What does one experience when standing in an enormous conference room at the National Press Club inundated with national and international cartoons along with the personal appearance of their creators? Sheer hypoethesia!

That sums up the adventure Gina and Lynn Marie Hilleary, freelance cartoonists and originators of The Eccentric's "Giovanni", enjoyed while attending the "2004 Cartoons & Cocktails."

This annual celebrity auction is held to benefit "Young D.C." which offers teenagers in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area training opportunities to become tomorrow's journalists. The auction also supports National Press Club Scholarships and the Cartoonists Rights Network, which is an international organization "devoted to helping editorial cartoonists who face censorship, imprisonment, intimidation or even death for their commentary".

The guest list was quite extensive and extremely impressive, with artists such as Matt Davies, editorial cartoonist of The Journal News, Tom Toles of The Washington Post, Mort Walker ("Beetle Bailey"), Lynn Johnston ("For Better or For Worse") and Garry Trudeau ("Doonesbury"), to highlight a few of the facete farceurs. Cartoonists submit original hand-drawn strips for silent and live auction.

"Being invited was truly an honor," says Lynn Marie., "Actually meeting the cartoonists was quite euphoric."

The two sisters donated four "Giovanni" strips and are pleased to announce that all were quickly snapped up by bidders. Gina and Lynn Marie look forward to attending the gala next autumn as they plan to auction panels from their second cartoon series, "Onesies".