Gary Brookins, a cartoonist for the Richmond Times Dispatch in Virginia, never thought twice about bank mergers.
That is until First Union Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., bought Signet Banking Inc. of Richmond last July.
"I remember it well," recalled Mr. Brookins, who had banked at Signet for years. "The merger was announced Thursday and on Saturday the Signet branch that I used to go to was closed down."
Three weeks later on a Monday, Mr. Brookins sat poised over his bristleboard with a bank merger cartoon dancing in his head.
What emerged was a cartoon of six fish, each one bigger than the next, who are ready to gobble up the fish just before them.
The first five fish have "Va. Banks" etched on their sides. The sixth, the largest and most ferocious, boasts, "N.C. Banks."
"The cartoon may not have had the same impact as a Viagra cartoon, but it was moderately successful," said Mr. Brookins, who has been a cartoonist for 20 years. "People are concerned that their local bank would no longer be their local bank."
That anxiety and the speed in which banks are combining into the huge conglomerates are finding their way to the threshold of popular culture. And while the topic has yet to find its way into the material of David Letterman or Jay Leno, pop culture experts say it may just be a matter of time.
Cartoons are to some degree the entryway into popular culture, said cartoonist Rob Rogers of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
"In one way, they capture the consciousness, the concerns of the everyman, the everywoman," said Mr. Rogers, who has been a cartoonist for 15 years. "But cartoons are also like slingshots to the giants. They are ways to rail against injustice because they have a very specific soap box of their own."
Mr. Rogers drew his first bank merger cartoon shortly after the Travelers Group announced a deal to merge with Citicorp.
In the cartoon, a couple stares at what appears to be a McDonald's with a billboard advertising the "McRosoft, Starbank, Citigap" company. "This merger-mania is getting out of hand," the man says to the woman.
"Not only have there been a lot of bank mergers but mergers in general," said Mr. Rogers. "And to be honest I don't know what the ramification of bank mergers will be. But I do know that I am curious and bewildered about them."
Apparently, so is the public. The bank mergers of this year have been among the largest and most exceptional in the business world.
One week after Travelers agreed to the Citicorp deal, NationsBank announced its plans to merge with BankAmerica Corp. on the same day Banc One said it was combining with First Chicago NBD.
A week after those deals were unveiled, Bank of New York unsuccessfully made a run at Mellon Bank Corp. In early June, Wells Fargo & Co. and Norwest agreed to become one company.
In spite of the dizzying pace in which they have combined, new banks have already won the kudos of Wall Street with promises of great cost cuts and a mantra to cross-sell to customers at every turn. The verdict is still out on whether super banks are what consumers are looking for.
"People like reliability," said Mr. Rogers. "They don't like change. These mergers represents change and they hate that."
Indeed. Renowned psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers said banks have always been the subject of ridicule, but consolidation has taken consumer distrust to a new level, she said.
"People are really ticked off at banks because they are using their money and charging them for the privilege of using it," she said. "I never dreamed that I would be charged for going to a human being who would be kind to me."
As bank mergers have become more prevalent, the impulse to poke fun at them has increased also, observed Robert Mankoff, editorial cartoonist for New Yorker magazine and the president of the Cartoon Bank.
Cartoons on politics, sex and general business predominate in the New Yorker, said Mr. Mankoff. But "banking is a very ripe field."
Out of the 60,000 cartoons that the New Yorker has published, more than 200 are related to banks and mergers, he said.
Mr. Mankoff dashed off a bank merger cartoon of his own for the New Yorker when the bank mergers appeared to be reaching a frenzy.
In the cartoon, a bank loan officer looks into the disappointed face of a customer and says: "Of course you could try another bank, if there were any other banks."
"Cartoons take logical situations and take them to an extreme because that is where the humor is," said Mr. Mankoff. "However, there is something true emotionally about the fear that people have about these mergers. What is the endpoint of them? Monopoly?"
Consumers are very aware of the merger mania, said Jeffrey K. Olick, assistant professor of sociology at Columbia University. "They actually appreciate the economies of scales that it brings. But they also worry that things are getting out of control.
"Cartoons are an indicator of anxiety," he said. "Humor is the way that we deal with our demons."
Scott Adams, creator of the well-known Dilbert cartoon strip, however, does not agree that bank merger cartoons are on the rise.
"Business cartoons maybe, but I don't think the average person cares about bank mergers."
Mr. Adams, who was a downsized banker before he became the creator of the disgruntled office worker Dilbert, conceded that one of his cartoons was inspired by a bank merger.
In the cartoon, a frequent character, Dogbert, acting as a CEO tells two employees of a company that he is planning to buy that he will recommend positions for them once the company is bought.
"Really?" says one cartoon. "You'd make sure we all got jobs."
"No," said Dogbert. "But I'll recommend a position."
It's not unusual that most cartoons on bank mergers are sarcastic or cynical, noted Benjamin E. Gup, author of 17 books on banking.
"Cartoonists are capturing the fear," he said. "However, I don't think people really don't understand them. The sarcasm comes from the fact that while bank mergers may be good for some people it will bad for people who are going to be let go."
