While doing research for this cartoon, I came across some startling images of the machinery we are using to squeeze the last, precious bit of fossil fuels from the Earth. Below is of the largest earth mover ever built (see this blog for more info on Energy Monsters). It's for coal mining and looks like something conjured by a nightmarishly dystopic science fiction novel.

The trucks used for oil sands are enough to make any three-year-old attain Tonka Toy nirvana.

But the landscapes created by our machines are hell on Earth. I am planning number of cartoons on Alberta's oil sands, so I won't rant too much here. The more I read about what oil companies are doing in Athabasca, the more ghastly Canada's economic dependence on this wanton destruction looks. As Rick Salutin wrote last Friday:
Peter Mansbridge furrows his brow but doesn't wonder why a country without workers who make anything has to pay higher markups on iPods than America does. We're on the way back to producing only what we always did: unprocessed resources like oil, wheat and wood. But the knowledge purveyors prefer to focus on the cost of Levis, obscuring rather than exploring any connection between making and buying.
What will an all-retail economy look like, when that day arrives? My stretch of College Street in Toronto is pretty much restaurants and cafés, rarely broken by even a futon store or 7-Eleven. Can a society survive by serving each other lattes? People rise in the morning, go to their posts and start feeding the customers. But everyone does it, so they're all running in and out, serving and being served. I have to finish this croissant so I can rush back and make you a falafel.
But at least our high loonie makes us feel good about ourselves -- strong and full of positive thoughts -- while we busily drain our lakes and raze our forests to mine oil from sand. And when our water, forests and oil are gone, we'll be left with our positive thoughts but not much positive left to think about.

This is a funny article:
What happened when I followed The Secret's advice for two months


Time is the best editor. I reworked the Harper on panel 5 from an initial pencil sketch that I thought had more spontaneity, drawn directly on the computer using the pencil sketch as a template, something I usually never do. Now, in retrospect, I prefer the pen-and-ink drawing above for that panel that I replaced. It looks more fleshed out and rounded.

Earworm: Middle of Nowhere by Hot Hot Heat, from Victoria, BC.
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