Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, November 27, 2010

Often when I’m trying to come up with an idea for a cartoon, I will read online articles on topics I think I might have an opinion about. It’s a good way to become more informed, perhaps add a little insight, and verify I’m on the right track. What I don’t do is scroll to the bottom and read the comments section. Why? Well, it is typically the express lane to Crazytown, and I get enough junk email every day extolling the virtues of, say, financial windfall from dead Nigerian royalty or breast augmentation (or both) to be reminded of Crazytown’s existence.
 
But, um, yeah, sometimes I do look. I’m not sure if it was boredom or morbid curiosity, but this week when I was researching the “Detroit and Flint Dangerous Cities” topic on MLive.com, I did scroll down to see just how bad it could be. Yep, pretty bad. Or at least bad enough that it became the topic I wanted to draw about. The conflict I had, though, was I had already drawn on subject of comment boards about a year and a half ago. (Click here.) I only get one editorial cartoon a week, so I hate to rehash things I’ve already done. But I was pleased to see that comic I had drawn before was, well, not particularly good. In fact, it was more than a bit ham-fisted. So that gave me clearance to try for improvement. And so to make this a proper comment board I want half of you to tell me the comic sucks, and the other half to tell them they suck. Oh… and the third comment, whatever it is, has to include the word “Nazi.”