Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 5, 2007

This comic came out the Monday after we here in West Michigan (and our town of Grandville in particular) were absolutely cur-rushed by an honest-to-God blizzard. Two feet of snow, blowing and drifting, negative temperatures, double-digit negative wind chills. It was nasty, sure. But despite my grousing about the time it took to remove all that snow from off and around the house and the fact that my feet (despite three plus pairs of socks) were perpetually cold, it really wasn’t that bad. In the end, I decided when I wanted to be inside and warm and away from the nastiness.

Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on the other hand — not so blessed. They are not only having to deal with levels of discomfort way, way beyond my drippy nose, but there are also the issues of being away from home, away from family, with an unclear mission, with mixed support, and — oh, yeah — all sorts of people constantly trying to kill them (with appalling success).

Which got me to thinking, what have we, the folks who aren’t in or around the military, done so far to sacrifice for these wars? (Yes, yes — beyond the deficit billions of our children’s tax money that has been spent.) Not much, really. And to be clear, by “sacrifice for the war,” I mean, “sacrifice to avoid war” and not “sacrifice so we can make more war.”

Specifically I’m thinking we need a serious, long-term, energy policy that slows and eventually stops the flow of money to countries and radicals that are funding wars against us. I’m talking about an effort beyond the scale of the one that put a man on the moon. What do we have to do to stop importing foreign oil? Gas taxes? Epic conservation efforts? Rethinking nuclear power? Serious public transportation? More funding for engineering schools? Hey, even if it means wearing four pairs of socks, wouldn’t it be worth the sacrifice?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 29, 2007

Recently Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, did what companies of all flavors do: they announced a reorganization, consolidation, budgetary adjustment, fiscal refinement, monetary re-alignment. In other words, the sacked a whole bunch of people. And among the sackies were 2000 or so workers at a research and development center in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is home to the main University of Michigan campus and as a college town has not had to deal so much with the massive layoffs that other Michigan towns have been experiencing for, oh, the past 25 years.

The news wasn’t shocking. Pfizer has been struggling of late; it will soon lose exclusive patents on some of its biggest money-makers and new products in their pipeline have been failing miserably. Still, when you’re Michigan and you’re doing your level best to transform into a state with professional, high-paying high-tech jobs, losing a significant hunk of scientific research paychecks is, as our Governor Granholm described it, “a punch in the gut.”

So the point of the comic was pretty much just to commiserate with that. Losing your job sucks, and unfortunately it’s a common experience in the modern work world — if not firsthand then at least having felt the whoosh of the swinging ax as it passed you by. You have to move on, of course. And not by trying to pass a law will fix everything because (and I don’t think I’m overusing the adverb here) that never, never, ever, never, ever works. No, I think it’s a dynamic mix of industry, government, and individuals facing the reality and working together on solutions. First step though is to acknowledge that it is, in fact, painful.

Unless, of course, there were a pill you could take. It’s a huge market. Perhaps Pfizer should look into that….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 22, 2007

A year ago, an independent bookstore opened in downtown Grand Rapids, River Bank Books. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago it closed. It was a bummer on several levels. First, you hate to see any bookstore close. Second, you’d like to see stores that aren’t part of mega-chains succeed. Third, things like bookstores make downtowns just that much nicer, and (whether it’s true or not) tend to be perceived as a bellwether of a city’s health.

I did, in fact, patronize the store. I didn’t go there as a destination, but it was nice to pop in while I was down there. I even bought some stuff, though obviously not enough.

So when I found out the news, I wanted to draw a comic about it because, you know, I wanted to call attention to the cause, and maybe help other downtown retailers and just sort of rally, um, support for the….

Okay. Honestly? I did, in fact, have some sympathies here, but my primary motivation for this week’s comic was my right thumbnail. A couple of days before deadline, I got my thumbnail bent back playing basketball. The nail luckily snapped back in place, but it was bruised halfway down and sore as hell. I couldn’t hold a pen without extending the thumb out, which was no good for detailed drawing. So I came up with this comic because it required limited drawing board work; I did most of it on the computer.

The thumb is all better now. So no smarty comments on next week’s comic about not being able to tell by the quality of the drawing….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, January 2007

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 15, 2007

When people say, “That’s not fair” what they generally mean is that “Things didn’t go my way, and I’m not happy about it.” The natural response, then, is to invoke a convenient rule or regulation that seems vaguely objective in hopes of turning things back around their way. When this happens successfully, the first thing out of the mouths of people on the other side of the issue is, you guessed it, “That’s not fair.” And repeat. Just like the final step of shampoo bottle instructions. (Not that I’m terribly familiar with shampoo bottles.)

