Fair Winds and Following Seas

I would like to thank John Cox and Allen Forkum for their years of outstanding and entertaining work as editorial cartoonists. Yesterday, Allen Forkum announced that they will no longer publish their cartoons on a regular basis.

John and I have done pretty well over the last six years. We're fairly well known on the Internet, we have a few newspaper and magazine clients, we've self-published four books, and we've made some money, if not a living. But lately, for reasons I won't go into here, I can no longer afford to divert so much time and attention away from my publishing business and other personal concerns, such as my family.

I also want to stop focusing so much of my creative energy on negative aspects of daily life. There's still an ideological battle to be fought, not to mention an actual war, and I will stay engaged in some form and medium. But at this point, anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics.

That said, I imagine we won't be able to resist creating an occasionally editorial cartoon. And if we do, we'll post it here.

I have really enjoyed Cox and Forkum's work, and found just knowing that there was a such pair of cartoonists out there and on my side more than comforting. It was also bracing.

As much of a sewer as the political world is, we do live in what is ultimately a benevolent universe. In the matter of our having to work against some very bad cultural trends, it is understating things to say that we are in a battle for our lives -- and yet, it is one we can win. Each cartoon was like a wink of encouragement in the very midst of that battle from a champion who knows deep down that victory lies just a little further down the road.

In the end, we fight our battles, including the intellectual ones, so that we might live, not the other way around. The whole point of Objectivism, the philosophy I share with Cox and Forkum, is to live one's own life on this earth. If continuing on in the arena of public opinion threatens to become a sacrifice of a more important aspect of one's life, then it is time to stop. I haven't been in the business of commentary for as long or with nearly as much success as they, but I feel like I appreciate this decision, at least to some degree.

Take heart. Our champion is not giving up. He is merely leaving this particular battle because he is needed elsewhere. He showed us the way and he's still out there. Both of those things mean a great deal to me.

-- CAV