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The funny pages: Drumroll, please.

The entries in our 2024 political cartoonist contest are in and the winner is Will Caron, a Hawaii journalist and communications professional who has been drawing for more than a decade.

Like many good news professionals, Will’s first attempt to break into the business was rejected. This by the comics page editor at Ka Leo, the University of Hawaii’s student-run newspaper where Will applied to be a cartoonist when he began attending the college. That was back in 2007 and by the time Will graduated in 2012 he’d taken over the comics page as editor and, in fact, had taken over the whole paper as editor in chief.

Will tells the Sunshine Blog he’s not had his work published in recent years, mainly because he’s been working as the communications director for the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

So what inspires you to take pen to paper (so to speak), The Blog asked?

“I’m inspired by the ability of art to say 1,000 words in one picture — the ability of a strong image to cut through the noise and illustrate the central point of a topic,” Will says.

So here’s how that looks in the three pieces he submitted for our contest:

We’ll be sending Will a check for $500 and The Blog hopes to buy him a cup of coffee and discuss future contributions to our “Let The Sunshine In” project.

Second place — and a check for $300 — goes to Sterling Sasaki, a retired graphic artist and high school coach. Born and raised on Kauai, Sterling was a nationally ranked table tennis player when he arrived at UH long ago and where he got a degree in art and teaching. He tells The Blog he had a lot of fun drawing these two entries.

And third place, along with a check for $100, goes to Gabriel Irons for his depictions of Hawaii political figures as characters from the cartoon show “The Simpsons.” Here’s just one example:

And a PS/honorable mention: The featured image at the top of this article next to the headline was drawn by Meini Sadri and submitted by her parents. Great effort and although not a winner it seemed like it deserved to be displayed.

The Blog would like to thank everyone who took the time to send in their art for this first-ever political cartoonist competition. And even though the contest is over, as you can see we have plenty of room to run good commentary. If the mood ever strikes anyone, send to sunshine@civilbeat.org and we’ll see if it works.

Faithfully execute: State Sen. Karl Rhoads detests Donald Trump, and it’s no secret. Rhoads has annoyed so many MAGA fanatics with his public statements about the 45th president that he has received .

On Wednesday, the day before Trump and Joe Biden debated (if “debated” is the right word to describe what took place on CNN), the Democrat took to (756 followers including Rep. Jill Tokuda, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke and The Blog) to point out that many states do not allow convicted felons to run for or hold office.

It’s true. Hawaii also prohibits sentenced felons from , unless they are placed on probation or paroled.

There is no such restriction in the U.S. Constitution, which means Trump could indeed serve as president again even if behind bars. It would take a constitutional amendment to fix that. What a country, eh?

Well, whatever you thought of the debate Trump is still a felon & Biden isn’t.

— Karl Rhoads (@KarlRhoads1)

The Ethics Commission strikes again: There are a lot of new folks running for office this year, and all are required to file a disclosure of financial interests with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission. That’s so the public can know more about who they are voting for, including a candidate’s sources of income, business ownership interests, debts, property and more.

It’s called transparency, and it’s the law. But 13 candidates missed the June 14 deadline, and all 13 were issued a $50 fine.

As of Thursday, 168 out of 169 candidates filed their disclosures, and you can view them on the . But P.M. Azinga, a candidate for state House of Representatives District 30, had not yet filed a financial disclosure statement and may now face an additional $250 fine. 

The ethics commission also n into Kris Coffield, office manager for Rep. Jeanne Kapela, for a violation of the Fair Treatment provision of the Ethics Code. “Mr. Coffield was the co-chair of the Legislative Committee of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. In this capacity, he sent an email from a private email account during State work hours. Mr. Coffield cooperated with the investigation and voluntarily resigned from his co-chair position.”

Going to the dogs: You may have read the Civil Beat story on staffing shortages and high caseloads at the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office. On the bright side, the City Council is considering accepting a gift valued at $50,000 for DNA testing to identify five unidentified human remains.

It comes from a company called Othram (“Othram is revolutionizing how forensic cases are solved, justice is served, and families are mended,” ), and it would do the DNA analysis. requesting gift approval doesn’t say much more, regrettably.

The council is also looking to accept from Spike’s K9 Fund for custom-fitted K9 ballistic vests for use by the Honolulu Police Department’s Specialized Services Division’s Canine Unit.

Also proposed are from Vested Interest in K9s for K9 ballistic vests, K9 first-aid kits and K9 Narcan Kits for use by the HPD’s Specialized Services Division and Narcotic/Vice Division Canine Units.

The gifts are “to protect their canines during dangerous assignments,” Chief Joe Logan testified.

Councilman Tyler Dos Santos-Tam tells The Blog all the gifts were approved by the Public Safety Committee and now await a full council vote next month.