In a shocking surprise development, President Bush ignores public sentiment and gives the myriad multiple exit interviews and tearful farewell addresses one would expect from a deeply popular and beloved leader…

Well, it hurt a little, but I was able to haul myself up to my drawing table yesterday and, well, draw!
It’s good to back.

First off, a heartfelt thanks for the kind wishes both on and off the blog. My email box was chock full of nice messages this week, as opposed to the usual rabid, invective-filled suggestions for exciting, creative and contortive things I should be doing with myself. I am back in the office putting together my Pulitzer entry, and with a bit of luck – and a green light from Doctor Lefkowitz, I should be physically able to draw my cartoons again starting Monday.

Murphy’s Law being what it is, I have been missing out on some major things to editorialize on (why couldn’t I have slipped on the ice in a traditionally slow news month, like August?) But I can sleep well knowing the world will be just as messed up on Monday morning when I crank up my trusty old pencil sharpener once more.

I’ll see you then!

It’s been almost a week since I was last able to post. For your light amusement, let me turn back the clock to last Wednesday, the morning of New Year’s Eve. About five minutes after I wrote the previous, mind-bendingly dull blog entry (below), I went outside, where the falling snow was busy accumulating picturesquely. After attempting to start the car and discovering the battery was dead, I took off on a treacherous sprint to my barn (everything I do in life involves some type of treacherous sprint) which houses our old, beat up, but still adequately conductive jumper cables.
Somewhere en route I suddenly became aware of a strange, almost euphoric feeling of floating – followed rapidly by its close cousin, a loud thud. Turns out the thud was the sound my shoulder made on impact with the frozen gravel drive, and the simultaneous “crack” was my right collar bone shearing in two. It was gruesome. Even the EMTs winced. I am typing this with my left hand, as my right hand is attached to a region so drenched in pain it is ostensibly useless.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that I won’t be drawing cartoons for a little while. As soon as the pain subsides adequately (and with some help from my ever-patient, kind and lovely wife) I’ll start doodling. I will be thinking of stupid things to post in the meantime, so keep coming back here – even if it is to rubberneck at my pitiful wreck a little.

Photo: Lucy Davies