That’s the theme of this week’s comic. The particulars are kind of esoteric (and, frankly, not very interesting), but in general what happened was that Michigan Governor Granholm vetoed a bill that would have allowed Grand Rapids to do what it wanted to do (fund a sports authority to attract sporting events, like college basketball tournaments, high school state hockey finals, etc.). She did this mostly because Lansing complained that this was unfair. So, veto. Which caused Grand Rapids to complain that this was unfair. And repeat…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 8, 2007

It’s so nice when things line up. You know, when stuff happens the way you would like it to happen even though the truth is that you had absolutely no influence over it happening the way it happened. Know what I mean? No?

All right then, I’ll put it to you this way: Out of any modern American president (and by modern, I mean one who was in office during my life), who would you pick to represent you? Who would you pick as the type of person you would like to be? The type of person you would like your neighbors to be? The type of person who other would say, “There goes a terrific example of what is all about.”?

Who said Nixon? Who said Nixon and wasn’t trying to be funny? Nobody, that’s who. The obvious answer here is Ford, Gerald R. Ford. Okay, sure, there are some isolated reasons to pick somebody else: If Jimmy Carter were your neighbor, he might come over and help you build a deck. That’d be nice. And if you were George W Bush, you’d never have to be bothered with understanding facts ever again. (Of course, if you were Bill Clinton you’d get to understand facts perfectly well, but then convince everybody else that they don’t.)

But on the whole, you’ve got to go with Ford. Decent, bright, honest, athletic, practical, self-depreciating, hard-working, curious, a good husband, a good parent, a good friend. So when the world came to Grand Rapids earlier this month, it was either our good fortune or a blessing (or both) that we got to celebrate his life as one of ours. It was a point of pride to let everybody know he was from West Michigan. One of the good guys was on our team. It’s so nice when things line up.

As for the comic, it’s just my favorite Ford quote. Ford had a particular appreciation for editorial cartoons. Go visit the Ford Museum; you’ll see them all over the exhibits. How can you not love a guy like that?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, December 2006

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 18, 2006

George Heartwell, the mayor of Grand Rapids, is the namesake for Heartwell Mortgage, a local mortgage lender, which is essentially what used to be a savings & loan. George Heartwell, Heartwell Mortgage; George Bailey, Bailey Savings & Loan. So there was my Christmas theme; I just needed to come up with the comic.

Mayor Heartwell is kind of an activist, progressive sort. Now you can take that as a positive or negative, but you could easily say that it’s very George Bailey-ish: You know, he tends to look out for the little guy.

When Michigan’s ballot Proposal 2 passed in November (the ban on taking race or gender into consideration for public jobs or admittance into public colleges), Mayor Heartwell said he was going to fight it. He then got all sorts of nasty-grams telling him that he did not understand that we live in a democracy, that the majority rule, the majority has spoken, and that was the end of the story for ever and ever.

That’s all wrong, of course. We live in a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Look it up. And the system is both awesome and annoying in that you can challenge what you think is wrong even if a majority had decided it. Case in point, Proposal 2 overturned a majority decision of the United State Supreme Court to allow the race and gender consideration.

I think the real issue with what Mayor Heartwell did was to propose using Grand Rapids city money to fight the decision. For a typically cash-strapped city, spending taxpayer money on lawyers just doesn’t seem like a great idea.

No clever wrap-up. Just this final thought: If I were rich like Mr. Potter, I would get a toady to push me around in a wheelchair. Not all the time. Just once in a while. Because, honestly, who doesn’t want their very own toady?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 11, 2006

As a 16 year-old I went to see “Animal House” with my friends at a drive-in theater. I was underage for an R-rated movie but my parents had given their reluctant consent. (A belated thanks, Mom & Dad! Yeah, there were some things there that I probably should not have seen; but then again, nothing any worse than what I saw on Saginaw Street on the morning school bus ride through Flint.)

But seeing “Animal House” was educational in that it sold me on the idea of never joining a fraternity. Mostly it was the pledging concept. Why would I take abuse from guys I don’t even know so that I could earn the right to hang out with them? Then what happens if it turns out they are all jerks? It just seemed like a counter-intuitive way to make friends.

Much in the same way, Cabela’s (a retailer of hunting, fishing, camping, outdoorsy stuff) has proposed building a local store in a counter-intuitive way: Give us $15 million or we’ll look elsewhere. Now, to be fair, a Cabela’s is more than just a store. It’s something of a theme park for outdoor sports enthusiasts. They currently have a store in southeast Michigan that attracts millions of visitors a year. But as more of these Cabela’s get built, they are sure to become less and less special. Hunting and fishing are extremely popular in Michigan, but with increased urbanization they are definitely not growth industries. And what about the current outdoor sports stores that would likely be driven out of business?

So as a Michigan taxpayer, I’m thinkin’, “Why do I need to take this abuse to make a retailing friend?” And for $15 million, at the very least I’d expect a decent toga party….

A very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year from me and my family:
http://auchtoon.2gtech.com/comics/xmas/2006/