Lord How Time Flies Panel

Another panel from the full page cartoon in progess.

Line Of Duty / Police Dogs Sevo and Buddy, In Progress

Click for larger image.

North American Police Work Dog Association - K-9 Sevo

Remembering Sevo Poem - Topeka Police Department K-9 Unit

Lord How Times Flies - Headboard Panel

Slow progress on the full page cartoon. Here's the headboard panel, though-

Click for larger image.

I am a pokey-bear.

Lines Of Duty / Pasadena, California Police Officer Kyle R. Ballard Memorial Illustration

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Police Officer Kyle Ballard - Officer Down

I still haven't been able to find Officer Ballard's badge number, which I'd like to place on the back of his shirt. I've called and emailed the Pasadena police department, but as of yet they haven't returned my messages.

If anyone happens to know this information, it would be much appreciated.

Lord How Time Flies / 'Kiss' Panel

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One panel from a full page comic in progress.

For those who may be concerned, this is only a flashback in Faithmouses' mind to an earlier event. It isn't happening currently in the plot line, which will now resume from the point where we last saw Faithmouse and Timothy A. Bear together.

To recap: Timothy fell asleep for two years in a Squealy Mattress store. When he awoke, he learned that Gaybear had found his true self through devotion to the Blessed Mother and had become Francis, the ex-Gaybear. He also had a new girlfriend named Clare. Timothy also learned that Augustine the Cat had become a priest. Father Augustine brought Timothy to a house shaped like a cross with a lot of shoes on the doorstep and a Celtic cross doorknocker on the front door. Inside, Timothy was amazed to encounter Faithmouse, her new husband Blackbear, and their six children.

Phat

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I've said here in previous posts that I only want to do beautiful and loving work. If I owe my audience anything, it's honesty.

Deus Caritas Est

A special thank-you to the folks at Portal of Evil.

A New Faithmouse

I've deleted the previous announcement here about ending faithmouse. For those who read it and left positive comments, thank you.

You've changed my mind.

I've decided to start a new web site called Lines Of Duty, which will be devoted to memorial portraits of fallen police officers, firefighters, soldiers, etc.

I've also decided to start a new, apolitical version of faithmouse.

For those who left comments regarding my 'A Sincere Proposal' post, thank you as well. For those who were in favor of a more liberal version of faithmouse, I believe you'll enjoy the new cartoon.

A few years ago I drew and donated cartoons to a charity in Brazil called 'Familia Feliz', which translates in Portuguese as 'Happy Family.' Familia Feliz printed these cartoons on T-Shirts, postcards, etc. Here's one of those cartoons-



I'll return to producing these cartoons as well, weaving them now and then into the storyline.

A Sincere Proposal

I've given quite a bit of thought to some of the comments left recently on this site from the 'goons' at Something Awful. Therefore, I am making the following proposal-

I am willing, if I get a positive and encouraging response, to make faithmouse equally representative of a liberal perspective. I will even let my haloscan commenters decide amongst themselves what these first cartoons should be. This proposal includes creating an entirely new cast of characters, or changing pre-existing characters to help express an alternative point of view-the parallel world which exists opposite faithmouse.

I'm going to step back for an entire week and see what people have to say. I encourage anyone who reads this to re-post it on the various forums which regularly comment on the cartoon, especially those who regard faithmouse as some sort of fascist travesty. To make it easier for people to comment, I've disabled the haloscan moderation. Because I've disabled the moderation, I've pulled my 'child-safe' disclaimer at the top of this site. It may never return.

Again, this is a sincere proposal, one which I've given quite a bit of thought to. My admittedly selfish motivation as to why I hope I'll be overwhelmingly challenged to make good on the offer is that I've always viewed faithmouse as art. Representing both sides of an issue could lead to some engaging and challenging cartoons. I trust that God would guide such a challenge into something which could produce good by way of a bit more communication across what is becoming an even more deeply entrenched cultural divide.

The only thing I refuse to do is this-I won't remove the overall focus on Christian faith as the ongoing theme of the cartoon. If faithmouse attempts to honestly represent a liberal worldview, I can only do so from the persective of what are known as the Christian Progressives. We may continue to disagree over the purpose and nature of Christ, but Christ stays, regardless.

I'm not sure exactly how I'll come to a decision. One thing I suppose I can do is tally up the votes. I'll take a simple 'yes' comment as one in favor of change, and a 'no' as a suggestion to leave things as they are. One well worded apologetic can of course sway a thousand votes, so please expound at length if so inspired. In the meantime, I'll use the time away to complete some much delayed memorial portraits, which I'll continue to post on the blog below this comment.

I have enough faith in my point of view to cross the divide. Do you?

Now, it's your turn....

