By MIKE MARLAND, InDepthNH.org

The time has come to start a slow slide into retirement. It’s going to take me a few years to actually get there, but I’m going to begin by retiring from drawing editorial cartoons. 

I’ve been drawing them for 43 years and I’m kind of burned out.

Arthritis has rendered my drawing hand useless and I don’t enjoy “drawing” the cartoons on the computer as much. My enjoyment of putting ink to paper for hours at a time is gone.

I’ve reached a point where I don’t really have much to say that’s new or original. I’m finding it harder to come up with a fresh take on New Hampshire’s unfair tax system for the umpteenth time, for instance, or the latest crop of pompous gun nuts. 

I also need relief from daily immersion in the cesspool of the current political climate. It takes a lot of time to read & research topics for cartoons and I weary of being down in the muck created by the Republicans who have given over their party to the insanity of Trump and their right-wing extremists. Frankly, they just piss me off and I can’t find any humor in a lot of this stuff anymore. Also, it’s hard to make fun of people and portray them as evil or idiots when they’re actually evil or idiots to begin with. Parody may be dead.

I may still post a cartoon with InDepthNH.org from time to time, but for the most part I’m done.

Thanks to all who have supported my work over the years and especially to Nancy West who kept my work afloat at IDNH when the newspaper business went down the tubes.

I’ll continue to work on my R.F.D. comic strip and write the gags for Snuffy Smith so, I’ll see you in the funny papers. Or rather, on the funny web.