount of sea water, and it’ll be ready in 20 years.    I guarantee that there are thousands of people in the world right now working on ideas and innovations that sound just that surrealistic, and you might even know one or two of them.    Would you even consider investing your savings in that idea?  Probably not, but we’d all like to go back in time and give a few thousand bucks to a couple of computer nerds toiling away in their garage, wouldn’t we?

Yes, many of those people are probably nuts, but I would wager that more than a few of them are on the cusp of greatness.

It might even be you, and if it is, I wish you luck.  Don’t give up, and don’t listen to the ridicule.  Hopefully your eventual success might inspire people to believe in their own possibilities, because we all have greatness within us.  And if you can’t find anybody to believe in you, don’t stop believing in yourself.  Because that’s what it takes to be somebody like Steve Jobs, believing in your own potential even when nobody else does.

Success is all around us, and it starts with that simple belief.  That’s the message we should take away from his passing.  And in the time between the world paying tribute to your achievements when you die, there will be years of working hard when everybody else is taking time off.  Yes, we did indeed lose a visionary in our time this week, but there are millions more all around us, maybe even a few that 20 or 30 years from now, we’ll pause a moment to pay tribute to when they pass.  It might even be you.

But of course, you won’t be around to see it.  So don’t do it for any applause or recognition.  Do it for the reason in the cartoon.

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The Royal Fishbowl

Let me begin by saying, I am NOT a royal watcher and there is no chance I’ll be up watching the wedding in the middle of the night.  That being said, a lot of people are following the media feeding frenzy leading up to the nuptials, so I had to do a cartoon or two on the event.

One of the most difficult things for me to do is create an image like this for an editorial cartoon.   Newsprint is a muddy, ugly medium for illustration.  The usual effort that I put into a painting is completely lost when the image is printed in a newspaper, so I have to be careful not to waste my time on detail that will never be seen.

Skin, hair, texture, subtle transitions of light and shadow…it’s all a big waste of time.  Unfortunately, it’s also what my painted work is becoming known for, so when it comes to including it in my portfolio, I’m on the fence.  It doesn’t belong with the painted portraits and caricatures of people, but probably will be fine in the Illustration portfolio.

Another reason an image like this is tough is that there is a tight deadline on it.  Editorial cartoons need to be drawn and sent as quickly as possible.  Not only am I often competing with other cartoonists for freelance spots in many newspapers across Canada, but the news changes so quickly, that the work put into an editorial cartoon often has to be balanced against the likelihood of getting paid.  This is a big event, most of my newspapers will want to cover it, so I felt it was worth putting a lot more time into this cartoon, as it can be used not only in the usual editorial cartoon slot, but as an editorial illustration as well.  I planned ahead and started sketches three or four days before I intended to send it out.  While I didn’t keep track, I’d estimate that from sketch to finish, it took around eight to ten hours.

For those who have purchased my DVD, you already know the process of sketch, ink, flat colour and shading.   I changed it a bit for this image.  While I did do an initial sketch of William and Kate, I went right to painting on a different layer, with the sketch layer as a guide.  All of the other elements were roughed out in Photoshop, with no paper sketch.

I was pleased with the painted image, and it if it were for a magazine or online publication, I would have continued with the painted look, but had to add an ink layer for newsprint, so it would be sharper and stand out more.  It wasn’t until all of the shading and painting was done that I added the ink.  Many publications have different printing processes, so the cartoons end up lighter in some newspapers.  The ink layer ensures that the image will still look decent, even if the shading gets washed out a bit.  You’ll notice, however that the ink layer was done with much thinner lines than I normally use, because the thicker lines wouldn’t work for this image.

Other challenges with this image included creating a fishbowl castle version of Westminster Abbey, which is very tall and narrow.  You’ll notice mine is squashed, which was something I had to do to fit it in the fishbowl.  I also intentionally went with the molded porcelain ‘fishbowl castle’ look for the Abbey, rather than the crisp pristine stone look of the real church.  It really didn’t end up looking all that much like the real building, but people should get the gist of it.

Not knowing if Kate would be wearing a veil or tiara or what her dress would look like (oh the suspense is just KILLING me, don’t you know?), I didn’t worry about it.  I just put William in the same outfit his father wore when he married Diana.  While I do prefer painting more detailed work, I did have some fun on this.  Were it not for the deadline looming over me on the day I put the most work into it, I might have enjoyed it a little more, but that’s the necessary compromise every commercial artist needs to make peace with.  It’s an enjoyable job, but at the end of the day, it’s still a job.

