House of Cards

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The moment we’ve all been waiting for: the card game that will determine Ford’s fortunes is about to begin!

Ever since this story’s conception (back in the far away time of 2012, when the world officially ended), we’ve had Time Cheetah and Henry Ford join a game of poker in Monte Carlo. The details of who’s involved and especially how the game plays out has changed extensively since conception. Let’s just say… the final version gets quite abridged so the second part of the story gets room to breathe and develop. You’ll see what we mean pretty soon.

For now… enjoy the calm before the gambling storm on today’s Time Cheetah page!

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Little Annoyances

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Sometimes, it's not the big things that are the problem. Sometimes life just gives you a bunch of pokes, of little annoyances, to see if it can get a reaction out of you. Make you break. You don't, 'cause you're a model citizen, but it's still... trying.

This weekend, life poked me a lot. You must have, at times, felt your fair share of annoyances as well. I wanted to share mine with you so we may all come together in our united hatred of these very petty issues:

- I ordered an ice coffee at a fast food restaurant. "We don't sell Ice coffee." No problem, coffee with a cup of ice, please. "Our coffee machine is broken."

- At a concert, I wanted a beer. They had Domestic and Imported on the price sign. What are the Imported options? "Heineken." Domestic? "Bud Light." Why not just write Bud Light and Heineken on the price sign then? "I dunno." Well, how big is the Heineken? "A cup, I dunno how many ounces."

- I was eating at a Vietnamese Restaurant and ordered the Yellow Curry for a not-cheap price. "Would you like a $2 cup of white rice with that?" Oh, you mean extra rice? "No, the curry doesn't come with rice." Oh, sure. I'll just drink it straight. Like soup. 

You know what else is really annoying? Henry Ford. Don't believe me? Just look at Today's New Page!

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The name's Ford, Henry Ford...

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Repeat after me: the Henry Ford as portrayed in Time Cheetah is in no way to be confused with any Henry Ford living or dead. 

With that legal disclaimer out of the way, allow me to share with you a glimpse at the process of making this Time Cheetah story. Not the stuff that makes us sound smart, but the part that makes my brother sound insane.

Time Cheetah stories tend to be born from booze so they're all pretty wacky to begin with. And while this story is nowhere near the craziest, it does have one of my brother's weirdest creative choices. Time Cheetah playing in a secret card game where all the players are car makers is, already, rather specific. But hey, at least it's tried and true ground for spy stories, right? No, the choice he made was that Henry Ford was going to be a rogue asshole. 

Perfect salt and pepper hair? Check. Enormous ego? Yup. About to beat someone up within the first page of meeting him? You fucking know it.

I won't get too into it, but the choice ended up really paying off. There is not a single person in this story Ford will not piss off in some way. Why not start by checking out his awesome introduction, in the newest Time Cheetah page?

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Usual Suspects

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The plot thickens in today’s Time Cheetah page, as we get to meet the dudes who might be stealing Henry Ford’s money!

It’s a colorful cast, and it took us a little bit to arrive at this specific lineup of car makers. Since we have a “whodunit” running in this issue, we wanted a list of people with interesting personalities that would create some friction with Ford, since that will keep you guessing as to who’s up to no good. But seeing as we intend to keep Time Cheetah at least marginally based on historical fact, we had to find contemporaries and business associates rather than just make up adversaries (though, there is one more suspect to introduce that is wholly fictional). Luckily, the early days of the Automobile industry were not lacking in interesting personalities, and the choices came pretty easy:

—Dodge Brothers: you got two brothers with different personalities, who worked as suppliers for Ford but eventually leave to form their own company. Their actual history with Ford is complicated, but it’s not a stretch to say the pair didn’t like him much.

—Henry Leland: Leland’s personality is mostly invention in this story, we make him into a pretty pithy asshole, but all that Cadillac stuff is true. Even crazier, Leland is responsible for later founding the Lincoln Motor Company, which in 1922 became insolvent… then got bought out by Henry Ford. And Wikipedia puts it best: “Ford deliberately low-balled his offer as revenge against Leland's role in the creation of Cadillac.”

—Karl Benz: I mean… he’s German. You gotta have a German. Everybody hates Germans (sorry, Germans).

Later this week… the main man himself enters the picture. Stay tuned!

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