Fund-Raising Part I

I'm no cartoonist. I envy those who can instantly create a lively, expressive figure to illustrate their words. I used to draw with my little brother all the time and I remember being amazed at how he could put his pencil point onto the paper and create something so engaging on the first try. And he would never start with the head, like I always had to. The first thing he would draw would be a shoulder or a piece of clothing and I would have no idea what he was doing until all of a sudden, there on the page was a complete character, believably carrying out whatever activity he'd thought of. By the time I finished drawing my character, I would have erased so many mistakes you could nearly see through the paper. And my final product was NEVER as interesting to look at as his drawings.

That being said, I DO love comic strips. Every Sunday, my father brings the funny pages to church for my kids to read in the car on the way home. And every Sunday, he has two or three particular comics to point out to us as having reminded him of Eiledon or Gavin or the two of us.

So when I wanted to reflect on my feelings about school fund-raisers, the first thing that came to me was a series of comic strips. The back-story is that Eiledon 'chose' not to participate in her fall fund-raiser to pay for her trip to Long Lake, at the very reasonable urging of her parents. At the time, I'd thought she should just ask family and friends for a straight donation instead of having them buy junk, but we let that slide as being sort of awkward and just wrote the check for $125 for the trip.

These four comic strips are what emerged in my creative mind when I reflected on that experience. I'll post one a day--believe me, it's not like I'm slacking off to do comic strips with sparse writing. Au contraire, if you will reference the first paragraph of this blog, you will understand why it took me probably THREE HOURS to pull together these mediocre cartoons. Maybe next time I'll have my brother illustrate.

Fund-Raising Part I