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Darwin Claus comes to town in US artist's atheist cards
AFP - Thursday, December 18
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Andrew Shaffer was a starving artist in the US midwest until he tapped into an improbable market in this holiday season of economic woe: he began designing and selling "Great Depression" and atheist Christmas cards.
"I always thought that Charles Darwin looked like Santa Claus," Shaffer told AFP from his home in Iowa, explaining how he had come up with the idea for Christmas cards for atheists.
"So last year, I put together an image of Darwin with some presents under his arm and started selling it alongside my other edgy Christmas cards."
Sales of Darwin Claus outstripped sales of any other card Shaffer was marketing, leading him to think that "maybe there are atheists out there who want to send Christmas cards."
So he started an entire line of cards for them.
The 30-year-old starving artist turned entrepreneur has also launched a line of "Depressing Times" cards, featuring images from the 1930s, when the United States grappled with the Great Depression, and humorous verse contrasting those very difficult times with today's economic slump.
One of the cards shows a woman cutting cloth against a pattern and has the caption on the front: "I made you a present."
Inside the card is the message: "But I had to burn it in a trashcan to stay warm -- Have a Great Depression and a Happy New Year."
Shaffer also has gay cards, often featuring the rainbow colors that have come to symbolize the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
Shaffer insists he did not create the cards to offend anyone or to scare small children, as the card that declares "The good news is that Santa is real" but "the bad news is that he's dead" might do.
"I expected people would be offended a little bit by the atheist cards, even if I didn't feel I was mocking Christian figures or Jesus or anything like that," he said.
"I was mocking the secular side of Christmas -- Santa Claus, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer -- and in fact, I've had a lot of people who are traditional Christians who have bought the atheist cards for friends, because they think they are funny," he said.
But he has taken some flak over the Great Depression cards, he admitted.
"Some people felt I was knocking people who were not well-off, but I came up with those cards the weekend of the 700 billion dollar bailout, when people on Wall Street losing their jobs.
"Then, it was OK for the people on Main Street to mock. Now it's a little less funny because now it's the people on Main Street who are losing their jobs," he said.
This year though sales are up five times compared with 2007, when Shaffer started the greeting card business. The cards are sold directly to the consumer via the www.orderofstnick.com website.
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Enlarge Photo
A copy of Darwin's book the "Origin of Species" is pictured in front of a life size stone bust of Charles Darwin at London's Natural History Museum. A US artist has designed an entire line of Christmas cards for artheists with images of Charles Darwin.
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