Sometimes saying goodbye to an old friend is the hardest thing you will have to do.

This week marks my final issue as an editor and contributor to The Horizon, and I have to admit it’s been a long time coming.

I have two more classes to take this summer, but, after that, IU Southeast will be free of me for the foreseeable future.

No more columns, no more police blotter to make smart-ass comments in and no more cartoons to ruffle anyone’s feathers.

I’ll be saying goodbye to a lot of friends and a lot of people that really had a big impact on my life during the past few years, and I’ll also be saying goodbye to all the characters I’ve created and grown to love in my comic strip — Faux Pas.

I was telling a close friend a few weeks ago that it’s really going to be sad for me to leave, but I think the thing I will miss most of all is drawing Ducky, Muff and all the other characters I’ve created through the years and developed as an extension of just who I am.

I hope to someday find a job where I can keep drawing these characters, but, with the way the newspaper industry is at the moment, I’m not sure that will ever happen.

For those of you that haven’t been at IU Southeast as long as I have, my first comic strip was called Fishwrap.

Fishwrap had a lot of the same cast of characters as Faux Pas, but never really had the focus or story line that I learned to develop with Faux Pas.

What Fishwrap did have was more than its share of controversy.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just take a look in the archives that can be found on The Horizon Web site.

You might want to check around February 2006, if it’s available.

I ended Fishwrap in May of 2007 because I was burned out with drawing it week in and week out, and took a little time away from The Horizon.

After a semester away from the paper, I came back and found that I missed drawing a weekly comic more than I realized.

Thus, Faux Pas was born, and it didn’t take long before a few of the familiar Fishwrap faces were back and causing trouble again.

I’m not sure how many people will miss Faux Pas when it’s gone, but I will miss drawing it for you.

Most weeks it took me several hours to pencil, ink and sometimes color Faux Pas, but, if one person told me how much they liked that week’s strip, it made it all worth it.

But, I guess the point of all this is that I’m going to miss drawing Ducky and the gang, and I’m going to miss entertaining you, the IUS community.

Since this is my last column, I also want to take this opportunity to thank a few people individually.

Thanks to Jim St. Clair, professor of journalism, for always being there to answer my questions and supporting me no matter how much trouble I caused.

Thanks to Cliff Staten, dean of Social Sciences, for supporting the Department of Journalism and for being a great dean for myself and others.

Thanks to Marty Rosen, director of the IUS Library, for being one of my biggest fans and for always having an open door when I’d drop by.

Thanks to Tom Kotulak, associate professor of political science, for being a great professor and for giving me the opportunity to be a supplemental instructor for his Intro to American Politics class this semester.

Thanks to all my friends on The Horizon, the Student Government Association, the IUS Police Department and the IUS Civil Liberties Union for just being great friends.

Thanks to all those people that have called me their friend through the years. I’d like to say thank you to each of you, but there are so many I’d hate to forget anyone and I only have a limited amount of space to write this.

Finally, thanks to Ron Allman, associate professor of journalism and The Horizon adviser, for giving me the opportunity to live my dream of being a cartoonist and having the faith in me to give me more than one chance.

Thank you all, and know that I will miss everyone, and know that each one of you has been a big part of my life.

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By SCOTT GILLESPIE

Editor

tsgilles@umail.iu.edu