The MoldMaking Funny Pages

Does anyone remember Izzy A. Moldmaker? MMT's short-lived 1998 comic strip that was supposed to bring out our industry's sense of humor. Well, it fell short on our end. (MMT's Top 10 Reasons to Be a Moldmaker t-shirt hit the mark!) But just the other day, I got wind of a new attempt at a comic series that may have a better angle.  

 

Shop Floor Automations (SFA) is doing its job to attract a younger manufacturing audience by working its social media channels and developing a comic strip series called Shop Floor Man Presents.

 

The character appears in a two-square story in which he shows what life is like using SFA’s solutions, while the other shows the horrors he faces elsewhere. The comic will also show the trials that machinists can face, and involve other industry-related humor.

Amanda Rosenblatt, the comic strip artist and company’s marketing coordinator says they gather ideas and feedback on comics from the whole company, so the final product is a group effort.

“I think it is a bold statement because, really, he is purposely drawn badly,” she remarks. “That’s why we have the tagline ‘Our solutions are better than our comics.’ No one at the company, including myself, has the time to draw or commission someone to make an amazing comic, but we have the humor, stories and resources to make people laugh. There’s charm to him.”

This is great for social media. Rosenblatt, who has been in the professional social media realm for close to 10 years, has heard how social media isn’t valuable for this line of business, but believes this could not be further from the truth.

“I’m not on social media all day, however, having a footprint online aside from just a website is so crucial,” she says. “You have middle school kids, high school teens and college-aged young adults who we are trying to get into this industry, or people like the military veterans being trained at organizations like Workshops for Warriors. These people of these various age groups are attached to their devices and social media, and we can reach them and show them this industry is a community.”

This is exactly how I have always felt about moldmaking also.

Shop Floor Man Presents and @ShopFloorHumor are two great ways to network with people. “There is no greater commonality we all share than the love of laughter and humor. Why not use it for the benefit of a business?”