You can see the more charming print version on Allia’s site, or buy a print copy or a PDF. We’re actively collecting things for volume 2 (I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not everything seems fixed yet. Still working on it). So: if you’ve got anything that could fix everything, drop me a line.

Citations

1. Carl Sundstrom and Dan Nabors, “Bicycle Crash Statistics,” BikeSafe, 2014.
2. David Hurwitz et al., “Impact of Bicycle Rolling Stop Laws on Safety-Relevant Behaviors in the Pacific Northwest,” January 1, 2023.
3. Marshall, Wesley E, Daniel Piatkowski, and Aaron Johnson. 2017. “Scofflaw Bicycling: Illegal But Rational”. Journal of Transport and Land Use 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2017.871. 823.
4. bicyclelaw, “Stay Seen, Stay Safe? | Bicycle Law,” July 27, 2021.

Further Reading

1. “Allowing Rolling Stops on Bicycles Doesn’t Cause Risky Road Behavior, Study Finds – OPB.” Accessed September 21, 2024.
2. BikePortland. “Oregon Passes Version of ‘Idaho Stop’ Law That Allows Bike Riders to Treat Stop Signs as Yields,” June 25, 2019.
3. BikePortland. “Guest Post: How Oregon Got Idaho Stop,” December 26, 2019.

Bonus material: development sketches (and little heads). (I mostly doodle little heads.)

Allia and I wrote it, we riso printed it at the IPRC, and you can buy the zine if you want to.

As usual, you can buy the zine. It was riso printed at Outlet.

For the record don’t feel pressured to change your favicon or your website builder! Outrage is funny to draw but I promise it’s not personal!

I can’t claim the rule makes my profile look any better (and I’ve definitely broken it at least three times) but having a silly little challenge I have to complete makes posting on instagram slightly more interesting.

All this to say if you buy a copy (they’re in the store!) you’ll get a nice seafoam green version.

You can buy a copy. Scroll to the bottom for citations as clickable links.

Annotated Bibliography

Page 2: market control and royalties 

• Dimitrije Curcic. “Audible Publishing Statistics – WordsRated.” WordsRated (blog), January 10, 2023. wordsrated.com/audible-publishing-statistics/.
  Basic breakdown of Audible’s US market control in 2022.
• Cross, Colleen. “Audible Royalties Ain’t Royalties.” Audiblegate, February 22, 2021. audiblegate.com/post/audible-royalties-ain-t-royalties-how-audible-profits-at-the-expense-of-authors-by-colleen-cross.
  Investigation by popular author and former forensic accountant Colleen Cross into Audible’s dishonest ‘royalties’ for authors. This piece is part of Fair Deal Authors and Narrators #audiblegate campaign seeking fairer compensation and business practices from ACX/Audible/Amazon.

Page 3 and 4: embargo and libraries

• “The Harmful Impact of Audible Exclusive Audiobooks – Libro.Fm Audiobooks.” Accessed November 2, 2021. blog.libro.fm/the-harmful-impact-of-audible-exclusive-audiobooks/.
  Libro.Fm is an independent audiobook seller that partners with local bookstores to sell DRM free audiobooks and gives authors a fairer deal. They write about Audible’s predatory business practices and how they hurt independent book sellers and libraries in this article.

Resources and Further Reading

• Libby: a free library app, get a card from your local library and check out eBooks and audiobooks on your phone/computer. https://libbyapp.com/ 
• Libro.Fm: an independent audiobook seller — buy audiobooks here instead of through audible.
• Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s decision to stop distributing his books through Audible: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2022/
• Cory Doctrow, one of Audible’s earliest and loudest critics on Audible and Digital Rights Management (DRM). Because of DRM you can only listen to Audible audiobooks through the Audible app– you can’t listen to them in Spotify or iTunes, and you can’t download the mp3s to your computer even though you ostensibly own the books. Doctorow explains more about the history of DRM and how it affects audiobooks: publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/84384-we-need-to-talk-about-audible.html

Illustrating the history of RSS. Created in collaboration with A. Service, and debuted at VanCAF 2023. Part two on how to use RSS forthcoming!

Lonely college students salivate over illustrations of turkey dinners, bachelors struggle to bake cakes, housewives worry over canned beef, and Lilian Tingle advises them all.

