Placed around town on stacks of Observers, and left there.
This is an untrue statement and attacks the credibility of the Observer project, and it is doing it strictly for political gains, not to be honest.
Why? This is actually what was submitted to me, in a coffee shop with, "Hey Jim, do you think the Observer would be interested in this?"
I said, "We are open-submission, ink it and send it in."
The reply from Tom Wagner was, "Can you see if your artists can ink it up?" Sure, so I take it home, later that evening I scan it, crop it down, and send it off to Rob Masek, the guy who draws Lakewoodites, and is a full time artist in real life with real high paying clients.
98% of the people working at the Observer are volunteers with the right to say yes and no.
Two days later, Rob gets back to me with a "No, I am not interested in inking it, I have way too much going on right now, can't do it." The next time I see Tom, I tell him the artist doesn't want to do it. We talk about various options, and he asks, "Can I pay your guy to do it?" So I text Rob a message and two days later he answers, "No, I am swamped, I already did the cartoon for the last issue and it is not political." Tom was told no, the artist was not interested. He left saying he would ink it, and that was the last we heard.
The paper came out, when I read it, I saw that it was not in. I found out through Margaret that it was never submitted through the member center. For the record one more time, I do not edit the paper, or lay out the paper. Deb O'Bryan looks over the paper usually at 3am to make sure the right ads are in the paper, as it is waiting to be printed. It is printed out, and when I get the paper on Tuesday night, I finally sit down to look at, and read the paper in print form. Bret Callentine cured me of reading the paper before it was printed. Bret had a real dislike of Congressman Kucinich, and would work a slam into any article he wrote. Stuff that would make me want to ask for changes though I never did; finally I stopped reading the proofs, until after printing.
Last week I got a call from a mutual friend of Tom's saying, call him he needs help. I called Tom, asked what was going on. He wanted to submit the cartoon online, and I said, "Let's do it!" He was eating dinner I think, and he said he would later. I told him I would be up until 2am, and feel free to call I will make sure it get on, and we would get it out there. Let's be honest, this cartoon is not going to change the world, though I do find it amusing, especially knowing the players who worked it up. Is it something the Observer would not print? NO. Is it something we would be afraid to print? NO.
Tom said, people at BuildLakewood and with Summers are afraid we have lost our objectivity. Utter Bullshit, yet again.
This city deserve facts, real facts. Perhaps the best thing would have been to print this...
After all, sometimes the cruelest trick one can play on someone is to give them what they want.
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