Auchtoon!

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 26, 2009

All right. This has nothing to do with anything, but it is kind of weird/funny, so I’ll tell you about it. The other night I had a dream. I was running a basketball practice. (I’ve been coaching my son’s 5th/6th grade team this winter, so my brain idling away the night with thoughts of hoops is not at all unusual.) The practice was in a largish room, but it definitely wasn’t a gym because there were various pieces of furniture and a door to a hallway. I was walking the boys through a new offensive set. I was very excited about this because I believed it would no doubt get us some easy baskets. I had devised it myself. Super genius.

The play and its positions weren’t terribly unique. The thing that gave it an edge was that one of the players …was to be a live alligator. That’s right. Full-grown adult alligator. Conveniently, I had brought one with me. So we started walking through the play. The alligator began at the top of the key and swung around the left side. I turned to instruct some of the boys where to go and got distracted for a moment. When I looked back around for the alligator, it was gone. I said, “Where’d the alligator go?” And the boy on that side point to the door — left ajar the approximate width of a full-grown adult alligator.

Well I was kind of mad. I mean, geez-lousie, doesn’t it kind of go without saying that if you are practicing basketball in a large room with an alligator that you should naturally shut the door so the alligator doesn’t walk out? Do I have to spell out everything for these boys? But, kids make mistakes and instead of tearing into him, I decided time was probably better spent looking for the alligator.

So I told the boys to stay put and I walked out the door. As I entered the hallway, it occurred to me that I was inside a children’s hospital. Actually, I had known this previously but really wasn’t considering it until the alligator got loose. My anxiety level ticked up, but I was still confident that I could find the alligator. I mean, what else in a children’s hospital even remotely looks like an alligator? It’s gonna stick out. I strolled on down the hall looking as inconspicuous as possible in my gym shorts (which my daughter says are waaaaay too short) and whistle and high-tops. I went into rooms and looked under beds and in closets and dark corners. Then it began to dawn on me that I didn’t necessarily want to find the alligator — especially by thrusting my head under a bed.

I was making my way back to the large room and now thinking it odd that I hadn’t heard any screams. There really ought to be screams when an alligator is loose in a children’s hospital. Children’s hospital! Holy crap! Children’s hospitals are just full of slow-moving, bite-sized people. I’ve seen alligators eat whole hams, and I would think sick kids are basically talking hams to an alligator. I couldn’t remember if the alligator has been fed lately. Heck, I couldn’t even remember where I got the darn thing. Suddenly the most awful thought hit my head and my innards twisted into a hard knot: I might get in trouble for this! No, wait, no, no, no yes. Yes… Yes definitely. Bringing a live alligator into a children’s hospital is in fact something that would frowned upon.

I was standing by the door mulling this over. “Had anybody seen me bring the alligator in? Was it possible for me and the boys to slip out before somebody found it? But shouldn’t I say something before somebody gets attacked? Yes, but that might be okay because we’re in a hospital — there are people right here who are really good at reattaching things. Hmmm, no, I gotta call 9-1-1. Right. How am I going to phrase this?”  …then I woke up.

Ta-da! I’ve now used this cutting edge technology to share with you and the world a very odd story, which in no way is going to move our economy forward. My work is done here.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, January 2009

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 19, 2009

How appropriate — no time to write about this because I’ve got to throw/shovel snow this afternoon….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 12, 2009

Again, just me trying so work up some “regionalism” anger and resentment. Reinforcing the fact that we are better than them. Isn’t this how all demagogues start?…

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, January 5, 2009

The Detroit Auto Show (or more exactly, the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Hall in Detroit) is traditionally the social highlight of the year for Michigan. It’s glitz, it’s glam, it’s ostentatious, it’s conspicuous, it’s over-the-top and out-the-door. Which is to say, it’s what Detroit is very much not. But several years ago after our engineering forefathers developed the mechanics and refined the production of the horseless carriage, they discovered what others had discovered about cigarettes and soap and beer and power tools: sex sell ’em.