Comic illustrating exchanges from domestic scientist Lilian Tingle’s home cooking correspondence column in the Sunday Oregonian (1908-1929). Complete sources here. Created in collaboration with and based on research by A. Service. More about Lilian Tingle here.

Published in University of Oregon’s comics magazine ArtDucko, issue 20. Complete transcript and sources here. Created in collaboration with A. Service, who also wrote a companion blog post about our gelatin party.

Cover Page:

TITLE: JELLO PAGES

SUBTITLE: the history of Jell-O from hooves to shots. January 2022, A. Service and A. McNamee

[ID: Cover is black with yellow lettering. The title is written across the center of an open yellow book, next to a small ridged Jell-O mold. A hand reaches down from the top of the page to rest on the pages of the book.]

Page One:

[ID: NED, a solid black humanoid demon with long, spindly limbs and large, white oval shaped eyes and no other features, wears an apron and sprawls across a large table. The table is covered in elaborate gelatin creations, including eggs in gelatin dome, tall jello molds with swirly and round fillings and a mold shaped like a hedgehog. Under the table are two intricate copper molds. Blocking part of the table is a recipe for calves foot jelly.]

NED: “I hope you’re here for Jell-O ‘cause Jell-O’s all we’ve got…well, some gelatin first. Before the 19th century, making gelatin required 8+ hours and a pot full of hooves and hides [2]. (Other recipes: eel, dried fish bladders).

Recipe: Section XIX. – Jellies [2] Calves’ Feet Jellies.– Boil down one set of calves’ feet in four quarts of water till it is reduced to one half, then strain through a sieve, in order to remove the bones; when settled and cold take off the grease on the surface, then boil, with the following additions: –twelve eggs, three pints of good Madeira wine, and two pounds of loaf sugar, the juice of four lemons; stir the mixture well with a whisk or spatula, and filter through a fine… [ID: the rest of the recipe is obscured.]

NED: “Anyone could make and eat gelatinized dishes (after all, gelatin’s made from scraps) but for elites, chefs perfected gelatin to create elaborate free-standing molded centerpieces. Starting in the early 1500s, increasingly elaborate gelatinized desserts were status symbols in England, and later the U.S. In the 1840s industrialization brought store bought gelatin sheets (of varying reliability), and then powdered gelatin and intricate tinned copper molds [3].

Page Two:

1897: Cough syrup manufacturer Pearl Wait saw potential in Knox gelatin’s flavorless powdered gelatin. As a man in the patent medicine field, his expertise led him to add 88% sugar and “fruit” flavorings.

[ID: a page with six panels. Panel one shows a dapper man with a pointy mustache in a tuxedo, he is touching his chin as if in thought, a thought bubble reads: “add 88% sugar and “fruit” flavorings. The man is standing in front of a sign for LeRoy, NY.]

His wife May named the new product Jell-O!

[ID: panel two shows a middle aged woman with an elaborate up-do in profile, saying “Jell-O!”]

But Pearl had little success selling Jell-O

[ID: panel three shows the same dapper man rushing around showing another man a pamphlet labeled Jell-O.]

So in 1899 he sold the brand for $450 to Orator Woodward, owner of Genesee Pure Food Company. [5]

[ID: panel four shows the dapper man shaking hands with an older man with slicked back hair, also in a tuxedo.]

Jell-O continued to struggle until 1902 when Orator placed ads in Ladies Home Journal, the first of Jell-O’s many iconic marketing campaigns. These ads featured beautiful drawings of Jell-O– Many also drew on racist imagery. This is explored in a digital exhibit by the University of Michigan [6]. (the Jell-O girl is Elizabeth King, actual daughter of the advertising artist assigned to Jell-O in 1904 [7])

[ID: panel five shows orator woodward with his head in his hands, sitting on a pile of Jell-O boxes. Panel six shows two recreations of historic Jell-O ads, a young girl with a bob in a frilly dress holds a tray of wine glasses filled with Jell-O.]

Page Three:

[ID the top half of the page has a decorated border, on one side of the border is a woman with a huge beehive like historical hair do in a 19th century style dress, holding a tray of cream puffs. On the other side of the border is NED in a similar frilly dress with a corset, taking the place of the other woman. Inside the border is a recipe for perfection salad.]

