Alex Heberling

I came across something I found really interesting while working at the library recently. It was an illustration ad for “Shredded Wheat Biscuits” (the forerunners of our beloved Frosted Mini-Wheats) from Heartst’s Chicago American, dated December 9^th, 1900. Alongside some nice illustrations of shredded wheat and recipes for suggested servings was the following:

“Send This Greeting: ‘Peace on Earth and Good Health to Men’ if they will eat the bread as it comes from Nature’s kitchen, pure, sweet and wholesome. No yeast germs, no baking powder gases, no greasy shortening, which defile the body tissues, making the flesh weak and the bones fragile. A light, short bread, already baked, the perfect food to keep the body clean. Peace on Earth: Unnatural breads have killed more men than bullets.”

In “Mac Hall: Volume Whatever,” Matt Boyd remarked several times throughout his commentary that “the more people change, the more they stay the same.” Today’s huge trend of organic this and that, of which I admit I’m a skeptic (I’ve been eating normally processed produce all my life and I’m perfectly healthy) and the public outcry against additives and preservatives in food immediately came to mind when I was scanning the shredded wheat ad. It seems like indisputable proof that hype about ‘pure’ food is nothing new whatsoever.

Stuff like this was obviously going on over a century ago. And if the shredded wheat biscuit was considered the pure alternative to ‘unnatural breads,’ then what would the people who agreed with this ad in 1900 think of their peers who had grown up on unnatural bread? We now think of homemade bread and other such processing-free foodstuffs the epitome of healthy and wholesome food. What would they think of us now?

With all the hype about eating a healthy, chemical-free diet in the last ten years, did anyone ever stop to think about what the opposition to such diets were saying when they were the norm?

The more people change, the more they stay the same.

Update: The shredded wheat ad that I scanned can now be seen online here.

Corner on Main is a non-linear interactive webcomic. I wanted to take a single block of about 15 minutes, and tell many different stories that all happen in that same short period of time. The comic’s title is that of the convenience store around which all the stories take place; one vignette is from the perspective of the shop clerk, another is from some of the customers in the store, and so forth. On each page in any given character’s story track, background characters are clickable, and doing so will take the reader to that person’s story track, picking up at the exact point in time that they left the first person’s story.

The experience of reading Corner on Main utilizes some of the unique capabilities of webcomics, and cannot be reproduced in print form. By interlinking all the stories on the web, it creates thousands of potential ways to read Corner on Main, none of which need to be remotely linear.

Just as a note of interest, I updated the website with a bio and contact pages.  I came down with a cold last weekend as I was finishing my most recent comic project, so now that I’m essentially done working on it, I’m trying to let myself relax and get out of the “I have to be doing something NOW” mode.  I’ll have the new project up for viewing sometime this week, so keep a weather eye out.

My newest website work is called The Great American Customer Challenge.  Having worked in the service industry since the age of fifteen, I have been witness to the sometimes appalling behavior of my consumer peers, and thus I wanted to create a choose-your-own-adventure game that would help the average person learn how to be a better customer.

The game currently consists of three Challenges to play through: the restaurant, the grocery store, and the coffee shop.  Using polite manners and good sense allows the player to reach a winning ending, while bad manners or decorum will result in an often abrupt losing ending.

It’s a sad fact that some people never give a second thought to the person behind the counter at their gas station or burger joint, never even considering that the mass standing before them in an apron is a person with thoughts, feelings, or a life of their own.

My experiences in retail and food service have taught me a great deal about how to interact with people doing the same jobs, which is sadly not present in a great deal of people who have never worked in the industry.  Indeed, as I presented this piece for critique, my peers remarked that everyone ought to be required to work in retail for a year before being qualified for any other form of employment.

I dearly hope that this situation changes someday.  Though I myself may one day leave the service industry forever, I am confident in the fact that being on the working side of the counter has given me a certain compassion that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

The Great American Customer Challenge!

This quarter has been extremely busy for me.  When your life in college is divided up by semesters and quarters, it’s straining when one quarter goes smoothly and the next keeps your nose pressed so hard to the grindstone that it’s rubbed raw.  Despite only having classes three consecutive days a week, it seems like I never have enough time.

My studio time comic is, thankfully, going well, though I only really made good progress on it in the last two weeks.  I have essentially two more weeks to work on it, and I’m praying I’ll have the self-discipline to finish what I want in the time I have.

The thing that’s keeping me going is the fact that this is my next-to-last quarter.  Come June, I’ll be off for the summer, then ten more weeks of work, and then I’ll be graduated.  The end of this loooong tunnel is in sight!