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Farewell to 2010, a very good year.

Well, that year went pretty damn fast!

I’ll be honest, I tiptoed into 2010, since there were warning signs that the economy was going to hit me pretty hard. Thankfully, I came through relatively unscathed, even though I suffered some bumps, bruises, and frayed nerves. In the end, however, it was a better year than the one before, which is saying a lot, since 2009 was pretty good.

I went back and skimmed some of the blog entries from this past year, and I’m pretty pleased with the way the year unfolded.

Editorial Cartoons

When 2010 began, there had been some pretty big shakeups in the industry. I lost a bunch of newspapers in January when Sun Media told all of its editors to ditch their freelance cartoonists. It seemed every week in January and February, I’d get another phone call or email from an angry editor (not angry at me) telling me my services were no longer required. Some of those editors I’d worked with for years.

Canwest News Service was in severe financial trouble as well, and it was a very scary time for anyone working in the newspaper industry. I seriously thought that this might have been the beginning of the end for the editorial cartoon portion of my freelance career, but as the year went on, I recovered those losses and then some, and it really didn’t hurt me. If anything, it was the wake-up call that I needed to start planning for a future that likely won’t include editorial cartoons.

A few of my colleagues didn’t fare so well, and in the ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ category, I’m very thankful that I never did get that daily newspaper job that I wanted so badly when I was still new at this ten years ago. Turns out there was a lot more stability in freelancing.

While you never know which cards newspaper budgets will deal in 2011, I’m a lot less nervous about it than I was last year at this time. The big lesson is the same one nature herself has been teaching throughout history; those who adapt, survive. In this economy, that’s true for every profession.

Freelance Illustration

I was more selective about work that I accepted this year. Clients that I like working with who pay their bills took precedence over the ones who began a conversation telling me they wanted it cheap and fast. When I was just starting out, I took whatever came through the door, as most of us have to, but I’ve learned from most of my mistakes, and can now recognize which jobs will advance my career, make best use of my skills, foster relationships with long term clients, and in a perfect world, will be enjoyable to work on.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t make mistakes this year, because I had a couple of big ones. One of them could have cost me a fortune had I not recognized it for what it was before I’d invested too much of my time and money into it. So, I did need to relearn a couple of lessons in 2010.

Get EVERYTHING in writing, and if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Those Animal Paintings

In January, I posted my third painting in the animal series, the Bull Elk, and in that blog entry, I said, “Hoping to get at least 15 of these done before April.”

I laughed out loud when I read that again this morning. 15 by April?! Sure, if I had NOTHING else to do, that might have been feasible. Not sure where the line is between optimistic and delusional, but at least you can’t say I didn’t aim high.

At year’s end, I have seven of them finished, with two more in the final stages. While I still would like to have fifteen done by April (hey, I didn’t say which YEAR in that blog entry), I’m not going to beat myself up if it doesn’t happen.

When the year began, I was just starting to look into getting prints done, and talking to galleries. As the year closes, I’m regularly doing painting demos in Banff and Canmore, the paintings are selling well in both locations, I’m now getting queries for commission work, and I’m making long term plans for many more Totem paintings in the years to come. It’s exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it leads, because I can’t remember ever enjoying my work as much as I do when I’m painting these animals.

The challenge is, of course, finding more time to do it.

Surprises

I was asked to illustrate a 1970 Mach 1 Mustang in a somewhat realistic but still cartoon style by a friend for their annual car club auction. This friend handles all of my computer work, builds my custom computers every couple of years when I upgrade, and is only a phone call away when I need help, so I agreed to do him this favour.

This was very difficult and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. I didn’t have much fun while working on it and wished I’d said No. In the end, however, I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and I’d like to try something like this again in the future. I’ve had some nibbles from other car enthusiasts who’ve seen it and while no real bites yet, it was a nice piece to add to my portfolio. And I’m sure I can do better on the next one.


Another surprise was that I bought an iPad, and I’m really not a ‘gadget guy.’ I spent weeks going back and forth on whether it was just a toy or legitimately worth it for my business. When I finally decided to buy one, I kept waiting for the buyer’s remorse to kick in, but honestly, I love the thing (and not just for Angry Birds). It’s a great portfolio display device, an enjoyable magazine and book reader, and an incredible portable sketch pad. Who knew that I would love finger painting so much?

Photoshop World

Las Vegas was easily the highlight of the year for me. I had known before going to Photoshop World, that I’d been nominated for two Guru Awards from the three images I’d submitted, and while I wanted to win, I went into the event expecting to lose, especially for Best in Show. The number of talented people that attend that event means you can’t take anything for granted, so as cliche as it sounds, it really was an honour just being nominated.