Perfection Salad [8]: A delicious accompaniment to cold sliced chicken or veal. 1 envelope Knox Sparkling Gelatine, 1 cup cold water, 1 cup mild vinegar, 2 tablespoonfuls lemon juice, 2 cups boiling water, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 cup cabbage, finely shredded, 2 cups celery, cut in small pieces, 2 pimentos, cut in small pieces. At the turn of the Century, middle class women were creating the new field of domestic science. Domestic science’s goal was to rationalize and intellectualize home cooking for middle and upper class women, as their cooks and maids left for higher paying factory work. Domestic scientists were obsessed with ‘dainty,’ ‘clean’ foods.

[ID: on the lower half of the page, one panel shows a long table full of young women wearing dresses, aprons, and gloves reading books. The next panel shows a hexagonal diagram with ingredients written next to each corner: milk ½, baking powder 5-6 tsp, sugar 2 cups, 1 or 2 tsp vanilla extract or other. A third panel shows a messy salad in a bowl with fancy silverware]

Though notoriously delicate and feminine, salads were too messy. Gelatin and Jell-O offered a means of containment. Domestic Scientists were invested in the intellectual elevation of women’s work to a ‘science’ without questioning the constraints of ‘women’s work’ [9]. (You could say they were…unwilling to break the mold)

[ID: a large 3 tiered gelatin salad on a bed of lettuce with veggies visibly encased inside, a large mold sits next to the gelatin.]

Page Four:

[ID: the top of the page is split into three vertical panels, an old fashioned Jell-O page has text boxes on it. NED’s hand rotates the box in the middle panel so the reader can see the text on the other side]

The 1930s-50s were the glistening apex of jello salad and the jello mold [10]. During the Depression, jello was a cheap way to stretch leftovers and add elegance [11]. The salad classic, lime Jell-O was introduced in 1930 [12].

[ID: the bottom half of the page is one big panel, in the foreground is a recipe for Lime Cheese Salad, and a large elaborate Jell-O mold. Behind them, NED is in a kitchen, wearing an apron. NED is stirring a pot on the stove, holding a knife and stirring something else with its foot.]

NED: “Even as advertisers pushed convenience foods post WWII, there was still enormous social pressure on wives to put time and effort into cooking. Though there was a (slow, but steady) increase in convenience food use, housewives didn’t just plop Jell-O on a plate. They molded salads with frostings and garnishes [13].

Lime Cheese Salad [14]: Dissolve 1 package Lime Jell-O in 1 cup hot water. Add 3/4 cup cold water, 2 tablespoons vinegar, and 1 teaspoon grated onion. Pour 1/2 cup mixture into 1 quart ring mold … fold remaining mixture, 1 cup cottage cheese, and 1 tablespoon mayonnaise; blend. Pour onto firm Jell-O, chill. Unmold. Garnish with salad greens. Fill center with seafood salad. 6 servings.

Page Five:

Starting in the 1960s, new food trends emerged. Tastes changed. Jell-O’s popularity waned.

[ID: three panels at the top of the page, the first is a spotlight on a Jell-O box. Then Jell-O is partially obscured by Spam and Pop-tarts, in the third panel Jell-O is almost fully obscured by Lunchables, Eggo Waffles, and Twinkies.]

Jell-O stuck around as a kid’s snack (and a college student’s vodka-vehicle)

[ID: a recipe for Jell-O shots partially covers a panel of NED boring Jell-O powder into a bowl]

JELL-O SHOTS: 1 (3 ounce) package Jell-O, 1 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup cold water, 1/2 cup vodka.

In recent years, foodies & chefs have resurrected gelatin as an avant-garde Novelty [15]. Gelatin’s wobbly and eye-catching. You can use it to encase, to infuse, to preserve, to display, to mystify. it went from being a dish for kings and queens, to a well-loved staple, to a kids snack.

[ID in a series of panels NED pours boiling water into the bowl of Jell-O powder, stirs the water in, pours the liquid into a pitcher, pours the Jell-O into a tray of shot glasses, and puts them into the fridge. Finally there is a panel that shows four avant garde desserts, a shot glass rimmed in salt with a lime wedge, a small glass with layers of gelatin and cream, a small square dessert, and a large juice glass with slayer of gelatin, garnishes and a small plant.]

