Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 26, 2009

Did you ever have a coach who wasn’t a very good coach? I mean, whether you liked the person or didn’t like the person, he/she was simply not a good coach. Turns out, to be a good coach you really need two things: First, you need to get yourself the position. Second, you need to coach well. Alas, some people are only good at the first part.

I had a basketball coach in 10th grade like that. One game I was playing point guard and the other team (Flint Beecher) was playing a 1-3-1 zone. Well our offense had a point, two wings, a high post, and a low post. For those of you who don’t understand or want to understand basketball terminology (and let me just say that I cannot possibly understand why you wouldn’t), what this means is that our offensive players lined up right next to their defensive players. It was as the coach said, “Get as close as possible to a player on the other team. Wherever he moves, you move with him. This will make it almost impossible for us to find an open shot let alone score points.” So as point, I would dribble the ball down court and have nobody to pass to. Coach would yell at me. Nothing helpful. Just stuff like “pass it!” Sort of like soccer parents who scream for their kids to “kick the ball in the goal.” As if the thought had never occurred to kid.

I got pulled out and while on the bench I made the helpful suggestion of maybe running two guards up top and sending the forwards down to the baselines. Translation: Let’s not stand right next to the defense. He didn’t put me back in at point guard for the rest of the game.

So it goes with our Michigan “coaches.” Governor Granholm has done a dandy job of getting elected, but she has pretty much loused up the actual governing bit, especially when it has come to budgets. Now in some defense, Michigan has been in decline for her entire seven years, so it’s not like it was an easy job. But at some point, I would have hoped she would show some leadership, acknowledge that Michigan finances have to undergo a fundamental shift to adjust to new realities, and make bold, potentially unpopular but necessary decisions. Not even close. Mike Bishop is the leader of the Senate. You could give him points for cleverly sticking to the Republican dogma of never, ever considering different revenue sources, even for the long-term benefit of the state. But that’d be like complementing him on sticking to an offense with a single point guard no matter what, even if the other team is in a 1-3-1 zone. And I believe you know how I feel about that.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 19, 2009

Back in the day (when we didn’t use trite expressions like “back in the day”), one of the three television stations we got would show old Abbott & Costello movies on Sunday mornings. And back then Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Burton, Michigan had like 27 masses on the weekend to choose from. I tell you this to assure you that we never skipped our holy obligations to take in an old movie — we had lots of church options but very few programming choices. I only missed mass for good reasons like when my parents had a party the night before and I drank for the sludgy coffee our of the industrial percolator left in the kitchen, which made my head spin and my body convulse until I threw up. Good times.

But there were only so many Abbott & Costello movies so the chances of seeing the one with the “Who’s on First” bit was pretty good. I remember watching with my Dad and convulsing again, this time from laughter and no throwing up. It was clever and funny and you could pick it apart line by line to see where they were talking across each other. A little while ago Atticus pulled it up on YouTube, and we had the same experience. So it was fresh in my mind when I was coming up with this week’s comic. The absurdity of the routine dovetailed nicely with all the endless talk in Michigan about the need for an educated workforce, but no real plan for getting one. Remember the fella who plays shortstop? I just hope our routine doesn’t play out to that point.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 12, 2009

Ah! Michigan in the fall. Well at least the leaf colors are nice….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, October 5, 2009

Sometimes the comic I end up drawing isn’t the one I wanted to draw. I wish I could blame this on somebody — my editor, my parents, the Man. But the truth is, it’s me: there are times I simply can’t come up with a suitable idea for the topic I’m feeling particularly passionate about. I imagine it’s something like a songwriter wanting to pen a love song for his soul mate, but instead of, say, The Beatles “I Will” or Ben Folds “The Luckiest” he keeps ending up with “Macarthur Park.” (Now just try to get that train wreck of a song out of your head for the rest of the day.)
 
What I really wanted to draw about this week was a quote I read in a Newsweek excerpt from T.R. Reid’s new book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. It was a fascinating article (and I’m hoping a fascinating book). The basic premise is that a country ends up with the heath care system that reflects the character of the country. So for example, Canadians make no excuses for having to wait a long time for nonemergency care. That’s how they limit costs. And they don’t mind so long as the rich and poor have to wait the same period. Canadians are thrifty and egalitarian (and care mostly about just staying warm). In Germany, health insurance (private, by the way there is no “public option” in Germany but care is universal) will pay for a week at a spa to deal with stress. The British think that’s incredibly stupid and do not pay for it. (Stiff upper lip, the Brits.)

We Americans, of course, have a higgledy-piggledy system where we all think that (because we are smarter than everybody else) we can end up ahead. Everybody thinks this. But everybody can’t end up ahead. There are extreme winners and extreme losers. There are clever advantages to this and cruel efficiencies. Let’s not judge. After all, it very much reflects our American character. (And the same approach has really worked out swell for our financial system, right?!) Ahem. Anyway, the quote that I got stuck on was this:

“The United States is the only developed country where medical bankruptcies can happen.”

