Tarzan the Ape Man

This little gag might be a little more juvenile than most of my gags, but that's okay. Because this gag is featured in the Friend this month.

The Very Last Pinewood Derby Post Ever (Most Likely)

Longtime readers of this blog know that last March I accomplished something that had eluded me for pretty much my entire professional cartooning career.* I published a pinewood derby gag in the New Era!

I had previously submitted enough pinewood gags to the New Era and failed to see any of them published (for examples of these failed attempts, see here, here, and here as well as the gag directly below), that having a pinewood derby gag published in the New Era became a major cartooning goal of mine.
In this month's Friend, you'll find a pinewood derby activity page of mine. This happened to be the very first pinewood derby themed submission I made to that magazine!
Think of that, after nearly a decade of rejected efforts to publish a pinewood derby piece in the New Era, I get something in the Friend in my first try. You know what that means? Next year, I'm going to try to get a pinewood derby oil paint published on the inside cover of the Ensign while I enjoy my current hot streak!

*I'm using the phrase "professional cartooning career" in the looses sense ever.

The Rare (at Least for Me) Church Magazine Trifecta

About a year ago, my art was featured in both the New Era and the Friend in the same month. That was cool. But being an ambitious cartoonist, I immediately set my sights on getting published in three Church magazines in the same month.

I figured to do it, I would have to paint some landscape in watercolor if I wanted a shot at the Ensign and then somehow convince the editors to publish it on the inside cover. But seeing as how I'm really not much of an artist (there's a big difference between cartooning and fine art), I soon abandoned my goal (it was either that or sharing some mission story for "Latter-day Voices," only I don't have any faith-promoting enough to warrant publication).

So, I abandoned my goal and moved on to other things.

But, I forgot to consider the Liahona, and to my great surprise, I was featured in that magazine this month. This, coupled with my New Era and Friend work, got me that elusive Church magazine trifecta!

First, here's the New Era gag featured in September's magazine:

And here's the activity page found in both September's Friend and Liahona (it's in some language that uses the cyrillic alphabet here--maybe Russian?):

I think making into the Liahona is one of the coolest things I've done with my stuff yet. I can now tell people that my work has been published in over a dozen languages (to see those languages, click here, select the language you want to see, and go to page 12 of the kid section).

I can now check off a major cartooning goal. (Now if I could just get a pinewood derby gag published in the New Era...)