The Developers' Cabal
Cartoon courtesy of Kirk Mueller.

As the mayoral election draws near, we are reading and learning more about dark money contributed to the candidates’ campaigns and about some of the people behind the money. It’s a lot to digest in a short period of time, but personal research will hopefully save the day and guide all of us to the best candidate for our city. Or we can immerse ourselves in Kirk’s cartoons for a bit of needed humor.


The Maverick Observer launched in February 2020 to hold our politicians and businesses accountable. Our cartoons do just that with a sprinkle of humor and just enough sass to open our eyes to what’s going on around us.


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Kirk Mueller
As a 17-year-old senior at Wm. J. Palmer High School, Kirk sold one of the first cartoons he ever drew to SKI Magazine. Even though he tried, and tried and tried again, he never sold another cartoon to any magazine again—ever! What’s worse: the ski cartoon was never published. He tried his hand at editorial cartooning by securing an internship at the Boulder Daily Camera. His editorial cartoons have appeared in the Lamar Tri-State Daily News, the Pikes Peak Journal, the Cheyenne Edition, the Colorado Springs Sun and the Colorado Springs Independent. Kirk submitted over a dozen concepts for comic strips. This involved drawing 24 to 42 daily and Sunday comic strips and mailing them off to newspaper syndications for their consideration. Kirk draws more than 15 original greeting cards annually for friends and family. Kirk’s cartooning process has evolved from pen and ink drawings on Bristol board to an Apple Pencil and Procreate app on an iPad Pro. While there are no longer physical originals, this app provides the platform for diverse drawing styles. Kirk also dabbles in painting with watercolors and acrylic paints. Kirk has supported his cartooning avocation through a variety of jobs and entrepreneurial ventures, including grocery stores, restaurants, pizzerias and his own sub shop, culminating—so far—in a 32-year career as a self-employed tile setter. Some of his former sandwich customers at the USAFA became tile customers and some of those customers are now readers of The Maverick Observer.

1 COMMENT

  1. Great cartoon! The other candidate is a magna cum laude geo-physicist working as a chief engineer for a energy company. Who cares about qualifications? Who cares about honesty? Plagiarism is the new normal.

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