As the title of this post suggests I wrote a letter (and by letter I mean e-mail) to the Premier of Saskatchewan Brad Wall. Rather than write a short summation of the e-mail, I’ve decided to post the whole thing here for your reading pleasure.

Dear Mr. Right Honorable Premier,

I’m writing to you today as a concerned voter from the city of Prince Albert. Well, not a “voter” exactly as I’ve always seen voting for squares, but I am ninety percent certain I’m registered to vote. I diligently check that register to vote box on my income tax return every year and also have a Saskatchewan Elections refrigerator magnet so I am almost positive that if an election where called I could in theory vote.

But I’m getting side tracked.

As an almost confirmed voter I am writing to you with a request. Not only am I potential voter but I am also a cartoonist.  Currently I create two strips. The first one is Gary and Ted. It follows the adventures of Gary, an alien prince banished to Earth and his roommate/guide Ted. The other is the Zintel Wilderness Guide: Bears, which is simply a series of completely untrue facts about bears. Both strips currently run online at www.garyandted.com and www.bearfactoids.com respectively.

The problem I am having is that I cannot get any exposure through the local media. Any letters and e-mails I send are met only with silence. It seems that no one in the province wants to support the local cartooning arts.

So if you could use your provincial government endowed powers to declare a “Read James Zintel’s comic strips day” that would be a particularly awesome thing to do. And while I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, I think February 13 or 15 would make excellent dates for this as those who are alone on Valentine’s Day would have a pleasant feeling to distract them from the fact they are so very alone. You could be saving lives!

Your #1 Fan,

James Zintel

P.S. Another idea, a province run Thunderdome and/or Rollerball league.

There you have it. Ball’s in your court provincial elected officials! Make it happen.

As you may have already noticed, the update schedule on the Wilderness Guide has changed from it’s regular Tuesday and Thursday to a new one of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This move is more or less an attempt to see if I can get more time to work on a few other projects, but still maintaining a five day a week publishing cycle. So this means one less Gary & Ted and one more Bear Factoid each week. And this change is by no means permanent, if this experiment doesn’t work the way that I want it to, things can always go back to the way they where. Just like ice cream for dinner, speaking of which…

Starting off the new year with a bang! And by bang I mean brand new t-shirt! And by t-shirt I mean the first ever official Bear Factoids nudity deterrent cover. EXCLAMATION POINT.

The shirts are being printed through RedBubble and come in both men’s and women’s sizes. So click here and join the Bear Factoids T-Shirt Owner’s Club! Because I’m not only the president of the Bear Factoids T-Shirt Club, I’m also a member.

Taking the week off to finish off some other projects that desperately need my attention so no new comic strips this week. So feel free to take a trip through the archives and I’ll see you all back here in a week.

As you may have noticed, there’s a slight change to the look of the Wilderness Guide. It’s mostly due to the switching to a new commenting system, that commenting system being DISQUS. So now you have more choices for commenting including Facebook as well as Twitter or the same way as before.

Also included at the top of the page is a link to my newest book, Tactless in the Face of Danger. It collects a bunch of strips from the first two and a half years of my other strip, Gary and Ted. So I greatly recommend pick up a copy (not just because I like money, I also like mailing things). Link to adventure!