Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 9, 2012

I grew up in Flint. And one of the benefits of growing up in Flint (and stop snickering — there were many. If you aren’t from Flint, you just don’t know) is having a special insight on these right-to-work shenanigans. I’ve seen unions from the inside. I’ve experienced the good and the bad. I grew up in stable neighborhoods where hard-working folks earned a good wage and passed it forward to their children. I supervised in a foundry where a hopelessly bored worker made a cat and mouse game out of hiding from me at every opportunity — sometimes successfully for entire shifts for which he was paid. I heard my Dad tell stories about how it struck him that there were so many less missing eyes and fingers in Michigan factories than there were in the South Carolina factories he had previously made sales calls in. Or my brother-in-law working at the City of Flint and how oblivious the Firefighter union was to the fact that the tax base had totally eroded and there would have to be concessions.

But you know what? These are just like the enormous positives and squandered opportunities of any human institution — government, Wall Street, churches, newspapers, Detroit Lions. When humans are involved, really incredible and really stupid things can happen.

So as the cartoon suggests, I think this right-to-work law is nothing more than a deeply cynical power grab by the GOP. But the Democrats would do well to acknowledge that this is 2012, not 1972, and it’s time to stop looking at unions and labor purely as a revenue source. What was the word they were using all year? Oh yeah, forward.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
December 2, 2012

This was a fairly easy one to come up with. For as much change and contraction the American auto industry has gone through since the salad days (post-World War II to the 1970s), Michigan is still very much intertwined. I myself — after having gone most of my working career with only tangential work in the auto industry — am now employed by an auto supplier. My brother who lives in Michigan is an auto executive. And I have three Michigan brother-in-laws and a niece who are in the biz. It is generally a happy thing when folks are buying cars; it’s unnerving when they don’t. So if you’re still stuck for what to get that special someone this holiday season, remember that a new automobile always makes a thoughtful gift. Michigan would very much appreciate it!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
November 25, 2012

In 2004, 59% of Michigan voters passed an amendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage. Similar to the ballot proposals this year, I thought amending the constitution for this was a bad idea, and I drew some cartoons to that point. Some readers contacted me to tell me I was wrong. Most cited natural law and procreation and the history of marriage (at least as far as their recent memory) and an implied discomfort with two men kissing. But the closer argument for all was this: “This is what the people want. The majority rule. That’s how democracies work, you know. Too bad for you.”

Eight years later, a Michigan State University study shows that 56% of Michigan voters now support gay marriage. This seems entirely plausible considering Maine, Maryland, and Washington state all passed popular vote measures to legalize gay marriage, and Minnesota turned down a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Soooo… do the people still decide?

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
November 18, 2012

When you’re good — when you’re really, really good — you get away with stuff. You can do things, and people say, “Oh, well, that’s so-and-so. He’s really good. Exceptional. Has a deeper understanding of things. Knows more than the rest of us. Just better, I guess.” And they can push that envelope just as far as they want.

So in 1979, the really, really good cartoonist Pat Oliphant drew the following cartoon, which was printed in family newspapers:

That’s Jimmy Carter speaking as the ant. And that’s Ted Kennedy as the grasshopper. As a teenage boy, I was obviously impressed with both the cussing and the scantily clad female. But as a budding cartoonist teenage boy, I was more impressed with how — by using the cussing and scantily clad female in context and with wit — Oliphant took a decent analogy to an Aesop Fable and made it absolutely hilarious. (The born-again President Carter would never say that! But that’s just how much Kennedy frustrated him!)

I remembered this cartoon as I was drawing my cartoon. I wanted the sign in panel 3 to read, “Fix the goddam roads!” I’m no fan of gratuitous cursing (as if any curse word truly has any shock value any more). And I understand and endorse the 4th commandment. But in a cartoon, funny is funny, and funny wins. Still, I knew that “goddam” wouldn’t get printed so I made my case for a simple “damn.” (It’ s unlikely anybody would write swearing gibberish instead of an actual curse on a placard.) But understandably (alas), my editor opted for the gibberish. I still aspire to someday be Pat Oliphant….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
November 11, 2012

Some consider it bad form to draw yourself into your own editorial cartoons. But for this idea I needed a character to represent the sometimes maddening inconsistencies of the American public and — Hey! That’s me!

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
November 4, 2012

One of the funniest things I saw this election season was a tweet from the actor/writer Albert Brooks in answering the “who would you rather have a beer with?” question:

Well, I’d rather have a beer with Mitt Romney because he doesn’t drink and I could have both of them.

Brilliant. That would be my answer (if I had thought of it first). It’d be a better way of saying, “Ya know, I’m not really crazy about Romney.” Why? Well, putting his actual platform aside (which is what a lot of us Americans do), I don’t like him for the very same reason I never much liked Bill Clinton back in the 90’s — he seems a professional office seeker willing to do or say anything to achieve the next elected level. (To be honest, their well-coiffed full heads of hair may also adversely affect my bald man sensibilities.)