So every year for a couple of weeks in otherwise dowdy January, Detroiters spiff up the joint to sell their shiny metal boxes. Beautiful autos, beautiful displays, beautiful people (who must be imported because they never seem to be at Red Wings games) — it’s just a huge party!

Well, up until this year anyway. With the current state of affairs, the posh life is not quite the image the auto industry wants to project. So as the champagne is left uncorked and the crème brulee in cold storage, we look to the Amish for a simpler approach. Which may be a mistake because I don’t think they buy cars….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 29, 2008

I tried not to do this comic. But it was Christmas week, and my brain wasn’t forthcoming with anything better. So I settled for the ol’ “year in review” default. By the time it was published I was sick, sick, sick of all the lists and lookings back that get passed off in late December as interesting. Frankly, I was a bit embarrassed with this effort. Reading it now — nine days into the New Year — it seems a little bit fresher. And it does have a monster. We all know from Sesame Street that there’s nothing cooler than a monster….

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Family magazine, December 2008

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 22, 2008

This week’s comic actually has roots in my longstanding (and intense) dislike of the Dallas Cowboys. I know professional football has no direct application to my life. I know time I spend thinking about and watching professional football is time wasted. I know acting on negative feelings about professional football is like a double waste of time. Okay? I know all this. But when you’re seven years old and you arbitrarily pick the San Francisco 49ers as your favorite team, and for three consecutive years the Cowboys eliminate the 49ers from the playoff, well, it sort of gets into your DNA.

So the story here is that the AFL (Arena Football League), which is professional indoor football, announced that it is suspending its upcoming season. Essentially what happened is that several franchise owners who also own NFL franchises (like Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner) are hurting. They are spending too much on their NFL teams and their NFL stadiums. (The new Dallas Cowboy stadium will cost beyond $1.1 billion and is way, way over-budget.) These NFL owners — instead of trying to run the AFL more efficiently — decided to cut losses and walk away. Grand Rapids is home to the Rampage, a franchise owned by the DeVos’s, who were very keen to play the season. In fact, it was thought that a deal had been worked out, but an 11th hour decision by the NFL owners ended up killing it.

So, yeah, I don’t know all the details. And maybe suspending the season was the prudent thing to do. But I do so very much despise the Cowboys. And Jerry Jones is a cheap-shot jerkface stupid stupidhead. And that’s just the way it is.

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 15, 2008

Yeah, yeah… I know it’s kind of a short-cut to call on Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” for a December editorial comic. But, hey, at least give me credit for using one of the lesser known bits — near the beginning when the two do-gooder portly gentlemen pay Mr. Scrooge a visit on Christmas Eve taking donations for the poor. Scrooge seethes at the duel impertinence of interrupting his work and expecting alms for undeserving wretches. He draws them in with a cold but civil, “Are there no prisons?” The gentlemen are caught off guard but remain sincere and try to explain themselves further. Then Scrooge begins to cut them to pieces with a brutally sarcastic “And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?” eventually finishing them off with the more quoted, “If they would rather die… they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population,” which of course later comes back to haunt him …literally.

Part of my affection for these quotes is that around Christmastime my father, when asked for the smallest of favors — say, “can I borrow a dollar?” would reply in a bad English accent, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” It made him laugh. And if I actually had a good reason, I generally got the dollar….

My favorite Scrooge: George C Scott, 1984. What’s yours?

Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, December 8, 2008

What’s the expression? Happier than a pig in, um, filth? If you imagine editorial cartoonists as pigs (not difficult, is it?) and bad news as filth, then I’d say the expression fits pretty well. Generally doom and despair are more fertile grounds for cartooning ideas than sunshine and rainbows.

Lately (say the entire year 2008) there has been no lack of bad news and to a large extent, I’ve just been going along for the ride. In fact, it has been difficult for me to choose from among many ideas. That’s good, but when ideas come easy there’s a danger of falling into a pattern. So for this week’s comic, I made a concerted effort to find another side.

Turns out if you look hard enough (which is to say you quit reading and listening to the news for five minutes), there are some good economic things happening out there — and the vast majority are with small and medium sized companies who intend to come out of this recession in a better position.

There. Next week we’ll get back to what sucks….