For a blog operated by a cartoonist...

[dewline]

...it seems as though I spend a Hell of a lot of time fixated on the TV instead, doesn't it?

I could rampaging verbally at some length on what happened to Marvel Comics' Canadian superhero team, Alpha Flight, in the latest installment of New Avengers, showing off art samples from either Local Hero or Retail Therapy, or any of a thousand other things.

But, no. It's been obituary links re: dead American TV actors whose work I've watched and enjoyed, and links to petitions to save particular Canadian TV drama series I've been enjoying over the last few years. Overall, it hasn't been a good year for me, TV-wise. Enterprise got chopped a year ago this month, if memory serves. That one really hurt. Then, in the last month or so, there was the Bad News about The West Wing. And now the latest CBC cancel notices, already covered earlier in this blog.

This is a long-winded way to tell you that my attention is likely to remain divided between those two media-forms for a while yet. I don't know that I can explain it to everyone's satisfaction, but I'll see what I can do.

I am convinced that the CBC leadership's decision to chop Da Vinci's Inquest and This is Wonderland is premature, as you may have gathered from previous postings here. I've read all manner of reports and opinions on the subject, and the reasoning behind it.

I like Da Vinci for several reasons:

• It's been giving me a better idea of how city halls across the country actually have to function from day to day, and what any given mayor -- no matter their political stripes -- has to deal with to get the job done with a sufficent degree of self-respect left intact.
• The performances of the actors.
• The "soap opera" aspects of civic politics, criminal investigations, and so on also get my attention.

The list is not all-inclusive, I'm sorry to say, but these three reasons are enough for me to start with.

Wonderland? Let's run down the list:

• Acting performances? Check.
• Writing? Check.
• As a former courtroom artist for one of the local news services, I can say that what I saw on the screen in each episode rang true with my first hand visitations to the local courthouse here in Ottawa, albeit magnified somewhat for dramatic effect. It worked as a drama for me, in part because of that.

If Wonderland were a comics series(as Degrassi seems to be en route to becoming), I'd say I was qualified to draw it, and I'd want that gig. Desperately.

I also get a better sense of Toronto as a good place to live and work, warts and all. I can say the same of Vancouver, which I'm sorry I didn't mention sooner.

So, a week and change after reading of the announcement, as well as assorted articles and blog entries on the subject, my mind remains unchanged on this:

I want Wonderland and Da Vinci back. Not as irregularly-produced collections of movies of the week, but as ongoing series.

Please?

Reminder: Petition links here for anyone who hasn't heard of those efforts yet.