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Local cartoonist Bill Fortune recently launched a website featuring his original cartoon strip about LDS missionaries.
Fortune began drawing the cartoons in 1988 when his late son Doug was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tampa, Florida.
“He would write home about his experiences,” Fortune said. “So I developed a cartoon, and I named these characters after him and his companion.”
Doug’s first companion’s last name was Carroll, so Fortune began calling his cartoon strip “Elders D & C.” Although he’d never seen a picture of Carroll, he created a characterization of him to contrast Doug’s blonde hair and freckles.
When Doug wrote letters to his father about the experiences he had, Fortune would draw a “gag” of the experience and include it at the bottom of his returning letter.
“If he had a dog chase him or whatever, that’s what I would write in the letter back,” Fortune said. “It kept his morale up, and he shared it with his comps and everything.”
The cartoons “went on the shelf” when Doug returned home, but in 2011, Meridian Magazine sought out a new weekly cartoon series, and Fortune volunteered his work as a tribute to his son, who died 16 years ago.
Read the rest of the story on KSL.com.
You can see more at ElderToons.com
