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The New Superhero: The Adventures of Unemployed Man
On this week's Marketplace Money, host Tess Vigeland talks to the The Fairy Jobmother, the host of a new reality series on Lifetime who helps unemployed Americans find jobs.
Tess also highlights a new comic book called "The Adventures of Unemployed Man" by Erich Origen and Gan Golan. (you can check out a few pages from the comic in a slideshow).
Unemploy Man's sidekicks may sound familiar to you: Plan B (he's only on Plan B?), Wondermother and Master of Degrees. His arch enemies may also sound familiar: The Firing Squad (aka human resources although there is another villain called The Human Resource), the Outsourcerer, Loophole and of course, The Man.
All this talk about Fairy Job Mothers and Unemployed superheroes got us thinking about other real and imaginary superheroes of the Great Recession.
Share your ideas. Post a comment below.
I was goingto suggest an evil character named Outsoure but someone beat me to it. How about Dr. Downsize. And Tuition Hike can be a character or an event. One of those evildoers must declare that his ultimate goal is the destruction of the middle class. (Can one of the good guys be Lou Dobbs in disguise?)
I assume that future episodes of Unemployed Man will introduce us to some of his fellow travelers at the Unemployment Office, including Unemployed Woman (who tries to have it all) and their slightly older sidekick (named by economists), Discouraged Worker. DW has the power to be virtually invisible to labor statisticians.
Each day this trio of depression fighters hopefully peruse the job listings in newspapers and online, searching vainly for the one opening that might result in job. Meanwhile, they drain their dwindling "rainy day fund" while attempting to retain their personal pride in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
My favorite super hero has always been gurilla scab; that over fifty unemplowed guy who goes out into the world every day fixing stuff without pay or permishion.
you may laugh now but there will be a day when this is the only work anyone can get. here in N A we're on the verge of factrotainment. so far a lot of our empty mills are doing art duty but there may soon be a day when you find yourself here on a two week vacation paying to be in a freezing/sweltering shoe shop making yourself a fine pair of boots to take home to show your friends what you did on vacation.