Is it time for a Jell-O renaissance? …Probably not.

Citations:

Further Reading: We especially recommend Ivan Day’s blog for a fascinating look at recreation historical English gelatin. For a more modern take, check out Dr. Ken Albala’s food blog prominently featuring modern aspics. Sarah Grey’s history of Jell-O salad is excellent, and for anyone interested in gender and food history Laura Shaprio’s books are both must-reads.

[ID: NED reclines at the bottom of the page, his body is black, but when his limbs overlap they turn white, in a geometric pattern.]

1. Peter Brears, Jellies & Their Moulds (Prospect Books, 2010);
2. Kristin Holt, “Victorian Jelly: Desserts,” Kristin Holt (blog), April 7, 2021, http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/24150.
3. Peter Brears, Jellies & Their Moulds
4. Ivan Day, “Macedoine and Other Eccentric Jellies,” Food History Jottings (blog), June 30, 2013, http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.com/2013/06/macedoine-and-other-eccentric-victorian.html;
5. Carolyn Wyman, Jello: A Biography, 2001;
6. Nicole Tarulevicz and JJ Jacobson. Jell-O: America’s Most Famous Dessert: At Home Everywhere | Bibliography and Further Reading · Online Exhibits. 2015, https://apps.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/jell-o/imagining-the-other-intro.
7. Genesee Pure Food Co, Jell-O: The Dainty Dessert (Leroy, N.Y.: Genesee Pure Food Co., 1905), https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010747354;
8. “Dainty Desserts for Dainty People / Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 / Duke Digital Repository,” Duke Digital Collections, accessed January 27, 2022, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/eaa/CK0028;
9. Laura Shapiro, Perfection Salad (HarperCollins, 1986);
10. Carolyn Wyman, Jello: A Biography, 2001;
11. Sarah Grey, “A Social History of Jell-O Salad,” Serious Eats, accessed August 9, 2021, https://www.seriouseats.com/history-of-jell-o-salad;
12. Carolyn Wyman, Jello: A Biography, 2001;
13. Laura Shapiro, Something from the Oven (Penguin Books, 2004);
14. Kris Manty, “How Jell-O Salads Created a Culinary Sensation,” Antique Trader, accessed December 19, 2021, https://www.antiquetrader.com/features/how-jello-salads-created-a-culinary-sensation;
15. Ken Albala, “Ken Albala’s Food Rant: BTL in a Martini. Or BLTini.,” Ken Albala’s Food Rant (blog), August 7, 2019, http://kenalbala.blogspot.com/2019/08/btl-in-martini-or-bltini.html; “A Jell-O Salad Revival: Is Grandma’s Dark Horse Ready to Ride Again?,” The Canned Peaches Project (blog), October 29, 2019, https://cannedpeachesproject.com/a-jell-o-salad-revival-is-grandmas-dark-horse-ready-to-ride-again/.

Citation links and full transcript at audmcname.com

Instagram and Twitter: @audmcname

Comic examining the Hamilton Sign near Chehalis, WA– why is it there? Is it even legal? Complete transcript and sources here. Created in collaboration with A. Service.

Cover Page

TITLE: Billboards vs Beautification

SUBTITLE: We drove Chehalis, WA and all we got was a 14 second video of this sign

[ID: NED, a mysterious demon, drawn entirely in black, with unnaturally long limbs and big eyes, crouches over a large billboard with the title on the left and a drawing of Uncle Sam on the right. Uncle Sam is an older white man with huge very close set blue eyes. He is wearing a top hat with stars and stripes on it and an old fashioned suit with a giant bowtie. He has a very narrow but long goatee. The billboard is on the side of a freeway. Behind part of the billboard is a map of the west coast with a route drawn between Portland, Centralia and Seattle.]

A. Service and A. McNamee

Page One

[ID: a comic with five panels, The first three panels show the steering wheel and dashboard of a car from the driver’s perspective. Through the dashboard the freeway is visible. A billboard with the words “FREEDOM IS DANGEROUS! SLAVERY IS PEACEFUL” written on one side and a drawing of uncle sam on the right slowly comes into view (actual sign, circa 2017). NED the education demon crouches over the sign and wraps its long arms over the words.]

You know when you’re on I-5 between Portland and Seattle.