Letter from Blake Smith

Blake Smith is the son of Oklahoma Trooper Steven Smith, who's memorial portrait and subsequent revision I've posted in the past on this site.

Trooper Steven R. Smith Memorial Portrait

Blake has sent me this very kind letter about his father. I appreciate his allowing me to share it with the visitors to this blog as well-

Mr. Lacey,

Thank you very much for taking the time to honor my father through your gift of art. Your drawing touched me and made me very happy. The loss of my father will never be forgotten thanks to people like you who take their time to honor fallen heroes. When I first came across your drawing it brought a tear to my eye. It made me sad but extremely proud at the same time. My father was a very great man and impacted many.

At his services OHP Chaplin Sam Garner made this statement and I'l never forget it- "Steve always lifted others when he should have been the one needing the encouragement." My father always put other people first and always lived life to the fullest. Chaplin Garner said, "Steve lived more in the past 6 and half years than most people live in a lifetime." My father never gave up. I can remember taking him the therapy and seeing him work hard. He worked hard because that was all he ever knew.

Before his accident, dad not only worked as a State Trooper but ran a lawn care service on the side. I can recall one particular lady he mowed for. She was about 75 and extremely sweet. Dad helped her plant flowers and did all kinds of extra chores for her. He would always ask if she needed anything and took care of those needs immediately. Dad was like a son to her because her family lived out of state. He was like that with everyone. Dad helped people and helping people was what he did best.

I think of dad very often I miss him very much. It hurts not being able to call and say "Hello" or "I love you" but I still talk to him everyday. He was an awesome father and role model, and I loved him very much. His memory will always be with me and I hope that I will become the man that he was because, my father, Trooper Steven R. Smith was the most respected man that I have ever known!

Thanks Again,
Blake Smith
Logan Hall 1st and Ground Floor Resident Assistant
President of Residence Halls Association
Oklahoma Boys State
Sons of The American Legion Member

Father Robert Altier Portrait

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Father Altier's portait is actually a drawing 'in progress', but we'll let it pass for finished until we can find time to return to add more detail. This is meant to complement the continuing 'Limerick' series, which I'll do my darndest to return to shortly.

For anyone who would like to post this on their blog, I suggest hotlinking directly to the www.faithmouse.com/cartoon73blog.jpg image, which I can update from here.

Stop The ACLU / Easter Sunday, Revised

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A revised version of the most recent Stop The ACLU cartoon. I think this works much better tonally than the previous version.

I've been working as well on a second version of the Portal Of Awful cartoon from a few days go. Answering emails and haloscan comments caused me to consider the image too long, which led to an idea for a nifty second version of Christ on the cross, one which I don't believe I've ever seen before. To spare the feelings of the goons at SA, I'm just going to leave their name out of this one, and confine the cartoon to this site alone.

Logo sketch for Ray at Stella Borealis, otherwise known as Northern Catholic Roundtable. That's Faithmouses' and Blackbear's son Solomon carrying the monstrance, which will double here as the 'Star of the North'.

Ferret, Begone

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I've found the time though to rework the 'Christ' part of yesterday's image, which I'm posting as today's hotlink for the affiliates. I'm not too unhappy with the pavement, which I redrew using mainly graphite shavings applied with the corner of a paper towel. The detail of the stonework was pulled out with a gummy eraser, and then I defined the edges again with pencil.

As for yesterday's cartoon which I'm still planning to revise and post, the Athenian Civil Liberties Union was an allusion to Paul's comments regarding the nature of the people of Athens in Acts 17 and his argument that the 'unknown god' which they worshipped was none other than Christ Himself. Christ, who paid penalty for the sins of all mankind so we could forever be in good relationship with God, doesn't need legal representation by man-however, like the Athenians who' spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas' mankind could certainly benefit from the revelation of the salvation already in their midst.

Stop The ACLU / Easter Sunday

Click cartoon to view larger image. Largest.For The Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU

Yes, I know-my ACLU ferret looks like a member of the ghostly trio. Later this evening I'll replace the inked ferret with a penciled ferret, which is how I should have approached the character in the first place. For now I'm flat out of time. Something about answering haloscan posts and emails when I should be creating new work. I'll post any new (non-obscene and threatening, please) comments later this evening as well.

Thanks to lynn minmei and Typical Pickle Conflicts at Hipinion for posting a number of recent toons.

Congratulations to Guy Adams, faithmouse fan and Deputy National Grassroots Director of Dr. Alan Keyes’s Renew America, on his upcoming interview with Alan Colmes. Everyone I've ever known or will know, will, at one time or another, appear on Fox.

