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
September 9, 2012

There are few emotions that rival the intensity of the hatred car owners can carry for manufacturers who sold them a lemon. And let’s face it, automobile manufacturers built a lot of lemons over the years. So I can understand lingering animosity toward General Motors and the 2008/9 bailout. They screwed up. They built some lousy cars. They made a lot of people angry. (At one point, General Motors controlled 50% of the American market, so there is a pretty good chance you are one of those people.) But I do think the bailout was the right thing to save our whole manufacturing sector from sucking down a sinkhole, and it has on the whole helped revitalize the auto industry here in the US. (It does, however, make me wince when the Democrats trumpet the success. Don’t they realize how volatile the automobile market is? Don’t they realize how quickly fortunes change? Toyota anyone? They are just asking for a karma smackdown, and we don’t need that in Michigan.)

Speaking of karma, I really shouldn’t disparage the mighty Vega without this full disclosure: on Spring Break of my senior year of high school, my friend Dominic’s Vega took me, him, and friends Lewis and Joe from Michigan to Pennsylvania to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and back home without any problems. I remember it not being too happy climbing mountains and my head still has dents from hitting the stylish hatchback roofline on every bump, but credit where credit is due. It may have turned into a pile of dust once it reached Dominic’s driveway, but it got the job done.

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

Ballot proposals are not my favorite. Under the guise of “let the people decide,” they are almost always an end-run around the actual legislative process (you know, the system where laws are supposed to come from). This November, we have potential for several stinkers, pretty much all led by moneyed self-interest groups trying to make laws and alter the constitution to meet their very narrow view of what Michigan should be. So this cartoon is my solution. (Actually, my other suggestion is to vote on making the day after Labor Day “Not Quite Ready for School to Start Day.” Everybody would get the day off, but you would have to play outside.)

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 26, 2012

As an editorial cartoonist, I really can’t wait to see what’s next for the GOP as we run up to the November election!…

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 19, 2012

I managed to pack a lot of issues into a single editorial cartoon this week. It’s really more editorial than cartoon, now that I look at it. If you want to know more about it:

• Michigan Radio did a five part series on the bridge issue: http://michiganradio.org/post/bridging-border-do-we-need-new-bridge-part-1
• Here’s an MLive story on the Keystone oil pipeline: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/upton_gas_event.htmll
• Here’s a Detroit Free Press graphic about past difficulties with the Morouns (owners of the Ambassador Bridge): http://www.freep.com/article/20120112/NEWS01/120112049/Interactive-graphic-What-MDOT-wanted-versus-what-Moroun-built

But really the two important takeaways here are: The cartoon is probably clever (assuming you’ve read all that other stuff), and the one guy in the second panel has a really big nose, which is funny.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
August 12, 2012

So it’s very likely this November there will be a ballot proposal in Michigan to decide whether to allow more casinos to be built. I honestly can’t imagine a bigger waste of our collective time, money, and focus than deciding whether to build more casinos.

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

I have put serious pressure on myself to remember to vote in the primary today….

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 29, 2012

Every once in a while, some people in power (politicians, business people, labor leaders, whatever) will do something so stunningly and audaciously stupid that I have a difficult time adding anything to it with an editorial cartoon. The Bolger/Schmidt party swap fiasco was one such case. I’m pretty happy with what I eventually came up with here, but they made me work.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 22, 2012

Once when I was in college, I had a professor (George Meese) invite me to some sort of academic paper-review function. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think the point was a paper that a professor had written. Other professors (who presumably had read the paper) were there to ask the author questions. Well… “questions” only in the grammatical sense that they ended their long-winded statements with a question mark. Mostly it went something like this: The person began talking by introducing him/herself (including full educational credentials), opined about something only marginally related to the topic, embellished said topic with stories of personal triumph, dropped in a word like “pedagogy” or “rubric” to bring the educational crowd back in, and finished it all with a “don’t you agree?” to ensure the answer. It was horrible.

On the way out, Professor Meese asked me what I thought. I told him exactly what I thought. Which is to say, it was BS. He was startled for a second, and I realized he was asking about the actual topic of the review. I started to backpedal (because, frankly, I was so caught up in the meta-properties of the event I really hadn’t thought at all about the topic). He kind of held his hand up to stop me and said, “Wait. What do you mean?” And I said, “Are all “reviews” like that?” He smiled and said something like, “Not all. But too many.” (He was a good teacher — that wasn’t the lesson I came for, but he was pleased I had learned something of value.)

Anyway, that sort of bloviating, “I know it all and you simply don’t have the capacity to understand” behavior is stereotypically associated with those who self-identify as liberals (say, college professors). And it’s annoying as hell. But if Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld taught us anything, it’s that it’s not exclusive to your political ideology. So I intended to call out our state attorney general, Bill Schuette, here. He has taken a pretty hardline against the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare law to the point now of actively circumventing it (and patronizing the citizens of Michigan in the process). If calling him a liberal doesn’t change him, perhaps I will have to draw him in a tweed jacket, smoking a pipe, and driving a Volvo.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 15, 2012

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
July 8, 2012