Even so, I really wasn’t looking to unload on him the Sunday before election. I had a couple of other ideas that were presidential-candidate-neutral. (I address Michigan-centric issues, so most ideas don’t involve presidential candidates.) Then last week, Governor Romney made his bizarre automobile-industry statements while campaigning in Ohio. And even after it was clear to all that what he said was either totally false or at the very least extremely misleading, his campaign just seemed to double-down on them. I couldn’t let that go.

That said, please go out and vote tomorrow! Read as much as you can read; know as much as you can know. And if you can help it, keep your feelings about personalities out of it. I won’t presume to tell you how you should vote.

…unless you live in Michigan, then vote NO on Proposal 6. Seriously.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 28, 2012

Yeah, I don’t know. I had higher hopes for this cartoon. There were two thoughts that amused me. The first was about the proposals. Here I am a Michigan editorial cartoonist who is supposed to know stuff about this stuff, and I have a hard time remembering which one is which. (This is, by the way, exactly the reason why ballot proposals amending the state constitution are a bad idea. Who can fully grasp the full intentions of these things, let alone the potential consequences?)

The other thing that struck me funny was the idea of voters with this vague notion of Pete Hoekstra — sort of like, “it must be time to vote because there’s that Pete Hoekstra guy again and he seems to be running for something.” I could try to explain to you why I think that’s funny, but then it wouldn’t be funny.

After that, I was just casting about for additional thoughts. The obvious one last Thursday when I was drawing this was that Michiganders would be totally pre-occupied with the Tigers and the World Series. But by the time the cartoon hit the newspapers Sunday, the Tigers were swept. *Sigh* Maybe that’s why I don’t have any particular enthusiasm for the cartoon anymore. Summer is now totally over and we only have elections to look forward to….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 21, 2012

Four years ago, the McCain campaign pulled out of Michigan in October, ceding the state to Obama. Sara Palin rather famously and publically disagreed with the decision and wanted to fight on. The so-called mainstream media in Michigan never loved her more at that moment. But alas it was not to be. Without a designation as a battleground state, millions of media dollars were not spent here. Most were spent in Ohio.

Fast-forward to 2012. Back in September pollsters figured Michigan to be leaning Obama and again those ad dollars never made it north of Toledo. Luckily for our election economy, we have six ballot proposals of dubious merit for many special interest groups and one billionaire robber-baron to throw money at. And, boy, have they!

So my idea with this week’s comic was simply to tie this together. Since apparently the end always justifies the means when it comes to amending our state constitution, why not guarantee ourselves a piece of the presidential campaign money? Not any more crazy than, say, Proposal 6.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 14, 2012

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was 10 years-old, I got to meet Vincent Price. My folks took us to see a production of “Damn Yankees” at the Start Theater in Flint. (Damn Yankees is a musical about a regular guy, Joe, and a fan of the Washington Senators, a baseball team that always loses to the New York Yankees. He makes a deal with the devil to become the Senators’ star player and lead his team to beat the Yankees. Price, of course, played the part of the devil.)

After the show, we waited in a line for autographs. When we got to Price, I made some mention of his devils tail, something like, “How is your tail?” (A running gag in the show was the devil trying to conceal his tail and it getting injured.) What I said was not memorable and certainly not witty, but Price did give me a professional chuckle and made eye contact with me. I remember thinking two things: “This is incredibly wonderful — I made Vincent Price chuckle” and “That man is impossibly old.”

I was thinking about the tail in particular when I was drawing Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun in the second panel. If you have been unfortunate enough to experience a “Vote Yes for Prop 5/Prop 6” ad (and if you lived in Michigan the past few months, you definitely have), you know the deals Moroun is spending millions to make with you. It’s sickening really to the point of comical (and then back to sickening again). I wanted to add something to let readers know that I think Moroun is playing the role of Mephistopheles here — trying to trick voters into very bad decisions. But I wanted to be subtle, and the tail seemed like a good solution. So take heed Michigan voters! Or in the coming weeks I may have to add the horns, pitchfork, and cape.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
October 7, 2012

ArtPrize, the world’s largest art competition, took place in Grand Rapids over the past few weeks. Winners were announced last Friday with over $560,000 in prize money awarded. This was the fourth year for ArtPrize, and it was amazingly successful. The big prizes are determined on a public vote — people come downtown and cast votes on what they like. No ads. No campaigning. Very democratic and — especially in an election year — kind of refreshing.

I myself didn’t actually make it to ArtPrize this year. On the beautiful weekends when strolling the streets of downtown Grand Rapids was at its prime, I was laboring on my own sort of art project at home — putting a new roof on my shed. In the many moments when I was adapting my plans (and making yet another trip to the hardware store), I thought about how this thing would make, like, the worst ArtPrize entry ever. As with most large, publically viewable art installation, its purpose and worth is subject to opinion. It’s either a ghastly but marginally functional architectural solution or some sort of God-awful plastic/treated lumber prophylactic or an unwittingly efficient pre-made home for wasps, hornets, and other very angry buzzy things. Or all of these things. Don’t worry. I have no way of transporting it, so you are all safe to go to ArtPrize next year.