I received this email from a goon at SA-

I thoroughly enjoyed it. : ) I became a member of the SomethingAwful.com forums a few years ago, and I fully agree with the horrible atheist sentiment that it emanates. The few who speak out against the blasphemy are labeled 'trolls', 'idiots', etc. and are generally banned by the administration or ignored and banished by the community. This has scared the few other religious folk to the point that they will not dissent, that they will just let such ignorant, liberal blasphemy be shat out on the internet. However, the forum community has taken quite a shine towards you, and I'm sure they'd pay some attention to you and your ideas if you were to post there. It would also bring a few other of us Christians members out of the woodwork, and we'd all have a chance to speak our minds.

I've been a fan of your work for quite some time, and would be honored to back you up on the forums. I'll even buy your account for you, if you're interested. Thanks in advance for (hopefully) responding, and thanks for your great comics.

Well, that's nice! The Easter bunny delivered my Awful Mart certificate in an email basket this morning. I am now officially an uberconservative Catholic 'goon'.

Happy Easter!

Portal Of Awful

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A cartoon for Holy Saturday, which also serves to mark the 1,000 comment in the adult-oriented 'faithmouse' forum at Portal Of Evil. Another site called Something Awful is mentioned in this cartoon as well.

I no longer link to sites such as POE as I did in the past in order to keep all of the links on this site child friendly. I actually have a few fans at Portal, so you're a fan of faithmouse and you check out their forums, please do me a favor and refrain from leaving heated comments there in my defense.

An entertaining image, I think...

Thanks to Don Hughes at JesusJournal, who has emailed to say he'd like to post some cartoons on the site in the future. Thanks as well to American Papist for the posting the recent 'Jerusalem' cartoon under the banner Hey, I made the Faithmouse cut!

Including references to web sites and blogs in the cartoons seems to be garnishing a pretty intense reaction. Faithmouse is a web cartoon, after all. I'll try to expand upon the theme in the near future.

Jesus Enters Jerusalem

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Developing a representation of the cyber-spiritual environment with the help of an old KTP 'hypertiling' filter. The background is composed of highly warped screen captures of the following blogs-

Star Borealis
American Papist
The Waffling Anglican
Bearing Blog
The Dawn Patrol
SFO Mom
Adore Te Devote
Transcendental Musings
Viam Pacis

Congratulations to longtime faithmouse supporter Stacy Harp, who appeared yesterday on Fox News Dayside to discuss Google allowing child predators to use their Blogger service. Way to go, Stacy!

Thanks to David Stein for including one of the Limerick toons in his piece on The Cave entitled Anti-family "it takes a village" mentality sponsored by archdiocese?

A Limerick In The Desert, Fini (In Progress)

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You can find a gallery of some older faithmouse cartoons at Ann's Catacombers site, including my last drawing of the Cathedral of St. Paul (during it's roof renovation) which I used as the background of a quinate commentary on sin.

Thanks to the Judith and Mitchell at Our Word And Welcome To It for their mention of our Northland Catholic Roundtable get-together at Davanni's in Bloomington last Saturday. Fellow Catholic bloggers Desperate Irish Housewife, The Church Online, Bearing Blog, and AdoroTeDevote (who could use your prayers after losing her grandmother on Monday morning) attended as well. Nice to be able to steal i.e.-represent the thoughts of such solid Catholic thinkers. The gathering afforded some needed information and opins, and inspired today's cartoon, the tone of which was influenced primarily by a comment by the erudite Mitchell Hadley as he noted the lack of ecclesiastic transparency in the current Father Altier controversy.

And now, a partial limerick-
Jesus' death tore the curtain in two;
today we could all use a much better view.

Thanks to anymouse for posting a very early Neverborn cartoon from a few years ago in Dave Oliveria's Huckleberries Online blog at the Spokesman-Review, which for clarity's sake I took the liberty of reposting. Let he who is guilty of no bad HTML cast the first snark.

A Limerick In The Desert, 2

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I'll make some minor changes to the above cartoon through the day (done) in addition to posting the first draft of the concluding toon in the series which I've decided to display next. It should make for a nice Easter cartoon, especially as an answer to Archbishop Flynn's recent admonition to an emailer regarding respect owed to a successor to the apostles (him) especially during Lent. If you have to constantly remind people that you deserve respect, you've already lost it.

Additional cartoons in the series will cover the growing dissent against the Teaching about Touching program, and the Archbishop's history of ignoring and enabling leftist militants.

Stop The ACLU / Crosses To Bar

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For the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU.

Court grants Utah highway patrolmen’s organization right to intervene against atheists in lawsuit - Alliance Defense Fund

A Limerick In The Desert, 1

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Thanks to Ray at Stella Borealis: Northland Catholic Roundtable for reserving advanced seating on his blog to display this continuing limerick in defense of Father Robert Altier. I'll post the full first verse by Monday, once I complete our (mouse in my pocket) regular Sunday Funnies toon for Stop The ACLU, which will be a little different this time around.

