Hope n' Change: A Dimly Remembered History

Harp glissandos are more magical when you don't see who's playing them.

As Hope n' Change wraps up 8 years of publication, it seems like a good time to take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane - the better to answer the question that is on so many lips: "What the hell were you thinking?!"

As preamble, I'll say that for my entire adult life I've earned my living by writing comedy in various forms - for radio, television, print, and even film. Long before Obama was on the horizon, one of my favorite gigs was writing topical comedy punchlines every evening which would then be faxed to radio DJ's nationwide to use on their morning shows to prove they were spontaneous and witty.

Around the same time, to keep my writing skills in practice I started taking odd pieces of old black & white clipart and adding multiple goofy captions. I called those cartoons (never published anywhere) "Earwigs" as a tribute to the nightmarish insects which are alleged to crawl into people's ears, burrow into their brains, and cause madness. Because that's the sort of thing I find funny.

This is an Earwig cartoon. It may or may not be laying eggs in your brain.

I liked playing with the clipart because, while I loved to doodle, I wasn't really a terrific cartoonist...

But if I'd drawn this with my foot, you'd be impressed - right?

One of my favorite comic strips at the time (2008) was the wonderfully dark and demented "Red Meat" by Max Cannon. His highly stylized, retro-look characters would change very little (if at all) from frame to frame, and the comedy all came from the writing.

To my delight, I discovered that the Red Meat website allowed users to try making their own comic strips by selecting the characters and giving them dialogue. Here are a few of my early efforts (none of which are any sicker than the actual comic strip):

Yes, I could genuinely enjoy writing this kind of thing all day.

That's when I had an epiphany (or maybe it was scotch): I could assemble my own cast of distinctive characters from properly licensed clipart and do a comic strip! With a little investigation, I discovered the program "ComicLife" which made it easy to drag and drop from a library of images and add word balloons.

But what should be my subject? On something of a lark (little knowing how much time I'd eventually devote to giving others the bird), I decided on "Hope n' Change" - inspired by the still fresh and singularly idiotic presidential victory of Barack Hussein Obama.

Seriously, the man won based on preposterously meaningless slogans like "Yes We Can," "Hope and Change," and "We are the ones we've been waiting for." He had no successful track record of legislation or management, and for those who bothered to read his autobiographies (which didn't include the news media), he had an exalted view of himself and a dim view of America.

With a complete lack of understanding how blogging works, I published the first cartoons under the Hope n' Change banner in January, 2009. Not every cartoon that week was political - although this one was...



My choice of retro artwork was more than just a nod to "Red Meat." It was intended to echo the unsubtle "black and white" campaign promises which Obama had made and the American people had fallen for. Additionally, I liked the contrast between the nostalgic "classic Americana" look and the radical social upheaval being pushed by the Democrats.

By February 2009, I'd (barely) figured out what I was doing and began a daily publication schedule. That's right, 7 times a week...

Actually, that daily schedule was pretty easy to maintain because I was publishing just the cartoon with maybe an occasional sentence or two to go with it. No editorials. No comments to read or respond to. And, uh, no readership.

The first real surge in online views came after the conservative blog site Sondrakistan (called "SondraK" at the time) gave us a good review and suggested that their readers pay us a visit. From there, readership grew slowly but steadily thanks to word of mouth and a growing public awareness that, with Barack Obama in charge, we were in real trouble...

Over the course of a year I started adding more editorial content to go with the cartoons; I wanted to get the laugh, but also had more that I wanted to say. Moreover, Mrs. Jarlsberg (who is wise in all things) encouraged more editorializing because it made the strip more engaging for people - as did the addition of an open comments section.

Due to the extra work (cartoons are easy, wordification is hard), publication of Hope n' Change was cut to 5 days a week, then (in 2012 or so) 3 days a week.

The goal, however, always remained the same: to give conservatives a laugh and some hope that we could eventually get Barack Obama out of office and wrest control of Congress out of the filthy, spider-like hands of the Democrats. And by this time, the fight was getting serious...

Around this time, I started adding color to a number of the strips. It was a break from the classic look - but one I hoped would make the cartoons more appealing to a broader readership...

Over time, I then made the jump to frequently using actual photographs of people in the news, though I never completely dropped the black and white retro images of the coffee couple, chicken-boy, bear & cow, and other characters who remained (and still remain) dear to my odd little heart...

When Barry was eventually elected to a second term, it was a personal blow...

And alcohol was still available in stores.

I had never intended to make an unpaid career out of Hope n' Change, but the cause seemed more important than ever. Not that I ever had any illusions about how much impact I was making with the blog's modest (but highly intelligent and stunningly attractive) number of readers. 

Of course, there was always the hope that the site would magically go viral (Rush Limbaugh, would it have killed you to give me a shout out?) - but in times of need, real Americans pitch in and do what they can, big jobs or small. And if my job was to be the Rosie the Riveter of online conservative comic strips, I was happy to serve until the scourge of Barry's administration was finally over...

And we've also seen a lot of people who belong BEHIND bars.

And the rest, as they say, is history - or at least, soon will be history as we prepare the transition from an active blog to a lovingly preserved archival site in which Obama and his dishonorable band of scoundrels will always be roasting on our eternal flame.

On Friday, I'll be back with some closing remarks and personal thoughts on this long, crazy experience we've shared. See you then! - Stilton