*Re-run, December 2013

While watching my favorite holiday show, the carton version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," I was reminded of how much I enjoy and love cartons. Sadly it is fast becoming a lost art. Over a thirty year period I have managed to save dozens of clips of cartoons that really left an impact on me. Their messages are sometimes subtle and sometimes can hit you like a bullet. I can admit that they have always been my favorite part of a newspaper or magazine.

It has always amazed me how someone could take an idea or an action, minimize it and capture it in one clip, usually a visual of something that can evoke an emotion from almost everyone but without offending. How many times have I seen a political cartoon by J.D. Crowe and Dave Granlund in the NYT, Post or Christian Science Monitor and had to just smile as they captured an entire predicament and showed how it really was with such mastery that you have to smile. It always reminds me of the story of the "king with no clothes." It's a rare talent and a way of making people see the true essence of reality so they can laugh at themselves. How many of us have read Doonsbury, Gary Trudeau or Garfield, Calvin & Hobbs, Bill Watterson and of course Peanuts,Charles Schultz and The Far Side. Do they not capture the lighter side of life? How many times have we decorated a"Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree." I love cartoons because they can deliver a message that can go right to your heart in a way that few people can resist.
 

"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!" 
-Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Work hard, be productive, and, above all else, stay positive.