"Road Safety Nuggets"

Back in 2021 Professor Nathan Belz of UAF’s College of Engineering & Mines commissioned me to illustrate a project of his with the Center for Safety Equity in Transportation. He picked me based on a panel that had been printed in the paper (“I Swear I Just Saw One”), thinking “…to generate cartoons that could be used for outreach, perhaps developed into a series or a graphic novel, on transportation safety; tying in findings from research projects completed by our center and highlighting them and safety culture (rather lack thereof) in a satirical way using your colorful characters.” A task force was assembled with some Alaska Department of Transportation representatives for editorial help in the review + refinement process.

There were twelve final panels – maybe a dozen extra were sketched up, a half-dozen drawn up but didn’t make the cut. A few classics I got to reboot and digitally color, but most were custom-made to order. The topics and supporting research: traffic jams, plug-ins, road rage, signage, school travel, roundabouts, frost heaves and ice roads is just a sampling of the issues across our state’s road system. were wide-ranging They debuted two years later as the tentpole pieces for my annual 2023 retrospective “What The Duck,” at Ursa Major. It has made for a major boost in classroom cred as well - walking the talk, and demonstrating the educational applications and value of STEAM.

Incidentally this project was sorta-kinda the final nail in the creative coffin for my freelance career, as I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t successfully managing my time insofar as maintaining a saner mental-healthy balance between the work//personal life (yeah sure okay so ask me how well THAT’S worked). If anything I’m even MORE overloaded, but still managing to meet deadlines + teaching + Nuggets + extracurricular activities. Busy enough to never notice that I never uploaded anything about this gig anywhere on social media – searched this blog all over never found any mentioned in any previous post… so here ya go.

Mostly want to mention two main things: one; it is so surreal to see one’s cartoons categorized as scholarly work (perks of professorship I guess), and two; there’s a link on this page that’ll get ya a free PDF to download. The whole post was inspired by how totally fired up I got to hold an actual hardcover copy - so much awesome hard work from Nathan… thanks!