Please Sponsor faithmouse at Blogs4Life

Chris (the original faithmouse) and I are traveling to Washington in a few weeks to participate as conference bloggers at the first annual Blogs4Life, which is being sponsored and hosted at The Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Immediately following the conference we'll be participating in the March For Life, where we'll be on the prowl for Starbucks and using up a lot of hand and foot warmers.

I have a pretty good deal for anyone who might like to co-sponsor our trip. For a donation I will-
1. Draw and post a cartoon similar to Stacy's toon above, which will appear and/or be linked for a day on both the faithmouse site and related domains (faithmouse.com, faithmouse.blogspot.com, christiancartoon.com, conservativecartoon.com and hellokiity.com) and accessible by one to ten thousand cartoon affiliates, link partners, and linked posts.
2. Add your cartoon permanently to my page of pro-life cartoons, which is ranked #1 on Google and Yahoo under both 'pro-life cartoons' and 'anti-abortion cartoons', with both a link to your site from the cartoon (complete with keyword rich alt tags) and beneath it. Spiders and robots prize these sort of highly ranked, rich content links, so in addition to any traffic generated from the link it should have the ancillary effect of positively affecting your site rankings.
3. Mail you a signed color copy of the finished cartoon (completed in Photoshop) along with the signed original artwork which I used for your cartoon.
4. Include your cartoon in my complimentary handouts at the conference in Washington and along the march route.

This is great publicity for your pro-life blog and a nifty way to participate in the conference without being there. It also helps to cover expenses for our trip, which would be very much appreciated.

I'll gladly accept a donation of any amount. Twelve $100 dollar donations would completely pay for the trip, as would one $1200 donation. If you're like me and subsidize your blogging with a job in the real world, you know how amazing it is to actually see a dollar from your work. So, if you can help, know that it's for a good cause, is a great value and is well appreciated. Thanks!

The Paypal button is below.
danlacey (at) faithmouse.com

How Great Thou Art!

This cartoon was inspired by the report last last night that the thirteen missing West Virginia miners had been discovered alive, and that family members waiting at Sabo Baptist had spontaneously burst into a rendition of 'How Great Thou Art' at the good news. I felt uneasy though while drawing the cartoon: a few hours later I learned why. I decided not to ditch the image but to change the tone and re-present it.

I imagine some may think the image inappropriate. It's meant to reflect both the heartbreak and the faith of those who even in their darkest hour declare resolutely that, no matter the depth of their personal tragedy, God remains great.

Thanks to the dapper Jack Yoest who posted the Blogs4Life promo cartoon from a few days ago, as well as Elizabeth at Daily Inklings and Peter at March Together. There may be others, but as I invited people to simply copy and post I can't backtrack the referrers. If you've done the same please let me know and I'll happily give you a hat tip in return.

Stop The ACLU / Happy New Ferrets

Click image for larger version. Larger.

Updated version of the image which appeared yesterday
on the Sunday Funnies post at Stop The ACLU.

If you compare this cartoon to the sketch in the previous post you'll notice that I decided to drop a ferret rather than risk the viewer surmising that the characters must be flying around in some sort of a UFO. I saved the toon in some of the feeds as a GIF image before converting it to a JPEG. You can create some dandy 'low tech' textures in this way (click the toon above to see what I'm referring to) and the JPEG setting reproduces the textures faithfully while creating an even smaller, faster loading file.

I'm planning on updating the Catholic feed of the cartoon much more often this year, and also to include in each of these cartoons information from the liturgical calendar. Here's an example.

I caught about an hour of Dick Clark's New Year's Eve show, and didn't once see a shared shot of him with any other host in the studio. He truly seemed alone in a crowd of millions.

Thanks to Chad who plans a link to faithmouse somewhere on his energetic and activist oriented Culture Jam For Life. Thirteen year old CartoonBaron at his ComixBlog has added a much appreciated link. Good duck joke! The missionary oriented A Tale Of Five Cities (under construction) has included faithmouse as a 'useful link'. Can't ask for more than that.

I have a notion for helping to promote both fellow pro-life sites and the upcoming Blogs4Life, and also to cover some of my expenses for the trip to Washington. I think it's a pretty good deal for a good cause (good publicity for your blog both by way of faithmouse affiliates, a number of other sites and directly at the Family Research Center, in addition to the opportunity to own some original faithmouse artwork). If you're a fan of the cartoon, I would appreciate any support you might be able to offer. More info tomorrow!