In 2003, I was working for an advertising distribution technology company. My client was doing the advertising for Daimler Chrysler and I subsequently spent two months living in the Troy/Detroit, Michigan area.

In the hours I spent waiting for the studio to finish their part of the project, I worked on this drawing. It is based on a drive I took with a coworker.

We were passing the 8 Mile area made famous by Eminem and the film "8 Mile" which had come out that year, which made me perk up a bit. I saw many burned out shells of houses that had been there since the ‘68 riots, exactly as shown in the film.

It was astonishing. Most Americans have no idea that this kind of world exists— a world Hurricane Katrina exposed in 2005. It's a world where people live like third-worlders in the richest country on earth.

A cop car whizzed by us on the shoulder of the highway and we soon came upon an accident scene—a car had flipped off of an overpass. The car was on its roof, wheels to the sky. Amazingly, no one appeared to be hurt.