Second year of popular P. 2 panel is now a book
BRIAN WALKER/Press Rann Haight displays his second book “Tomorrow is ... The Second Year.”
COEUR d’ALENE — Rann Haight wasn’t planning to get rich when he published an anthology entitled “Tomorrow is...The First Year.”
Good thing, too.
“It hasn’t been a best seller, but they make really, really good business cards,” the guy who earns a better living as an architect joked Monday. “People don’t throw them away.”
That indispensability is only part of the reason Haight is now the proud creator of “Tomorrow is...The Second Year.” The second volume of his daily cartoons, which appear on Page 2 in The Press, is now available for $14.95 at the Press offices, 215 N. Second St. in downtown Coeur d’Alene. Copies of the first book are for sale, too.
Asked why he dove into a second edition, Haight said: “Because Uncle Jack told me to.”
More on Uncle Jack in a moment.
“Tomorrow is...The Second Year” fulfills Haight’s mission to continue “the world’s self-appointed tongue-in-cheek harbinger of things to come.” One of the unexpected benefits of that harbinger is that it’s getting into some small hands.
Haight said he’s been contacted by teachers here, in Idaho’s Treasure Valley and even in California who have been using his work as teaching tools.
“That was a pleasant surprise,” he said.
Asked if the books were being used in art classes, Haight shook his head.
“You’d think it was the art they’d respond to, but it’s the writing — because the topics are so diverse,” he said. “It works like a calendar... Every day there’s a new subject for them. It’s a year’s worth of inspiration.”
Geri Hagler of Coeur d’Alene has been inspired. She bought copies of Haight’s first and second books Monday morning.
“The illustrations are absolutely beautiful,” she said. “He’s not just a great artist. The social commentary is always interesting.
“And I love Uncle Jack.”
Uncle Jack, the Haiku-wielding, cowboy-hatted philosopher, debuted in The Press last Halloween.
“Jack is just flat out experience, where you’ve seen it all and you’ve done it all. It’s remembering the best advice you’ve received or given over a long life,” Haight said. “He’s based on a lot of people — my dad, all the guys I ever hunted and fished with, played sports with. But Uncle Jack can say what he needs to in 15 words or less. That’s the goal.”
Haight’s goal is to continue to have fun with “Tomorrow is...”
And maybe even sell a few business cards along the way.