What does a ‘Dingbat’ calendar have to do with independent, ad-free journalism?

In the fall of 2024, BestStory.ca Inc., Canada’s only ad-free, long-form journalism company, created the first ‘Dingbat’ calendar in more than three decades. Why? Two reasons:

1.) When we researched the history of the Dingbat calendars going back more than a century, we uncovered an amazing story of entrepreneurship and artistic talent that transformed those original Dingbat calendars into Canadian cultural icons – produced annually between 1915 and 1993. Such a great success story deserved to be told, and so we did by publishing five articles and two podcasts on our BestStory.ca website. Two ‘lively’ Google AI podcasters review the Dingbat saga

2.) We also fell in love with the idea of creating a new generation of Dingbat characters with a more modern look, but with the same mischievous sense of humour and crazy antics that distinguished the Dingbat characters created by artist Dudley Ward during the first years of the 20th century. Given the flexibility of digital technology, BestStory.ca has brought its Dingbat characters alive by posting weekly comical depictions of them dealing with the essence captured in daily news headlines. View all ‘Dingbat Chuckles’

Summary: Editor Warren Perley has announced that revenue raised through sales of BestStory.ca’s 2026 Dingbat calendars will be used in support of independent, ad-free journalism provided to the public free of charge (in most cases) on BestStory.ca.