I could play humble and say that awards don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but I’d be lying if I said that these particular ones didn’t mean anything to me. I was very pleased. The icing on the cake was the Wacom Cintiq tablet that came with the Best in Show Award. While I still use my Intuos4 every day for cartooning, that Cintiq is a joy to paint with.

While I plan on returning to Photoshop World again in 2011, it is very unlikely that I will enter the Guru Awards. The work that I would submit would probably just be another in the Totem series, so while it would be new animals, the style wouldn’t be anything they haven’t seen. It would also be very difficult to top the experience I’ve already had.

I’ve met some wonderful new people this year through my work, formed new relationships, built on old ones, and for the most part, I’ve kept moving forward, even though I ground the gears a few times while shifting. It hasn’t always been the smoothest of rides. Despite a few errors on my part, I wouldn’t have done anything differently in 2010, because I’m happy with where I’m at right now. I will, however, be starting 2011 with some course corrections.

But that’s a blog entry for next week. Happy New Year.

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The Week After


My wife and I gave up celebrating Christmas a number of years ago. After years of working in the tourism industry, the holiday became something we dreaded, not looked forward to. One of the hardest things new staff in this area have to get used to is that you do not get Christmas off to go home and visit your family. This valley is run on tourism, so all of the hotel rooms are full of people coming to the mountains with their families. Those hotels, restaurants, and ski hills need to be staffed. Unfortunately, few of these families seem to be having a stress-free vacation and that usually lands on the staff as well.

While neither of us work in that sort of job anymore, we never reignited the ‘Christmas spirit’. Our home looks the same on Christmas Day as it does in the middle of July. We don’t decorate, exchange gifts, or do anything remotely Christmas related, aside from attend a couple of parties. And really, it’s just because we enjoy seeing friends, although this year, neither of us were much in the mood for that, either.

A few years ago, we convinced our parents not to give us any presents, so there is no swapping of the gift cards or cash, or blowing our budget on things none of us need. For a couple of years there, it was almost like putting in an order…tell me what you want, and I’ll go buy it. We don’t have children, so Santa doesn’t need to come to visit, anymore.

This year, we did go home to Red Deer for the weekend, and it was nice and quiet. Friday with my wife’s family, Saturday with my folks, then home Sunday afternoon. A couple of nice dinners, but very quiet and relaxing, and no gifts exchanged. Played a few games, had a few laughs, and enjoyed each others’ company.

While I wouldn’t try to convince anyone else to give up Christmas, especially if they have children, it is definitely time for a lot of people to put on the brakes. Whether it’s for the obvious religious reasons or simply for spending time with family, each person should figure out what exactly it is that they’re celebrating.

I’ve watched in disbelief these past couple of weeks as every single day, there was at least one segment on the news about our current debt crisis, how people are living beyond their means with massive credit card and household debt, and advice from experts on how to curb holiday spending. All the while, many retailers are reporting record sales at the malls and online. The same will happen this week, no doubt, as big ticket items (and everything else) are on sale. Remember when Boxing Day was just a day? Now it’s a week. Judging from the footage we see on the news each year, people aren’t thinking about their fellow man when they’re pushing and shoving and rushing those doors to get 20% off a 3D TV.

Sure, you can call me Scrooge or Grinch, and you’d be accurate. While many people talk a good game about the holiday spirit and the true meaning of Christmas, there seems to be less and less evidence of it with each passing year. We keep buying more and more stuff trying to make ourselves happy, and when it doesn’t work, we just buy even more stuff. It’s the same reason a cocaine addict needs to keep taking more and more of the drug and never manages to get back to the initial high.

It’s as if everyone has gone mad and forgotten the lessons we were supposed to have learned the past couple of years from a near-depression economy. But it’s Christmas, and nobody wants to hear it, even though the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ credit card bills will show up soon enough.

I sincerely hope everyone had a good Christmas, and that it was free from pain or tragedy. But now that it’s over, ask yourself what you didn’t like about it, remind yourself throughout the year that YOU control your holiday, not the media, and not Big Box retailers. If you want to cut back next year, tell your family about it in July, before anybody has bought anything. Warn them that you won’t be buying as many gifts and ask them to do the same. And if you’re met with anger over the mere suggestion of it, that should be your first clue that something is seriously wrong.

If you really believe in the ‘true’ meaning of Christmas, whatever that may mean to you, put your money where your mouth is.