You’re right near Chehalis, WA, and you see in the distance–

The two foot tall baby-blue eyes of Uncle Sam boring into you. Next to a far-right cold take on a 13×41 foot readerboard.

NED: “That’s pretty weird, right? What’s up with that?”

Page Two

The sign’s creator is this guy, Alfred Hamilton. [ID: a drawing of a middle aged white man staring into the distance.]

He was a successful turkey rancher who got rich off his investments [1] [ID: a drawing of a turkey]

And he was a member of the proto-far-right John Birch Society [2].* [ID: a roast turkey on a platter in a spotlight]*

Hamilton’s first recorded political billboard was erected in 1967. It protested new state and federal laws banning most billboards to preserve the beauty of American freeways [3].

[ID: Alfred Hamilton stands with his arms crossed behind a large flock of turkeys. There is one emu in the back of the flock and a large barn behind them. A billboard next to Hamilton reads: “THERE ARE NO BILLBOARDS IN RUSSIA!”.]

NED: there definitely are billboards in Russia

You can thank lady bird johnson for provoking Hamilton. [ID: a portrait of a middle aged woman with a short and puffy 1960s style hair style and a pearl necklace.]

Lady Bird’s advocacy ensured the Highway Beautification Act’s passage; LBJ signed it on her birthday [4]. [ID a smiling Lyndon B Johnson hands Lady bird a pen, both are wearing formal clothes and are middle aged. A tiny NED is sitting on Lady Bird’s shoulder.]

NED: “happy birthday”

Page Three

[ID: there are four different versions of the uncle sam sign, each has text on one side and a slightly different drawing of uncle sam on the other, there are four NED’s all are small, the same size as the signs, their arms and legs are wiggly, two NED’s are solid black and two completely white.]

NED: “Hamilton changed the slogan regularly, but they were uniformly conservative, often bizarre, and occasionally inscrutable.”

Sign 1: LET’S KEEP THE CANAL AND GIVE THEM KISSINGER

NED: “There were so many signs about the US finally giving Panama its canal back”

Sign 2: PUBLIC LIBRARY: A GREAT PLACE FOR YOUR KIDS TO MEET SEXUAL DEVIANTS

Sign 3: BOOTH GARDNER– A MAN WHO THINKS TWICE BEFORE HE SAYS NOTHING NED: “Like every Democratic governor of Washington, Gardner received his fair share of sign time.”

Sign 4: MUHAMMED YUSEF, MUSLIM FROM GREAT VRITAIN FINANCED “THE DA VINCE CODE”!”

NED: “Hamilton had to obliquely weigh in on the islamophobic consipiracy theories about Tom Hank’s film The Da Vinci Code in 2004.”

Page Four

[Unidentified silhouette of a face:] “But NED,”

You say

[Unidentified silhouette of a face:] “ What did Lady Bird Johnson have to say about Uncle Sam?”

[ID: NED with his chin in his hand and legs over its heads]

She didn’t personally weigh in on the matter, but Hamilton’s sign was in violation of Washington State’s Scenic Vistas Act in accordance with Lady Bird’s bill.

The only permissible billboards? “Signs advertising activities conducted on the property… [5]”

[ID: an uncle sam sign with a bedraggled, tired uncle sam on the left, the sign reads “CARTER”S NEW BROOM MADE OF OLD STRAW” the top of the sign in smaller font “HAMILTON FARMS access road exit” the bottom of the sign reads “Angus, holstein, springers”]

[ID:the bottom panel is laid out like a newspaper article, the headline reads “Uncle Sam Billboard Wins Legal Tussle” [6] by Brother Jonathan. There is an image of a cartoonish uncle sam behind a jail cell, with his hands gripping the bars. There is an ad for jello on the bottom of page that reads “SPRINKLE JELL-O INSTEAD O]

In 1971 Washington State sued Hamilton, but the appeals court sided with Uncle Sam: even though the ad only took up 8.9% of the sign, the government had no right to say that the sign wasn’t an ad [7]. So Sam got to say.

Page Five

Hamilton sold his farm in 1995 [ID: Uncle sam sign that reads “NONCOMMUNIST STRAW FOR SALE” a small lawn sign in front of it reads “SOLD, national frozen foods.”]

