It’s so hard to believe it’s been 2 years since the Rocky Mountain News ceased publication. I miss it and I know so many others feel the same way. I miss the many talented friends who were a part of my life for over 26 years. I miss the wonder of working at a daily paper, the creative energy of a newsroom in the midst of a big story.

But, life brings changes. We all know that. So many of us have experienced profound changes in our lives in recent years. What we do when those changes occur is the important part. As the great Winston Churchill once said “if you’re going through hell, just keep going.”

So, that’s what we do. Like my friend, Gene, who is finishing classes for a career change. My former colleagues, Kim, and Mel became teachers. My good friend, M.E. Sprengelmeyer, bought his own weekly paper in New Mexico, where I draw one cartoon a week. For me it meant starting this blog, which by the way is 2 years old today. Yay. Happy Blog Birthday to you all.

In these past few years, besides just this blog, I created a few other blogs you can find links to in the sidebar. I also started my own creative arts and design studio, Littoonz Studios. I’m proud to say I’ve been able to keep the boat afloat with several clients like ESPN.com, the Chicago Tribune, the Guadalupe County Communicator, Mile High Sports Magazine, Colorado Rockies Magazine and, most recently, the Pueblo Chieftain. I’m also syndicated twice a week by United Features as well, which by the way, is owned by Scripps Howard, the same people who owned and closed the News. Last Thursday, essentially the same time frame the Rocky was shuttered two years ago, it was announced that Scripps is closing the doors on United Features in June and sending it’s roster of talent to Universal Press, a terrific syndicate out of Kansas City which syndicates some great strips (Calvin and Hobbes was launched there). So, more change, you see.

That said, I’m not out of the woods yet in terms of financial stability, but I’m making headway. I must be honest and tell you at times these last two years have been scary. Still is, actually. But, this is what I do, draw comics. It’s as much a part of me as the air I breathe. I believe God gave me a gift to draw and make people laugh and feel through the cartoons I create. I do my best to be a good steward of the talent he has blessed me with. So onward I walk, in faith, that this is the path I should continue to follow.

Being that I’m two years into the blog, I thought I would share a few thoughts. And I hope
you will share yours as well.

After two years we have over 603,000 page views. Our busiest day of traffic, for a cartoon about the Saints winning the Super Bowl, we had over 4,000 visitors. Those numbers are not very big, but they have remained steady, and we’re actually seeing an increase in traffic so far in 2011.

The content, for the most part, is still Colorado based. Local content really resonates with readers. It’s how we root for sports. We are Broncos fans or Saints fans or Rockies fans or Cubs fans or Huskers fans or Buff fans or what have you. Cartoons about the teams we root for obviously impact us more.

Retaining the local flavor of the blog is a bit challenging for me since I no longer have a local print media presence in Denver. Which means, well, I draw the local ones, for the most part, for free. Fun to do mind you, but not so good when it’s time to, let’s say, pay the mortgage.

Sports cartoons in and of themselves aren’t huge merchandise revenue generators. I’ve sold some prints here and there, and the calendars sold well the year we did them. My Elway book, published in 2004, was wonderfully successful. I’m in the process of creating some generic sports t-shirts and mugs and stuff that I hope can generate some revenue stream here.

I’m still toying with bringing back the caption contest. I love content that is interactive and fun for you to have a role in. It’s the fulfillment and mailing of the prizes that is the biggest obstacle.
But I’m hoping to bring the contest back in the very near future.

I’m still working on a web comic which I hope will be ready to launch soon. I want one creative enterprise that I can call my own and have complete sovereignty over. It has long been one of my goals to branch out beyond the world of sports. So far I haven’t done that. It’s by far the biggest disappointment for me in these two years that it still hasn’t happened. Here’s why. I have several different ideas and one concept I love, love, love. But I’m scared to do it for fear it will take time and energy and not produce at least some kind of income. So it’s a bit of a dilemma. But, what the heck, I’m going to do it anyway, for the love of it.

Enough about me. It’s you I draw for. You I treasure. I want to thank each and every one of you for being a part of this blog. You make it happen. I appreciate the time you take out of your day to stop by, comment, share a cartoon with friends or tell someone in your life about a comic you saw here. You’re the reason we are seeing growth in 2011. So a tip of the cap to you all. You are my personal MVP’s!

Groundhog day
One of my favorite days of the year! Old Punxsutawney Phil pops up to see just whose shadow he sees. These days it could totally be anybodies. I narrowed it to Bud Selig, Tiger Woods, and Josh McDaniels. I finally settled on Selig. He’s so much fun to draw.

Cheating and its consequences.
People through the years have asked where I learned to draw. My answer has always been honest, yet embarrassingly so. I learned to draw in algebra class. I’m proud to say, however, while I actually scored single figures on several tests (or pretty darned close to it), I never once cheated.
I love doing these cartoons about how sports effect us in our everyday lives. One of the things I enjoy most about sports are the important lessons we can learn from them. Teamwork. Hard work. Hustle. Persistence. Patience. Honor. Integrity. Rising above Adversity and defeat.
Yet these days, it bothers me a great deal the lessons that are being passed on to our children from people like Mark McGwire, Tiger Woods, Terrell Owens, Michael Vick and Brandon Marshall. And, yes, us. Fans who root for people like this regardless of their conduct and what it means. I feel as though we are not only losing some moral ground here, but skiing right off of it into a perilous abyss.

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Da Bears
The Bears coaching staff went through some serious makeover work last week in this cartoon I did for the Chicago Tribune. It’s quite a mess that Mr. Cutler has gotten himself into.
A Cartoon Posting change for a few weeks
I’m going to change my posting schedule here for just a few weeks . I’ve been posting here 5 days a week since leaving the Rocky last February. For the next few weeks I’m going to post just M-W-F. Don’t worry. This isn’t a permanent change. I just want a chance to work on a web comic I’m playing with as well as some other concepts for the coming year and to do some marketing for my creative business Littoonz Studios without the daily deadline of sports cartoons. I’m asking all of you, please, to bear with me for a few weeks, to keep supporting the site by coming back daily or every other day at least. And I ask all of you as well, to tell a friend or two about the cartoons here and encourage them to give the site a try. The more the merrier.
I’m also asking you to take part in the poll questions below to help me evaluate the site and to bring you more of the content you want to read. Thanks everybody!!

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PLEASE NOTE: THESE IMAGES ARE NOT CLICKABLE

2009: Unforgettable
For me, 2009 will always be remembered as the year a great newspaper died. The Rocky Mountain News had been a part of the Colorado landscape for 150 years until it’s closing in February. It set my life and career onto a new path, drawing cartoons for this blog and for places like 9News, the Chicago Tribune, United Media syndicate and The great Guadalupe County Communicator in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I hope you enjoy this year in review piece I put together. It will be featured in the January issue of Mile High Sports Magazine on news stands next week.

I’ll have a new cartoon on Saturday.

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