First of all, these sketches I post aren't meant to be a slam against Fort Wayne Monthly Magazine. They are a DREAM to work with and are always supportive of my cartoon ideas. It's just that every month, I submit three Fort Wayne-specific sketches and only one can be chosen to be finalized into a finished version that eventually gets published in the intended issue.
It works that way in much of the publishing world. You submit a number of sketches to the magazine's editor or sometimes the art director. They have a meeting with others around the magazine and (hopefully) choose one to eventually print.
I wouldn't post sketches that I send to other magazines, because if Magazine A doesn't select anything, a similar Magazine B might be interested. But not if it has already been plastered all over the internet on somebody's blog.
In the case of Fort Wayne Monthly, there is no other magazine that would be interested in publishing cartoons about Fort Wayne. So they either sit on my hard drive or I post them here. Some might say, why not just generalize the cartoon by taking the Fort Wayne elements out of the joke? To them I say, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A LOT OF WORK!!! You know, these naps of mine aren't going to take themselves!
So, here goes. This sketch was drawn a few months ago in anticipation of the September issue. Anybody who knows about Fort Wayne in September, knows that the Johnny Appleseed Festival is a big deal. Food, music, art, crafts, and all kinds of historical stuff about our heritage. Oh yes, and the bees! But, I already did a cartoon a long time ago about the bees at the festival, so this this one is about the hay bales arranged throughout the festival grounds.