…and moved the sing up the road [ID: Uncle Sam sign that reads “DEMOCRAT MOTTO VOTE EARLY VOTE OFTEN.” in front of a semi truck]

Since his death in 2004 his son Mike owns the sign and presumably is responsible for its messages [9]. The ads and the farm are long gone, but the state hasn’t tried to have the billboard removed. [ID: an uncle sam sign that reads “TAX FREE COMMUNIST CITY BEING BUILT NEAR BOISE.”]

According to UW law professor Hugh Spitzer that’s because the Scenic Vistas Act has entered a “legal twilight zone.” Today courts allow laws that restrict the time, place and manner of speech but not content as the Act regulates– so it risks being struck down if challenged [10]. [ID: drawing of Hugh Spitzer, an older man in a suit with short hair.]

[ID: a rear view mirror with an uncle sam sign in it, the sign reads: “BACKGROUND CHECKS LET’S START WITH THE PRESIDENT”] So Hamilton gets the last word. For fifty years and counting.

Page Six

[ID: NED’s upper body with very long arms holding up text boxes.]

NED: “The Seattle Time estimates that the sign was viewed about 1.3 BILLION times between 1967 and 2017 [11], including gems like: “WOMEN ARE MEANT TO BE CHERISHED NOT LIBERATED,” ‘NO MEXICAN OLYMPIC TEAM? ALL THE RUNNERS AND SWIMMERS ARE HERE!” “EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE- HOME OF ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS AND HOMOS?”

NED: “Sometimes the signs are absurd to the point of humor, but they can also be cruel and unwelcoming.”

In hindsight, Hamilton’s rhetoric is reminiscent of Twitter trolls.

[ID: the twitter icon drawn above the handle “@RealCandaceO” next to the icon the tweet reads:] “A step-by-step guide to not having the government separate you from your family: Step 1: Don’t Break the Law that’s it, there’s no more steps.” [12]

Hamilton told the Oregonian that his goal with the sign was to “make people think [13]” But like Twitter, the sign has only a few seconds to provoke its viewers. Driving by in your car there’s no way to respond. Hamilton certainly isn’t promoting good-faith discussion, or even a coherent political ideology of his own.

The messages he wrote were often fear mongering and mean spirited, irony-dense, designed for an emotional response. Does Uncle Sam represent Hamilton’s perspective or the overbearing government? (why are his eyes like that?)

Page Seven

Uncle Sam has been controversial since 1967 (the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce alone gets a call at least once a week) [14]. A common editorial response to these complain is:

[ID: a small low house like building, in the next panel a man with crossed arms and a baseball cap shading his face says: “Free speech! If you don’t like it, put up your own.”]

One Chehalis transplant Kyle Wheeler (no relation), became somewhat obsessed with the sign

NED: “(unrelatable)”

[ID drawing of Kyle Wheeler wearing a cloth mask over his nose and mouth and frameless glasses, he has shoulder length hair and is wearing a long sleeve shirt.]

And he decided to take the reply guys up on their challenge. After years of effort he’s found that

PRESS: “as it turns out, putting up a sign of your own isn’t quite as simple as comments in the newspaper make it out to be.” [15]

He got a plot of land along the highway but it’s not zoned for a billboard-sized sign.

[ID: Kyle Wheeler stands next to a large pride flag with a arrow of the trans pride flag on the right side that reads “LEWIS COUNTY WELCOMES…” behind the pride sign is the large torso of uncle sam, clearly much bigger than the pride sign. In front of the pride sing is a small lawn sign that says “RURAL AMERICAN AGAINST RACISM”]

He put up a smaller sign but it was puny next to the hamilton sign, and defaced within 24 hours. He continues working on the sign and related projects. He feels he owes it to other rural LGBTQ+ kids to keep going [16]. There won’t be a responding billboard anytime soon.

Page Eight

[ID NED’s upper body leans into first panel from the top of the page, NED has its head resting on its hands]

NED: “Lots of people, regardless of their personal political opinions, like to call the sign a beacon of free speech, like…”

[ID the unidentified silhouette of the head and upper body of a person in the second panel]: “What a glorious example of American freedom, I love it BECAUSE I don’t agree with it!”

NED: “But who gets that free speech? Wheeler doesn’t have access to Hamilton’s volume.”

