Return to the Throne

Back in the mid 90's, the Ottawa citizen used to have a section called "High Priority" showcasing student writers, poets, and, cartoonists. Upon hearing they were paying 50 clams to whomever's material they printed, my post-college, beer-craving-intellect went into overdrive. Although having moderate success in getting some "toons" published under my new (younger) Alias, I remember there was this one other cartoonist who was consistently getting printed week after week. This guy was killing me in the polls (and seriously cutting into my beer profits). Eventually, the Citizen dropped the section altogether, but not before my old foe managed to get himself syndicated in the Sunday color comix page. 15 years later, low and behold, I was sitting right next to my old nemesis at Amberwood Studios. This dastardly villain's name: ANDY KING !!
Well, it didn't take long to find out about our run-in on the pages of "High Priority" and Andy turned out to be one funny guy to work with, and inspired me to get back into cartooning again. This particular cartoon never got published, but was one that the editor kept on her bulletin board. Upon a surprise visit from me, I asked her why she had never published it ( and more importantly, never given me another fifty bones). She told me "yehhh... sorry, but we just can't print a cartoon of a guy sitting on the can...funny though!". Mystery solved.