Barb at SFO Mom makes this request-

I would appreciate it if anyone who reads this would keep a special intention in their prayers. I am in a big struggle with something, that may not be a big deal at all, but sure feels like one right now (isn't that always the way!)

I need Francis' Prayer Before the Cross:
Most high, all-glorious, all-good God,
bring light to the darkness of my heart.
Give me right faith, certain hope,
and perfect charity, with wisdom and insight,
O Lord, that I might always discern Your holy and true will.

Thanks.

A Limerick In The Desert (In Defense Of Father Robert Altier)

Archbishop’s Action Against Priest Reverberates Throughout Cyber Universe - The Wanderer Press

First off, a disclosure.

You may have read in an earlier post on this blog that Father Altier was the celebrant at my wedding ten years ago at St. Agnes in St. Paul. Here's a picture from the ceremony which displays all parties in true perspective-


I'm not a personal friend of Father Altier, although he knows me well enough to have remarked at a recent function at St. Agnes (for which Chris and I acted as witnesses) that he doesn't recall seeing me in church as of late. I believe Chris told him once that we no longer live in St. Paul, he forgot-that's how well I know Father Robert Altier and he knows me. His direct contribution to the trouble I have in mind is nil.

I know him better, as do many others, by way of the homilies which I USED to read on the A Voice of the Desert site. Along with Father John Zuhlsdorf (a friend and colleague of the original faithmouse from their renaissance festival days together) he's one of my favorite collared conservative writers. Now he's been truly collared-or at least his online presence has.

This cartoon is meant to be the first in a series presenting a prolonged limerick in defense of Father Altier, with accompanying goofy pictures. It will continue over the next week or three, punctuated with Stop The ACLU cartoons or anything else which might happen to feed my goat. I'll try not to be harsh, although the limerick obviously has as antagonist in the person of Archbishop Flynn. This time around I'll refrain from having Providence zap the Archbishop with a lightning bolt, as happened in this cartoon from last year regarding the Rainbow Sashers controversy-

Click cartoon for larger image. Largest.

Father Altier welcomes prayer for his situation, and has requested that anyone inclined to directly contact the Archbishop to do so with an attitude of charity.

Therefore, let us be charitable with humor.

I have a few refinements to the Vatican Kitty cartoon in mind, and perhaps some follow-up B16 hier, katze katze toons as well, all inspired by the fact that every time we wash our cats they're convinced it's murder. Confession's the same way.

Thanks kindly to Father John Sistare at 'Not So Quiet' Catholic Corner for displaying the lawnmower toon. I Love Volchat at Scout.com has posted last Sunday's ACLU toon.

Vatican Kitty

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Hoped to have had this finished and posted by Wednesday night; will have to aim for noon on Thursday for the completed version. The toon will feature an appearance by Pope Benedict XVI, who hasn't appeared on the site since he roared into town on his riding mower in April of last year-

Click above to view larger image. Largest.

Thanks to the honorable The Curt Jester for linking on Wednesday to the cartoon above.

Are You For The Eighty-Sixed?

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U.S. Mainstream Media Reports on RU-486 Deaths -LifeSite

Cost more time than I anticipated, but I'm happy to have finally gotten around to drawing a RU486 toon.

This is the first appearance of a character I actually created a few years ago, Ms. StarMole's nephew Chauncy:world scout. You also may have noticed that Ms. StarMole has her butch hairdo back. God bless her, she just doesn't seem the same without it.

Pope John Paul II The Great Memorial Illustration

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I have a few refinements in mind for this image, mostly having to do with the cross and the clouds. You're welcome to post the hotlinked image and I'll make the changes later this evening from here.

Thanks to Michael at stingray: as blog for salty Christians for adding faithmouse to his cartoon page.

Have a not-too-bad idea for an RU486 cartoon....

Pope John Paul II The Great Memorial Illustration, In Progress

An illustration I began around this time last year. Nice time to return to it. Should have this finished and up by Monday morning.

Don't know if anyone's noticed, but I've been revising the Terri Schiavo illustration from a few days ago. Still needs a tweak or two, but better I think...

Grazie 'da rilavorare' per additione dal lista 'Satira eccellente' a il diario conservatore Riposte Frequenti.

Stop The ACLU / The ACLU Diaries

For the Sunday Funnies at Stop The ACLU

Thanks to the original faithmouse for hand-lettering the poem in the image above. Thanks as well to former Russian linguist and intelligence officer Paul for adding the feed for the regular toon to his Thoughts of a Regular Guy. A germane toon from last year has made its way to this German forum at Haschingsplace.