In February of 2014 I decided to see if I could create and post a daily cartoon. As you can see from the first one posted on February 15, 2014 (below) Whiteouts started very crudely. That was intentional; I felt that keeping it basic would take very little of my time and enable me to post regularly. However, as the months passed I found myself slowly improving, refining my style, and caring more and more about the end result.

And then I began to have dreams about doing something professionally with these cartoons. In the late fall of last year I began to put out some feelers with local newspapers. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I’ve been able to be published in two small newspapers on a regular basis and there is potential for more. That feels really good.

I’ve enjoyed myself quite a bit doing these cartoons–the ideas come pretty easily (whether they are funny or not is another story), but the drawing/coloring standard I’ve set for myself makes them pretty time-consuming. I am married to a wonderful and patient woman and have three really great kids, one of whom is turning six today (!). And as some of you may have guessed various cartoon content, I work in the church: I am a full-time ordained Presbyterian pastor.

This means I’m very busy. So far I’ve been able to juggle it all and I hope to keep doing so. But it’s possible I’ll need to scale back how often I post in the future. I’ve taken some pride in posting something every day–partly because I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a daily cartoonist and, perhaps, partly because I’ve grown addicted to the daily affirmation. 🙂

So, happy one-year anniversary to “Whiteouts”! I truly hope there will be many more…

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Paul White