Marketing Precedes the Miracle

In a day when LDS chapels are built from standardized blueprints, when satellite dishes bring play-by-play BYU sports events to every participating congregation, and when the Church News reports the tightening of security surrounding historical documents under the headline, “Archives Now More Accessible,” Calvin Grondahl brings all the irony of contemporary Mormonism into sharp focus.Marketing Precedes the Miracle is the fourth in his series of ever-crowd-pleasing cartoons.

Calvin Grondahl is the editorial cartoonist for the Standard Examiner in Ogden, Utah. He is the author of Faith Promoting Rumors, Freeway to Perfection, Sunday’s Foyer, Utah and All That Jazz, and Utah: Sex and Travel Guide, as well as the illustrator of Saintspeak: The Mormon Dictionary and Music and the Broken Word: Songs for Alternate Voices. His first employment after graduating from Brigham Young University (and the campus Daily Universe) was with the LDS church-owned Deseret News, where he stayed for several years before landing his spot with the Examiner.