About this time every year, since we began publishing 'The Daily Felltoon' four years ago next month, we do a simple year end wrap up, as we head to our own holiday break. As usual, there will be brand new Paul Fell Cartoons published over the next two weeks, including new Cap News, Oklahoma Gazette Toons, a Paul Fell Prediction cartoon before the Husker game, and of course, the annual Paul Fell Christmas cartoon. So feel free to check PaulFellCartoons.com throughout the holiday season.
Before we continue, we need to thank you, our readers, both old and new, around the world. Whether you view our work in your e-mail box, from Twitter or Facebook, or through an RSS reader; on your computer, your tablet, or on your smartphone; we're glad you keep coming back - and we're even more happy that you keep telling others about us. For the thousands of people we reach each year, we are most grateful.
2011 has been a year filled with changes and many new challenges for all of our staff.
We've gained new contacts, new clients, and new readers - some of whom work in some very important places. We're very glad that our work graces the screens of more high offices in Washington, DC and Nebraska – as well as the screens of great comedians and cartoonists – than it did at this time last year.
We added a new office in West Palm Beach this past year, and at least one of our staff members moved - three times - in 2011, to new homes and apartments. We can't even count the trips we've made this year, including some overseas travel, to new places. Suffice it to say, our frequent flyer miles have come in handy, and our mechanics have kept our vehicles roadworthy.
While we've read new books - and even helped work on at least one - we still logged about 16,000 news, opinion, and commentary stories that we read this past year. We also published about 250 new editions of the Daily Felltoon this year, on top of our other regular jobs.
We were glad to see Daily Kos, one of the most prominent online publications for liberals, add a whole new section for cartoonists this year - a section where they pay their major contributing cartoonists, which we firmly believe in.
There were some new wrinkles in politics this past year too. Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska unexpectedly stood up in opposition to the Keystone pipeline, while Republicans in Congress - specifically in the House of Representatives - finally found a tax cut they couldn't vote for. Not surprisingly, it was a tax cut that benefitted those who actually work for a living.
There was also the new political force known as the Occupy movement, which we think still has some new ways to influence politics that we'll likely see next year.
There are plenty of new leaders around the world too, thanks to the revolutions of the "Arab Spring." North Korea also has a new leader, as does Al Qaeda, though the latter is due to some highly trained U.S. Navy Seals.
There were also some incredibly sad losses this year, including the much revered Steve Jobs.
The United States will enter 2011 doing something new, as a nation, after ending the Iraq War. We'll only be fighting one major foreign war, in Afghanistan – something that hasn't happened in nine years.
No matter what new things make headlines in 2012, we pledge to remain a publication that makes a difference in your lives, with new cartoons and commentaries to keep you laughing, thinking, and talking - with us, and with each other.
May your new year be the best one yet.
Happy holidays.
We'll return to regular publication January 3, 2012
