S'more Cover Art and a Cartoon!

Happy Fourth of July! I will mark the passing of this most patriotic holiday, with a cartoon. This is in no way autobiographical. I'm sure someone dropped something at some family picnic in my many years... but this is just generic enough that it will be familiar to most readers. Doesn't everyone have a relative that always brings their "famous" dish-to-pass? Anyway... in regards to flag burning (not the cake kind) I am indifferent. I myself would never burn a flag as a political statement, but removing the right to do so seems a bit hypocritical. It is a form of Freedom of Speech. A flag is a symbol. Instead of creating legislation to keep people from burning symbols, why not use that energy to improve what the symbol represents? I am over simplifying but, whatever. Happy Fourth of July...


Also, here's a couple of Chautauqua Region Word covers I did over the past two weeks. The first is for Lilydale Assembly, a large spiritualist community here in western New York. I have always been fascinated by Ouija boards. I am not saying they are an effective way to converse with the dead, but they are really spooky looking. The woodcut illustrations on the mass produced boards of the 60's are beautiful and some of the handmade "witch-boards" I found online were amazing.

Every year around this time the Chautauqua Region Word runs a "Best of Chautauqua County" issue. The readers vote in an array of different categories, and the results are published. Every year I have used the Muskelunge as a cover device. The Muskie is a TROPHY fish (get it?) and is still caught in Chautauqua Lake. This year, I got on a Japanese tattoo kick for some reason. These huge body tattoos generally picture a KOI fish in various positions across the back. I ran with the fish tattoo concept and came up with this. Hope you like it.

The Japanese Kanji character used in the design is ICHIBON which means "first" or "best"... special shout out to preppygirl for the help in deciding which character 'BEST" suited the message and design. YOU ROCK PGIRL!