Auchtoon!

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

Last week, I wrote about considering perspectives that aren’t necessarily my own, keeping an open mind to other approaches, acknowledging that different positions on a topic can more fully develop the understanding of it. This week, well, I’m not saying I was wrong, because I wasn’t. But there are instances where that sort of consideration may be a bit overrated.

So to the motorcyclists who feel the need to express their awesome rebelliousness and disdain for the dern governments by not wearing a helmet, I say, “Do you really wanna be a rebel? Do you really wanna stick it to the man and opt out of our hated democratically elected constitutional republic? Buy yourself $5 million in insurance coverage and then go ride all you want without a helmet. That will show us all! Go ahead, do it! I dare you!”

Ya know… I guess I made my point, but I felt much better about myself taking the high road last week….

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
April 1, 2012

I didn’t grow up with handguns. My parents didn’t have handguns. We didn’t talk about handguns. As far as I knew, our neighbors and friends didn’t have handguns. Oh, sure, I was aware of them. I had heard and read about them in the news, in the movies, stuff like that. And I guess my great Uncle Mike had some old German lugers that I had seen once, but then Uncle Mike had, like, 400 handsaws and ate pig’s feet jelly so a few handguns sort of fit the pattern of his eccentricities.

All this is to say that I am not predisposed to liking or understanding handguns. In Michigan, there seems to be a hodge-podge of laws regarding concealed weapons and open carry, and how one obtains a permit, and where exactly a person with a permit is allowed to go with handguns. A couple of weeks ago, a fellow in Grand Rapids openly carrying a weapon he had a permit for walked into a public elementary school to vote. Guns are presently banned from school property. That seemed needlessly provocative, but nothing that I thought to draw a cartoon about.

More recently State Senator Arlan Meekhof showed up at a Senate meeting with his properly permitted pistol in open view. Again, I thought it unnecessary, but this time I remembered getting campaign literature from Senator Meekhof and his rather dim view of the idea of gay marriage, mostly because he didn’t seem to either like it or understand it. The cartoon clicked. And it’s as much a challenge to myself as it is to him. Before we go passing laws banning stuff, we should at least try to get past the influences of our initial reactions. Otherwise (and I believe I’ve said this before), I would be in full support of constitutional amendments to ban country music, overripe bananas, and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
March 24, 2012

I thought about putting effort into drawing the folks in panel two in much more stereotypical dress — the German in lederhosen, the Japanese in a kimono, the Australian in outback garb. But it occurred to be that this would be more distracting than helpful to the simple point, which is that the world considers “Detroit” and “Michigan” to be one and the same. Darn you cultural sensitivity! Ruining the fun in drawing borderline racist stereotypes!

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
March 17, 2012

Yeah, I know — not quite the hard-hitting, edgy, biting, divisive piece of editorial cartooning that’s going to earn me a Pulitzer. But even the most hard-boiled ink-stained cartoonist would have a hard time not commenting on the remarkably beautiful stretch of weather we have had over the past several days. To my credit, I remain deeply suspicious of it….

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
March 10, 2012

It would have been perfect for U of M and State to have met in the Big Ten Championship game, but maybe they’ll run into each other at the Big Dance….

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
March 3, 2012

And now, on to the fall election, which I imagine will be something trippy like Alice in Wonderland…

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

Today is the Republican presidential primary in Michigan and, honestly, the rhetoric for the past few weeks has been like Karl Marx campaigning to become the CEO of General Electric….

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

The Michigan Republican presidential primary is coming up Tuesday, and candidate Romney still won’t give up on his “I would have let the American automakers fail” story. Props I suppose for not being wishy-washy. But it would probably be better for him if he would talk less about it. Michiganders tend to remember just how bad things were in 2008 and 2009. And many are intimately aware of how private bankruptcy works (and sometimes doesn’t work). So the he may be attracting a handful of ideologues, but come November it sure won’t help him carry Michigan.

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

You know what’s creepy? Looking up images of “blackface” on the Internet so I could draw this properly. Definitely cringe-inducing, which I guess is the point of the cartoon. Pete Hoekstra, a former congressman from West Michigan, is running against incumbent Debbie Stabenow for the US Senate this year. The Hoekstra campaign created and ran an ad during the Super Bowl. Here’s a link to the backstory, although I don’t think the actual commercial is officially available anymore. The commercial featured an Asian woman speaking in broken English.

One of the problems with using cartoonish stereotypes (beyond the, you know, hurtful offensiveness) is that they don’t hold up very well. Talking in exaggerated Chinese-English may seem a perfectly legitimate to make a point to some people (but certainly not all) folks Hoekstra’s age, but I can’t believe there wasn’t one person, perhaps a 20-something, who would have said, “I dunno, Pete. This seems pretty sketchy.” Eighty years ago white entertainers in blackface was expected and acceptable. Now it makes your stomach queasy. For most outside the Hoekstra campaign, that’s where the Asian stereotype is today.

Originally published in the Ann Abor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
February 5, 2012

Nearly 27 years ago, I talked myself into an appointment with the editorial page editor at the Flint Journal. I wanted to draw editorial cartoons for them. I didn’t want or expect a staff position or anything like that. I just wanted to provide cartoons, have them publish them, and get paid some amount of money. (I had no idea what amount.)

So one late summer afternoon, armed with 10 or so cartoons drawn on spec, I entered the hallowed halls of journalism. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but I do remember that he was generally unenthused. He was nice enough to talk with me, but it was clear I was something that got added to his to-do list and he now wanted only to check it off. That’s the thing that annoyed me — he was intent of giving me the standard quick-tour and have me be impressed that I had seen the inner sanctum. But at that point I had drawn cartoons for and worked in newspapers and printers. I understood how it worked; I knew how it sounded, how it smelled. I was interested in going to the next level. (Truth is, I very likely was impossibly unprepared for “going to the next level,” but youthful naïveté and willful delusion are a powerful combination for learning — I was willing to take the chance at likely failure.)

Soon enough I was out the door and with no real follow-up plan. No regrets, though. Things turned out all right. I graduated from college, I got me a job, I continued to draw cartoons, and I can afford to wear as many socks on my feet as I can fit, which is nice because my feet are otherwise very, very cold. AND, when visiting Flint this weekend, my father-in-law brought me a page of his Flint Journal with the very cartoon you see at the top printed on it. If this was a beer commercial, this is where all my fashionable pub friends and women in various stages of undress would hoist a glass to me (well, not actually me — a much better-looking actor playing the role of me) with a “you’ve made it, why not drink beer?” tagline and raucous laughter at something really not all that funny.

Thank God it isn’t a beer commercial, because that’d be the end, and I’m really looking forward to drawing more cartoons.