This week’s word is ‘Crash’. Originally the Glenn Beck cartoon was going to be about the -crashing- Dixie Chicks and then this 7,000 Iraqi thing came up.

This week’s word is sprout. Took a bit of thinking to fit it in. As it turns out it fits well with the idea of body snatchers and the pods from the story.

The word this week is ‘Red’. It came to mind that Mrs. Clinton’s gaffs this past week would make a good CD and whatelse could an album of her’s be but – ‘Red’!?!

The ‘Illustration Friday’ “word” of the week is ‘super hero’. I came upon an unfortunate incident in the news involving Isaiah Washington and referring to a fellow actor on the set of a current T.V. show he stars in by a certain word. The word doesn’t matter. The incident doesn’t matter. Bottom line: Washington was name calling. Period. That’s it.

Why on Earth this would go beyond that would have us chasing down and tar and feathering Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump. And no telling what we might do to Don Rickles. The comment was not made on a stage to an audience. Even if so, we, again, would be chasing down O’Donnell and Trump. Fellow stars were asked to comment about the non-incident. They were upset about it. Why weren’t these same actors asked about O’Donnell and Trump?

This got further out of control with the unbelievable move of Washington, who I’ve respected as an actor for years, to declare he’s going to “therapy”.

Everyone involved are acting like uneducated 7-year-olds. At least a 7-year-old would slap the one that name called and forget it. An adult is one who should be intelligent and mature enough to understand name calling will happen and that it’s childish. An adult makes at least a mental note of this and might even comment that to the name caller. Turning it into a media circus resulting in the person going to something referred to as “therapy” just points out how hideous and melodramatic the pop-culture media is.

Washington should realize maturity, strengthen his backbone and move on. Whoever was name called should also strengthen their backbone, recognize childishness and then not turn around and be childish themselves.

The “word” this week is ’80s’. Sooo, kicking this around with Rob Labby back at ‘Julie’s Waterfront’ restaurant (Entry of Jan. 12th). We put this together. What was Paris thinking back then. I can’t believe she was dreaming of what she is today – Generally a bum.

This week’s ‘Illustration Friday’s word is ‘Help’. I tried to tie the word with Christmas and came up with the cartoon above.

This week’s ‘Illustration Friday’ word is Mask. Came up with the gag of the pun of the word ‘course’. I wasn’t sure how to best illustrate it. Needing to fit ‘Mask’ in solved the puzzle by having a frustrated Democrat using it as part of the dialogue.

For Illustration Friday. The word this week is ‘might’. I originally was going to draw a cartoon of the last week of the -Mighty- dominance of the Republican Party in Congress in which it looks like they’re going to squander their last days. I decided to go this route with still the far, far, far hope that I would – HOPEFULLY – be wrong….so far, no good….

Illustration Friday’s theme – Invention. Something Christmas isn’t, despite what others might think.

This week’s Illustration Friday contribution. Rather self-explanitory. For political commentary, I plan to add some on my political cartoon blog later.

Wanted to work the word ‘clear’ in visually, but that got thwarted as events lead to frustration and lead to this handling of ‘clear’. More political comments about this to come on my editorial cartoon blog in a couple days. The ‘Illustration Friday’ folks will think that the ‘Village’ cartoons only have to do with elephants. Gotta try to shake that next week.

I think I’m still keeping in tune with the flavor of the weekly cartoon and the content of Glenn’s site. For those that don’t know, ‘It Takes A Village’ is a weekly cartoon I draw for radio/TV guy, Glenn Beck’s website. When I found the ‘Illustration Friday’ site, I realized I could challenge myself more by working the word into the strip. The best to happen is that I’m getting the cartoons finished earlier, which I’m sure makes Glenn’s webmaster, Chris Brady, happier. So far. So great!