It’s ironic that Hamilton, with all his economic and social power, felt so maligned that he needed the attention of 1.3 billion people to consider himself heard.

Incidentally, the sign has a 2.5 star rating on Yelp. A particularly lyrical review

[ID: the next paragraph is formatted to look like a Yelp review, at the top of the ‘review’ is a circle with an anonymous avatar, the name Mike M. Centralia, WA and a one out of five star rating]

Alfred Hamilton…like many bitter men, blamed the democratic system of governance for every little grievance. He was also a typical conservative chicken hawk, who could not be bothered to go to war himself, but spent a great deal of time and effort putting down those who don’t “support the troops.” All hat no Cattle.

Hamilton died in 2004. I’d love to miss him, but he won’t go away [17].

[ID: there are three panels in a row at the bottom of the page, the first shows a steering wheel and dashboard from the perspective of the driver, looking out over an empty road. The second panel shows the driver’s seat and steering wheel from the perspective of the passenger seat, revealing that NED is driving. NED has one hand on the wheel and the other behind its head. The third panel shows the uncle sam sign with a car driving past it. The sign reads: “TAKE THAT LADY BIRD.”]

Citations

1. Mark Lawton, “‘Uncle Sam’ Billboard Owner Dies,” The Daily Chronicle, November 10, 2004, https://www.chronline.com/stories/uncle-sam-billboard-owner-dies,236138.
2. Zoe Sayler, “A Highway, Divided: What Drives Opposition to I-5’s Uncle Sam Sign?,” Seattle Met, March 1, 2021, https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2021/03/what-drives-opposition-to-i5-uncle-sam-hamilton-sign-lewis-county-lollipop-guild-washington.
3. Brittany Voie, “Voie Commentary: Slade Gorton and the Infamous Hamilton Uncle Sam Billboard,” The Daily Chronicle, July 28, 2017, https://www.chronline.com/stories/voie-commentary-slade-gorton-and-the-infamous-hamilton-uncle-sam-billboard,24896.
4. “Highway Beautification Act Media Kit,” LBJ Presidential Library, accessed July 31, 2021, http://www.lbjlibrary.org/mediakits/highwaybeautification/.
5. The State of Washington, Appellant, v. Alfred R. Hamilton, et al, Respondents (Washington Court of Appeals January 17, 1980).
6. “Uncle Sam Billboard Wins Legal Tussle,” The Seattle Times, December 24, 1979,
7. The State of Washington, Appellant, v. Alfred R. Hamilton, et al, Respondents.
8. Mark Lawton, “‘Uncle Sam’ Billboard Owner Dies,”
9. Erik Lacitis, “I-5’s Uncle Sam Billboard: 50 Years and Still Ticked off near Chehalis,” The Seattle Times, October 21, 2017, sec. Local News, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/i-5s-uncle-sam-50-years-and-still-ticked-off-near-chehalis/.
10. Brittany Voie, “Brittany Voie Commentary: Hamilton Uncle Sam Billboard Is a Landmark in a ‘Legal Twilight Zone,’” The Daily Chronicle, October 13, 2017, https://www.chronline.com/stories/brittany-voie-commentary-hamilton-uncle-sam-billboard-is-a-landmark-in-a-legal-twilight-zone,22592.
11. Erik Lacitis, “I-5’s Uncle Sam Billboard: 50 Years and Still Ticked off near Chehalis,”
12. Shaun, PragerU & The Law, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCTp_kYwz1E.
13. Brittany Voie, “Voie Commentary: The Curious Case of the Loved and Loathed Hamilton Sign,” The Daily Chronicle, July 21, 2017, https://www.chronline.com/stories/voie-commentary-the-curious-case-of-the-loved-and-loathed-hamilton-sign,25076.
14. Brittany Voie, “Brittany Voie Commentary: Hamilton Uncle Sam Billboard Is a Landmark in a ‘Legal Twilight Zone,’”
15. Zoe Sayler, “A Highway, Divided: What Drives Opposition to I-5’s Uncle Sam Sign?,”
16. Ibid
17. “Uncle Sam Right Wing Billboard – Chehalis, WA,” Yelp, accessed October 1, 2021, https://www.yelp.com/biz/uncle-sam-right-wing-billboard-chehalis?q=all+hat.

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