CM: All characters are blends of people I have known through life. I would have to say I am in all of them to some degree. I'm probably most like Damon.

DE: Have you taken any criticism for your portrayal of Damon?

CM: Actually, the reverse. He just kind of "popped out" one day while I was sketching around for a better foil for Jan. Zed was the first one, then Sam, then Jan, and then that little devil Damon.

DE: You obviously like poking fun at the "peace" protestors and the Hollywood folks.

A lot of the people making fun of them now used to count themselves among their number. Are you one of those folks who's had second thoughts, or were you always on the other side of the culture war?

CM: I was born a 45 year old conservative. But you know what? Conservative isn't even "conservative" anymore. It's a label for normal.

Yes, I said normal!

DE: Is Day By Day currently available anywhere besides your web site?

CM: Nope. I intend to run it on the web for a year and get some feedback. I also hope to link up to whatever bloggers will have me. The blogosphere is where true discourse is going on these days, not syndicates or papers or TV.

DE: How do you do your art work? Do you do it all on the computer, or do you perhaps use a pencil, scan it, and clean it up on the computer? Or...?

CM: All art is drawn on a Wacom 11x16 tablet, using Adobe Illustrator, then exported over as a gif in Photoshop. All coloring is also done natively in Illustrator. I have templates of bodies, heads, expressions, etc. If you look at the cartoons closely, you may notice that, at this time, each character has about 5-6 head positions only. I will be adding, over the course of time, more head shots. I tend to draw the bodies and the backgrounds individually, though (but not always).

DE: You seem to be issuing about a cartoon a day. How are you managing that kind of pace, especially with a full-time job in industrial design?

CM: The templates help a lot! As soon as I get caught up, I intend to do a cartoon relevant to the day I put it up, which is the advantage of online publishing. Unlike printed toons that are 2 weeks back because of distribution timeframes, I can hit the daily topic the same day, a rather important ability in the political arena.