Adam Prudhomme
Editor
After 20 years of making readers laugh from the opinion pages of the Napanee Beaver with his award-winning Our Town comic series, cartoonist Tim Nimigan is hanging up his pencil.
The last panel will appear in the Nov. 23 edition of the Beaver, just three days short of the 20th anniversary of its debut. When that print runs it’ll be the 487th appearance of the strip-give or take a few weeks missed due to vacation or family events.
“The 20 years coming up was significant,” Nimigan said of his decision to end the series. “I wanted to reach that. I feel a little bit now like I’m crawling to that. When I first started I never wanted to do every week. It was too much pressure. You finish one and you start to think of another one. Every other week worked out fine for a number of years. More recently I’ve started to feel like ‘is it my week already?’ sort of thing. That’s not how you get your best work doing it that way.”
Since its debut on Nov. 26, 2003, Our Town has graced the editorial page of the Beaver every second week. The premise of the series was finding humour in the every day happenings of a small, rural town. Though much of his inspiration came from Napanee, the humour translates to just about any small town across Canada. In contrast to a typical editorial page cartoon, the purpose was never to take aim at a politician or political party. While readers may have been able to see a little bit of someone they know in the cartoon-or perhaps even themselves-the jokes never came at the expense of one particular person. He’s always kept the humour clean cut and family friendly as well.
“I decided I was new to town, I had just started my teaching career, I don’t want to be looking for ways to lambaste people,” Nimigan, who taught Art at Napanee District Secondary School when the series launched, said of his decision not to get political. “I didn’t have any interest in doing that. After I lived here for a long time and I had seen ideas for cartoons for an idea I thought maybe I should approach (late Napanee Beaver Publisher) Jean (Morrison).”
After submitting his first idea to Morrison, two weeks later it appeared in the pages of the Beaver.
Regular readers knew that along with a punchline, each comic had two hidden trademarks mixed into the background-his daughter’s name ‘Laura’, and a dog. If someone gave him the seed of an idea, he’d give credit by sneaking their name somewhere into the picture. That being said, he admits his wife Debbie should have had her name appear several times throughout the series.
Though he’s known for several months that this year would be his last of drawing Our Town, most people are likely finding out by reading this article. Even without it being common knowledge, he’s been receiving a lot more feedback from readers the last few weeks.
“People just on their own without knowing that have been telling me ‘oh I really enjoyed last week’s cartoon’ or I enjoy looking for ‘Laura and the dog’,” said Nimigan.
Another trademark of the series is that it’s always been one single frame with a cutline. That requires a bit of craftiness, such as having a character pick up the second half of a conversation and delivering the punch line, doing so in a way that’s easy enough for the reader to understand what they were talking about.
“I have enjoyed the challenge of a single frame cartoon,” said Nimigan. “Guys like Herman (drawn by Jim Unger) are geniuses when they can get it all in one without a lot of bubble things to look at.”
As for what that final Our Town will look like, he’s got a few ideas but nothing finalized just yet.
“I’ve wanted it to still be humorous, but I would want it to have some acknowledgements in there for the Beaver, people who have made comments to me along the way. That’s all up there,” he said.
Tim Nimigan with a copy of Our Town is Your Town, his second collection of his popular Our Town comics. Submitted photo.
Throughout its run, Nimigan released two books featuring a collection of Our Town comics. The first, which spanned panels that originally appeared in print from 2003-’13, sold out. The second, which covered 2014-’18, has a few hundred copies left. In celebration of the 20th anniversary, Nimigan will be selling copies of his second book at half price, $10, at the Indoor Holiday Market, Nov. 18 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the SPC.
As for life after cartooning, Nimigan envisions hosting speaking engagements where he offers a behind the scenes look at some of his favourite Our Town comics. He also left the door open to more comics should inspiration strike.
“As far as being a regular contributor on an every other week basis, that’s what’s coming to an end. That’s not to say you just saw my last cartoon,” he added.