Captain Extruder saves the day for US Extruders

U.S. Extruders has found a superpowerful way to promote its business.

The machinery firm based in Westerly, R.I., has created Captain Extruder, a superhero character that's appearing in the firm's ads. U.S. Extruders recently expanded the idea by posting a digital comic story on its website starring the character.

In the story, Captain Extruder battles the Process Monster, a globlike green creature seen oozing from an extrusion line as workers scramble out of the way. The good Captain hurls a screw at the beast — with a shout of "The right screw design will tame this monster!" — putting a smile on the Monster's face. The Monster says "Thanks Captain Extruder!" and the day is saved.

"I thought that a superhero would be a fun way to represent our company and what we can do for customers," marketing manager Eric Adair said.

Adair — a comics fan himself — worked with artist Gavin Guidry on the character design.

"We then ran a few ads and people seemed to really like it, so we decided that it would be fun to take it even further and start telling some stories through comics," Adair said.

Guidry drew and inked the story for U.S. Extruders, which in 2021 was named to Plastics News' Best Places to Work list for the third consecutive year.

Adair added the color to the story. "It's been a ton of fun and I'm really excited about where it's heading," he said.

Guidry said by email that after receiving a one-page idea from Adair, he "fleshed it out further, expanding it into more classically paced beats over the four pages it currently reads."

Guidry said he's done comics work for other companies — including a 24-page comic for a medical technologies firm — but U.S. Extruders was the first manufacturer that he's worked with.

"They're always a bit of a fun challenge," said Guidry, who's based in the New Orleans area. "They're built around products or corporate entities being represented by heroes facing some over dramatized version of a problem they would typically face in their everyday work."

He added that the fun element of the U.S. Extruders comic was that "it naturally made sense to have a giant monster, which, frankly, you can never really go wrong with."