Auchtoon!

 Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 21, 2007

I’m pretty sure this is the only editorial comic in the last week that made a rhyme with “Mephistopheles.” Proud moments…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 14, 2007

I went to Michigan Tech, so the whole University of Michigan vs. Michigan State rivalry is a bit lost on me. I mean, when you live in Michigan you can’t help to be aware of blue versus green, but I don’t feel it, ya know? Michigan Tech is a smaller school and the only sport we play against U of M and State is hockey, but we’re not even in the same conference. There is the annual holiday tournament played at Joe Louis in Detroit where Tech plays those two plus another school that gets rotated in. We nearly always get spanked and spanked bad. So there’s some resentment, but nothing stronger than that.

The closest thing we had was with Northern Michigan University. Northern is a public college in the UP, Marquette, which is 99 miles from Houghton (Tech). Northern was/is kind of a general college college — basic degrees, nothing that it’s particularly known for. Tech was/is a smarty pants engineering school. Animosity was pretty low level, but I did my best to agitate. When I was cartoonist for the school newspaper, I drew a comic where an engineering student at Tech was attempting to interface a Tech student directly with a computer. Unfortunately, the experiment went wrong and the student lost most of his brain function. The instructor was horrified, “Is he all right?” The engineering student wasn’t bothered, “Oh he’s fine — he transferringto Northern.”

It turns out that editorial cartoonists aren’t necessarily just a bunch of self-absorbed fountains of curmudgeonly cynicism, we are actually trying to have a positive influence on the world, too. Right, still a long way from sainthood, but the “Cartoons for the Classroom” project is definitely a step in the right direction.

You can read more about the program here. If you’d like to help, you can go to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists home page and click this button:

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 7, 2007

I read a letter to the editor in the local paper — this guy was reflecting on the latest round of budget cuts before the city of Grand Rapids. His point was something to the effect of “well I guess they’ll just have to dip into the rainy day fund.” Good idea, except that it has been a pretty steady downpour here in Michigan for past six years….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 30, 2007

At least I hope Alberto Gonzales is lying. I hope he’s just a loyal servant who happened to get the short end of the latest Bush Administration executive-power-play-gone-wrong, and he’s simply taking one for the team. “Say hi to Scooter Libby in hell, Al!” Oh how Cheney and Rove love to laugh and play!

I hope the Attorney General is being purposely effusive, giving out minor details in measured inconsistencies and covering the major ones in thick clay layers of “I don’t recalls.” This could be useful in the next administration — when the first husband gets caught in an illicit tryst instead of “I never had sex with that woman!” he could go with “I don’t recall having sex with that woman.” Denies truth, leaves wiggle room, and insults that foul temptress who should have known better. Nice.

Yes, I certainly hope Mr. Gonzales is a big, fat liar-face because if he isn’t, well, if he isn’t that would mean that he really is an extraordinarily incompetent administrator, he really is (after practicing for weeks) incapable of articulating his own motivations and policies, he really is the leader of our nation’s legal community, which would consider him a fool. (At least liars, I’m told, are held in a somewhat higher regard.)

But what I hope for most of all, what I would really, really loved to see is for the Pistons and the Red Wings to win their championships this year! (And I bet Mr. Gonzales’s wish is for everybody to be as easily distracted as I am.)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 23, 2007

Generally when somebody says, “it’s not fair!” what they really mean is “whatever just transpired did not meet my expectations, fell short of my ideals, and generally turned out counter to how I would have liked it to have turned out. I was wronged somehow and don’t have the words or the interest at the moment to identify the actual issue for a sensible discussion. Or maybe I saw a truth that I didn’t want to see and I’m trying to deflect attention. In any case, as a self-proclaimed arbiter of fairness, I am now free to become argumentative and draw sweeping, illogical analogies and dare you to defy them. I have claimed the high ground. I am right; you are wrong. I am rubber; you are glue — whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

At least, that’s typically what I mean when I say it.

Was that too wordy?….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, April 2007

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 16, 2007

Sometimes when I’m drawing these things I think, “well this is very obvious. I won’t have to explain this in the blog.” This, this is not one of those comics.

Nestle, you guys know Nestle, right? “It thick and rich and chocolate. But you can’t drink it slow, ’cause it’s Quik!” The friendly little hyper Nesquik bunny who helps you mix chocolate powder into your milk then bogarts the whole glass in less than a second? Good times. Anyway, the truth is Nestle is a big ol’ multinational food manufacturer based in Switzerland, and they have two big gigs going on in Michigan.

The first is bottled water. Nestle’s Ice Mountain subsidiary pumps large quantities of ground water out of mid-lower Michigan and sells it to the thirsty masses (us). Not a bad thing, but some claim that Nestle is not so careful about the effects of all this water extraction. To wit, lakes and ponds near the pumping sites becoming markedly lower. Now Michigan is somewhat sensitive about our water. It’s one of the few advantages we have any more, and we cast a suspicious eye upon the states and nations with growing economies and limited water resources. Which is to say, everybody else. So the state has aggravated Nestle at intervals with giving them rules to follow, telling them to follow the rules, checking to see if they are in fact following the rules — annoying stuff like that.

And now, second, Nestle is acquiring Gerber Foods, which lives in Fremont, Michigan. Actually, Nestle acquired Gerber from another Swiss company, and Gerber US headquarters has been in New Jersey for some time. But a sprawling plant and deep, deep ties remain in its birthplace of Fremont.

So the thought occurred to me that if Nestle wanted to be really nasty, they could “consolidate” Gerber operations outside of Michigan or at least threaten to do so. I don’t think this will happen, but it’s a good piece of fear-mongering and that makes for a fine editorial cartoon. And who knows, if I keep scaring people and filling them with a sense of dread for what might happen, maybe Rudy Giuliani will sign me up to help with his presidential campaign. (I’m sure everybody got that, and I don’t need to explain….) 

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, April 9, 2007

The state legislator in Lansing was putting together an “anti-bullying” bill for schools a couple of weeks ago. One of those things where I think hearts were in the right place, but minds… maybe not. It’s just difficult to enforce, and it adds more paperwork and more potential bureaucracy to already overworked educators.

It got me to thinking that the legislators were playing a bit of a bullying role. So I went with pretty much the first thing that hit my mind, and it turned into an okay comic. It looks nice. It’s very readable. Nice and short.

But, alas, just as I was literally putting the last ink down, I thought of a much better idea. It would have had legislator-looking people (men and women) in their suits and briefcases beating the crap out of city and county government people, saying stuff like, “I balanced my budget, you make the cuts, bitch!” and “You take the paperwork, I’ll take your lunch money, dork!” Lansing Bullies.

I hate it when that happens….

Check this out: “Auchtoon!” appeared last week in the syndicated comic strip Frazz by Jef Mallett. The t-shirt of Frazz is an ever-changing aside, a fun visual easter egg. Jef, as an artist of considerable wit and artistic skill, does this because, well, he can. Brilliant!

And, yes, I did double-check with Jef to make sure I wasn’t just seeing only what I wanted to see — you know, taking my own John McCain Baghdad walking tour. See for yourselves! Then do yourself a favor and click the comics to go to the Comics.com site and read more Frazz!