Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, April 17, 2010

For this week’s cartoon, I’m proud of myself for showing a little restraint. But I don’t know if it made for a better cartoon. See, the more I draw, the less interest I have in participating in (and therefore promoting) the idea of sides. You know, that every issue has a left and right side, or liberal/conservative, Democrat/Republican, Socialist/Fascist, and so on. Beyond the fact that most issues are more nuanced than having clearly definable sides, this sides business quickly devolves to stereotyping and name calling. When you chose your side, your focus becomes defining the other side as clueless, demonic, ill-mannered, stinky, etc., and not so much with the articulating and advancing your point.
 
But this presents a bit of a dilemma for an editorial cartoonist. Stereotyping and name calling happen to be basic tools of the craft. They are shortcuts that the readers recognize without labels or other additional context. So when I was thinking though this week’s topic (Michigan’s soon to be implemented ban on smoking in restaurants and public gathering places), I naturally wanted to use shortcuts. I wanted to draw older white dudes in trucker hats hanging at the VFW complainin’ about the galdurn govermunt takin’ away their God-given right to freely enjoy their tobacco addiction.

That would have made the cartoon easier to digest at a glance. But it also would have come across as a left-wing attack on the right-wing, which had nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. And that is point was: we all seem to tolerate government up to moment it doesn’t allow us to do what we want to do. Then logic (government can’t be both evil genius and complete idiot) gets thrown out the window. (I do, however, reserve the right to stereotype and name call at any point in the future. If that’s what I want to do….)

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, April 10, 2010

When my family moved from South Carolina to Michigan when I was nine, there were lots of things I didn’t understand. First, everybody’s Dad worked a shift at a plant. My Dad sold chemicals to those plants, so I knew what they were, but I didn’t get the concept of a “shift” and what “first, second, third, split, double, etc.” meant. My first summer, I didn’t understand where everybody went on the weekends. My neighborhood would seriously empty out. I was told, “They went UpNorth.” That didn’t help — where the heck was UpNorth? “It’s where people have their cabins.” Oh. I still didn’t understand, but at a certain point — if you want to have any chance of not being a pariah — it’s best to say “oh” when something is explained in a way that strongly implies that it is common knowledge. I came to accept that cabins were some sort of vacationy things.

I was starting to get my bearings but then come fall, just before Thanksgiving, there was another mass migration up north to cabins, but this time it was just Dads and they all had (!) guns. What sort of shift was this? Deer hunting shift, apparently. Oh. Again, I didn’t get it right away. That was until my friend Joe’s mom picked me up to take me to a 5th grade basketball game. Mrs. Peltier had car pool that night, and the only vehicle they had big enough to take us five or six Holy Redeemer boys to the game was their Suburban. It was enormous. Big enough to carry all of us boys plus a dead, bloody deer in the way back. I know this because on that particular day, there was one back there. Mrs. Peltier apologized for not having time to pull it out — Mr. Peltier had just returned from hunting. None of the other boys seemed bothered by this. It was just a Michigan thing.

So, yeah, there are some special things about Michigan, and one of them happens to be the popularity of tromping around the rural landscape with guns, which — and I’m being perfectly sincere — is great. I don’t hunt. I think there are two reasons for this. One, my family didn’t vacation UpNorth or have a cabin. Second (and I think this is the bigger reason), I don’t like to be cold. And having to sit perfectly still for hours in a deer blind on bitter November mornings — not enticing. But I get hunting. I get why there is a Michigan culture that supports hunting and related lifestyle. Unfortunately, I also understand why there are a very small percentage of zealots who take the guns and rugged independence and separate society to an extreme, and that’s why we end up with groups like the Michigan Militia from the 1990s and now the Hutaree of today. They shouldn’t define Michigan, but radicals always seem to get a disproportionate share of the attention. I don’t understand why that has to be, but, ya know, you have to move on.

Some things I get right away (Ernie Harwell), and some things I never will (Bob Seger).

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, April 3, 2010

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

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, March 20, 2010

If I were clever and organized, I would link you to previous posts I’ve made regarding term limits. Alas. I am neither. So suffice to say, I resent any law that is designed to reinforce the notion that I am neither clever nor organized.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, March 13, 2010

This is an important issue, and Michigan needs help. Perhaps if somebody in a higher office in Washington DC — somebody, say, who was the leader of one of the branches. Executive, for instance. What if that person was from a Great Lakes state? I dunno, Minnesota, Wisconsin, maybe Illinois. And what if this person… hey, wait minute…..

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, March 2010

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Press, March 6, 2010

So the reason this is here — the reason I’m drawing a weekly editorial cartoon for our local daily newspaper, the Grand Rapids Press — is both admirable and maybe a little bit startling: They are trying something different. The Press is trying to play up its strength of covering local/state issues by providing readers with a local/state editorial cartoon in its Saturday editions. As a reader (and especially as the cartoonist), I admire that. It’s startling because, over the past decade as newspaper readership has accelerated into decline, most newspapers have made a point of not trying something different, hoping against hope for better times.

But I’m getting the sense that times are starting to change. The realities of modern media have set in, and some newspapers are looking to build on the advantages that they do have. I’m not ready to break into early Bob Dylan song, but there is definitely a more positive vibe. So I would like for you to do me two favors:

First, if you don’t already have one, get a subscription to the Grand Rapids Press. (Or if that’s too much of a leap, pick up a Saturday newspaper.) I think you’ll be pleased with the overall quality and how pleasant it can be to read something without a creepy dancing lady wanting you to check out her mortgage rates.

Second, read this column written by the editor, Paul Keep. He seems to have a pretty clear vision of where he thinks the paper needs to go. Even if you don’t care at all about the paper, when was the last time you experienced somebody articulating a clear vision?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 15, 2010

This turns out to be the last editorial cartoon that I’ll be doing for the Grand Rapids Business Journal, at least for the foreseeable future. Having started to draw for the Grand Rapids Press, the Business Journal did not want to continue. So the count stands at 751 cartoons over 14 years. I certainly enjoyed it — they were fun to work with, they gave me lots of leeway, and I got to draw comics. That’s a good run.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 8, 2010

I was listening to a news story on the radio — it was some sort of protest or march about something that inflames folks these days. So I’m guessing it was either health care or American Idol. At one point the reporter led in with a “and then things started to get a little edgy” and then two men arguing. One screamed, “Do you have Medicare?! Do you have Medicare?!” And another screamed, “Everything the government does is bankrupt! Everything!” Now, because writing is linear, it appears that the two men may have taken turns and perhaps even listened to each other, carefully considering the other’s opinion before offering a well-constructed counterpoint. Right. It was actually one big tangled mess of crashing sound waves.

I was feeling very judgmental and empathizing with the reporter who was trying to add some context to the story. But then this week’s comic popped into my head with the three players:

• The hopelessly self-assured jerk
• The voice of consideration and reason
• The cartoonist, who likes to think of himself as a voice of consideration and reason, but given the opportunity might just as likely be a jerk

The jerkiness comes mostly from my amusement in drawing a Hitler mustache on the guy in the fourth panel. Are you all familiar with Godwin’s Law? It states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” I think it goes for wordy cartoons, too.