If you are a longtime reader, you will notice something quite different?—a photo in the Editor's Comment. We have never done this before and will, probably, never do it again. This time we had to. We couldn't keep silent any longer. Here's why:

Several years ago, we reserved one of our back pages for Merde of the Month, a page devoted to bad tattoos. Really bad tattoos. Our very first one, if memory serves me right, was a U.S.D.A. Inspected tattoo on a leg of lamb. This was both to kick off the concept and to clearly demonstrate we had a sense of humor about the whole thing. We were convinced that photos of bad work would flood in from all the great tattoo artists possessing a similar sense of humor about turning out a bad tattoo sometime in their lives. No such luck. The response was nil.

To keep the page alive, Pote Seyler (who thought up the idea in the first place) submitted a simply horrible tattoo of a twisted wire thingy with a couple of faded leaves and an attempt at shadowing. But even with Pote showing the way, the mailbox was empty. No takers.

The third entry was a tattoo of the Rolling Stone's lips and tongue logo from Danny Dringenberg. Danny's tattoo was actually quite good, but the fact that a customer wanted it square in the middle of his forehead was what won it a spot on the page. After one more installment featuring an insipid snake-bite tattoo with badly drawn blood dripping down (my cat could tattoo better), we realized that the world's best artists wouldn't get down off their perches for even two seconds, admit they might have inked an imperfect tattoo and drop their inflated egos long enough to play with us. In short, we canned the whole idea and, next issue, debuted Tattoo Artists & Their Rides, which ran for several, enthusiastic years.

Well, I can't stand it any longer. In fact, I'm thinking seriously of bringing back Merde of the Month and, this time, not ask for volunteers. Yes, we gratefully receive lots and lots of wonderful submissions to the Reader's Gallery, and the very best get printed. What you never see are the ones that don't make the cut—the absolute botch-ups and kindergarten artwork. So, from this day hence, when we stumble upon some deliciously awful tattoo that should, in most civilized countries, win the perpetrator a trip to the firing squad, we will print it for all to see. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to the person who did it, their victims, their bosses and the shops they work in. Yes, Sparky, it's time to get real, get ethical, get smart and get that dude to McDonalds. There's a whole lot o' burgers that need a-flippin'.

Bob Baxter
Editor in Chief