Roadkill Bill: squirrel with a message

The most entertaining character in Toward the Livable City is not an author or essayist. It is a talking squirrel with tire tracks across his abdomen and tail: Roadkill Bill. Ken Avidor, a 49-year-old Minneapolis illustrator and sculptor, created Roadkill Bill several years ago and made him the star of a cartoon that ran weekly in The Pulse of the Twin Cities from 1999 until last December. The strip also appeared in periodicals such as Car Busters magazine. Stylistically similar to drawings by Fritz the Cat creator R. Crumb, Roadkill Bill is a protest against idiocies of the high-consumption American lifestyle and assaults on the environment, especially those associated with roads and drivers. “The fact that he is run over constantly and survives with only tire tracks probably suggests he’s an archetype of human and animal suffering in our auto- and technology-dominated world,” Avidor said in response to an e-mail query. Charmed by the eight Roadkill Bill strips in Toward the Livable City, I went to www.roadkillbill.com and discovered that in 2001, Car Busters Press published a book of Roadkill Bill, which Avidor describes as “a comic strip on cars, technology, and philosophy from the point of view of a frequently squashed rodent.” Avidor is now working on a “graphic novel” version, which he says “will have all the old characters battling a highway project that dooms their homes in an urban neighborhood and a wetland. The comic will also have tips for activists on how to fight highway projects and other big megaprojects. Fun and educational.” Roadkill Bill is a character that could inject a welcome dose of humor into certain smart-growth and traffic-calming presentations. Asked whether new urbanists and others may use his cartoons in slide shows, PowerPoint presentations, or publications, Avidor said, “People can certainly recycle published comics for non-profit, activist, educational, and advocacy purposes. For-profit people and wealthy non-profits have to pay a fee to republish comics and art.” Avidor can be reached at mail@avidorstudios.com. — Philip Langdon