Think about that. The only country in the developed world where surviving cancer can and does ruin people. By quitting a job to take care of a loved one or choosing an uncovered procedure or making unlucky decisions on insurance coverage, you can beat the cancer (or not) and then get to foreclose and start over. That doesn’t seem to me to fit with our American character. At least, it shouldn’t.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 28, 2009

Is it October already? Time again here in Michigan for our annual state budget shannanigans….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 21, 2009

I wish I had more time to write about ArtPrize, because I’ve really enjoyed it so far. For those of you in and around West Michigan, it would be hard for you not to know about it. For those outside, here’s a quick primer:

ArtPrize is an international art competition, being held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The exhibition will be from September 23 to October 10, 2009. ArtPrize is unusual both for the size of the top prize ($250,000, combined with other prizes cummulatively amounting to half a million dollars), as well as for the method of judging entries. There is no juror. The artists negotiate a venue with local exhibitors, and the works will be voted on by the public using modern networking technology.

And really, it’s not much more than that, which to me is the charm. Some works have exceeded expectations, some have confounded, some have thrilled, some have puzzled, some have offended, some have inspired, some have, well, you get the idea. And that’s what the cartoon was trying to convey — there has been a wide range of reactions (maybe even to the same piece of art). But the point is that people are moving through the streets of Grand Rapids and having reactions.

Hmmm… That all sounded a little too artsy, didn’t it? How about this instead: When Jane and I visited Wednesday, I saw an enormous table and chairs that has been plunked on top of a bridge, people constantly walking into other people’s camera shots (really funny when it’s not happening to you), pictures of naked painted ladies, plus we got a free beer. AND I successfully parallel parked (on the first attempt) in a free, on-street spot. There. That sounds more like a good time, right?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 14, 2009

I kind of make it seem like this actually happened. To the best of my knowledge, it didn’t. But it could have. And “could have” is all you need in the cartooning world. (Have you noticed that the world is becoming more and more cartoonish every day?)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, September 7, 2009

Actually, the first metaphor that came to mind for this didn’t involve vampires. Rather, I thought of moles that occasionally attack my yard. Well, “attack” is perhaps needlessly inflammatory — I guess it’s really more of a herd migration. A slow, underground herd migration. Not very majestic, but let’s move on.

When the moles show up, there was a time I would try to battle them off with traps, poison pellets, castor oil, and occasional curses. I fought the good fight and had some minor victories, but — being unwilling resort to intense chemical warfare, the moles generally ate what they came to ate and then left. Now that’s how it goes. When the moles get tired, they leave. And we have so many dang trees, my yard has limited areas of mole-preferred feeding grounds so they aren’t around for long. But, that said,  it’s much easier to think of the recession in terms of vampires than moles (and much more fun to draw), so that’s the way I went.

Slightly off-topic, but still comics related. I read a blog called The Comics Curmudgeon. The blogger (bloggist?) is a guy name Josh Fruhlinger and the idea is that he reads newspaper cartoons so you don’t have to and explains what’s going on. Generally these are the older serial strips like Mary Worth, Apartment 3G, Mark Trail, etc. But he also opines on “funny” strips. And by “funny,” I mean “funny” (the quotation marks with the full intent of indicating the word has the opposite meaning). This is of course a recipe for the sort of snarky, tedious blog that drains the soul. But Josh is an excellent writer and actually pulls it off quite well.

The reason I tell you this is because I was another bout of “why in God’s name are there so many crappy comic strips still cluttering the newspaper pages when there are clearly infinitely better ones available (Frazz, Speed Bump, Pearl Before Swine, Cul de Sac, to name a few) to replace them?” Today’s entry — and the particular comic strips he chose — seemed to illustrate my thoughts.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 31, 2009

The easiest crowd-pleasing editorial cartoon to draw is the one with a sketch of something horrible or stupid, then slap a “government” label on it. Yes! Stupid, horrible government! Always messing up EVERYTHING!!! Government dumb-heads! We mock you because you are stupid and horrible all of the time!!!

Which is fine for editorial cartoonists. We’re under deadlines, and we really can’t be expected to think up new ideas all the time, can we? But, you… you not-editorial cartoonists! When you default to an “all government is bad” diatribe, well, that’s just being intellectually lazy.

And while I would love to spend a couple paragraphs taking you to task, I have some work to do so I can pay all of my money in taxes to the stupid, horrible government! But I leave you with this classic from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, “What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?”

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, August 24, 2009

Mr. Fitzthrower is a surly toe-cramp of a man who figured out the answer to everything 30 years ago and is just aching for somebody to express a view remotely to the contrary so he can unleash the pack of nonsensical expletives he kennels in his soul. Ms. Pantybunches is a rigid scanning-electron-microscope of a woman whose senses are entirely narrowed to detect that which she might take offense for the sole purpose of delivering her case for said offense in such excruciating detail that your internal organs race to escape through your ear canals. They meet, fall in love, and wacky hijinks ensue.

Anyway, that’s my idea for the next great American sitcom. What’s yours?