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I was assigned to provide the Madison Eagle with a year in review illustration for 2011. I received the assignment on Thursday, and scrambled to fit it in between Christmas activities for Monday’s deadline. I had my children home from school and from Richmond, and enjoyed them so much.

The Editor emailed me a list of news events broken down into months. He also requested five or six specific news stories to be included in the illustration. One of them was a triple homicide, which was the number one story as you can imagine in a small community. I wondered how to go about depiticing that in a spot drawing, so I worked around it leaving room for it at the top of the illustration.

What a horrific event these folks suffered. I thought about them, and considered how I would feel if they were my family. I realize I can never know the pain something like this could bring, and can only imagine what the family must be going through. I started to call my Editor to discuss this with him, but it is a busy time and he has enough on his plate each week, besides I work through my own challenges.

The solution I arrived at was to draw part of the murder weapon. In this case it was shotgun shells. I considered this as hard…horrific…depicting the crime in a visual manner. HONESTLY depicting the crime. Then I considered whether to include the victims names or just letter in “triple homicide”.

Clark Jackson, Karen Jackson and Chante Davis had everything taken from them. All their tomorrows. The story was them. To not include their names in the story would, in my opinion, have been disrespectful of them. WHAT could I do for them now? REMEMBER THEM.

Close by you will see a Police officer leading away the accused murderer, Riddick.

Did I do the right thing? I can’t say. I tried to. It is my opinion, my illustration, my solution. I have been criticised before for illustrating it, as I should be.

Christmas 2010 I drew a story that was printed in the Star Exponent. I had emails and phone calls about it.
I got a Christmas card that someone forgot to sign from a church I was attending that pretty much suggested I attend church somewhere else. I also from the very same cartoon had two Ministers contact me, one in tears about something they saw in the drawing. Very different reactions from the same drawing.

I understand some folks are upset about the things depicted in the 2011 Madison year in review. I did my best to depict the events as requested by my assignment. I encourage you to email me WADE@DOG-GONE-RIGHT.COM and let me know what your concern is.

You can also view other “year in review” toons by clicking on “year in review” in the category section to the right.