SIDE STREETS: Herpin dancing in underwear? Paige smoking pot? It's all on YouTube!

Want to take a bus ride with City Councilwoman Jan Martin? Want to see Councilman Sean Paige getting high or Bernie Herpin dancing in his underwear? Check out PikesPeakOcean channel on YouTube.

Actually, only Martin appears in human form. The images of Paige and Herpin are cartoons created by Ed Billings, 40, a longtime Springs resident frustrated by recent Council actions and looking for an outlet to voice his feelings.

Similar unsophisticated, computer-generated cartoons appear on YouTube’s JCP1801 channel, created by Springs native Dan Robertson, who now lives in Lincoln, Neb.

Together, Billings, Robertson and an anonymous YouTuber known as “cossipgirl,” are slowly attracting an audience to their video commentaries.

“We are the 21st century equivalent of the op-ed cartoonist,” Robertson said.

Unlike traditional newspaper columnists and cartoonists, the YouTubers stray into crude, sometimes outrageous and potentially offensive territory as they lampoon public officials.

See links on my blog.

“I’m saying: ‘This is what’s wrong with Colorado Springs’,” Billings said of the 159 cartoons and videos he has produced. He even mixes the two media — splicing television news reports together with his cartoon characters.

Billings was inspired last November when the Council began making drastic budget cuts to avert a shortfall. At first, he simply took his camcorder to City Council meetings and posted the videos on YouTube.

“I wanted people to see what was going on,” Billings said. “Mayor Lionel Rivera sat there with a mean look on his face saying: ‘We don’t have any money.’ People needed to see it.”

Then he discovered Xtranormal.com and its tool for making cartoons. Soon, Billings was cranking out 2-minute episodes of officials and their decision-making. Several have received hundreds of views.

His cartoons inspired Robertson and today they collaborate on their work.

Some of their political satire is over-the-top, such as a cartoon depicting Rivera in a Nazi uniform. Billings said he was upset over treatment of the homeless and their creekside encampments.

Herpin clearly was perturbed by the cartoons and sent Billings a snippy e-mail suggesting Billings get involved in solutions instead of sitting in his mother’s basement in his underwear.

That led to cartoons showing Herpin eating pot-laced brownies from Paige and dancing in his briefs.

Now he is going after anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce.

Paige laughed at his depiction and said the cartoons don’t go far enough.

“It’s an interesting way for people to express themselves,” Paige said. “They are homegrown. That’s what new media is about. Homegrown expression. I’d say he doesn’t have enough fun with council. There’s plenty to lampoon in how this council operates.”

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See photos and lins on my blog at
 gazette.com/blogs/sidestreets