Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. the rain was falling fast and hard, like a fixed-income portfolio after a double-digit interest rate hike. "But then, you’re more likely to see Warren Buffett default on a used car loan than you are to catch a ray of sunshine around here in the dead of winter," snarls a figure in a long, dark trench coat, fedora and Sam Spade-like features. The comic book noir character is the star of Foodmaker Inc.'s 1998 annual report, and describes himself as a no-nonsense P.I.
    "Incidentally, P.I. is private investor, not private investigator. The only kind of dirt I dig for is a hot tip on a small cap. Great investment opportunities don’t just hit you right in the gut or so I thought."
    Get it? Foodmaker's sole operation is Jack in the Box fast-food restaurants and their hamburgers, tacos and fajita pita sandwiches hit you right in the gut?
    Most of the time you read annual reports carefully to make certain there is no cleverly hidden bad news. With Foodmaker's slick and trendy annual report, you'd better pay close attention to make certain you don’t miss any of the comic book jokes. The story line, of course, turns out to be an update on what Jack, the company’s symbolic CEO, and his fellow Boxters are up to.
    The annual report is the brainchild of Viadesign's Stephan Donche and a San Diego newcomer, cartoonist Batton Lash. Lash also is the author of "Wolfe & Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre," a funny book about attorneys who specialize in supernatural law, and Mavis, the "self-proclaimed world's greatest secretary." Lash has optioned the rights to a Wolfe & Byrd action-adventure film to Universal Studios and is awaiting production.
    When Donche proposed a comic book-themed annual report to Foodmaker's investor relations staff, he was surprised at how little resistance he got to the idea. Once they accepted his suggestions, Donche was faced with the difficulty of finding a cartoonist who could carry it off. Donche went looking for someone who could both draw and tell a story. He asked around at local comic book stores, and came up with Lash's name, although nobody would provide the telephone number to Lash's Gaslamp Quarter office. They did, however, spring with the fax number, and Donche was on his way. The pair clicked immediately.
    Although Donche was prepared to use talent from anywhere in the country he could find it, the high-style report became a homegrown product. Foodmaker public relations executive Eric Schellhorn dashed off a script. Lash went behind the counter at a Jack in the Box restaurant with his camera and got the concept in his head. He also gathered photographs of Foodmaker executives who appear in the script.
    Between the lurid comic book art and the schmaltzy lines can be found the good news that the company just completed its second record year. Earnings, which were negative as recently as 1995, doubled from 89 cents per share in 1997 to $1.77 in 1998. Shareholders' equity rose from $31 million in 1995 to $136.9 million at the end of last year.
    "For this to work, the company had to be doing well," explained Donche, otherwise, the approach would have exceeded the bounds of taste and sensitivity.
    With a tragic incident of hamburger contamination several years behind it, the company has posted its second year of record profit. Not bad for fast food, which analysts consider a "mature" and slow-growing industry. By pacing a step ahead of the baby boom surge, Jack in the Box has been able to attract and hold on to a significant market segment. The company built about 100 new restaurants last year and has continued to add innovative menu items, competitive pricing and improved technology at drive through windows.
    The annual report's biff-bam-pow story line leads the reader right to "Jack," the company’s logo CEO, a tall, slim, beautifully suited fellow with a round, white foam head, smiley face and a little yellow party hat.
    In its advertisements, company reports and restaurant art, Foodmaker has steadily developed Jack's personality. For example, a store near Rancho California is decorated with photographs from Jack's life: Jack doing a radio commercial for the company; Jack lounging near a taco shack in Baja California and Jack by a tropical pool wearing a Hawaiian shirt. During the recent Academy Awards, the company ran its "Are we different?" commercial, in which Jack tries to convince his look-alike son that the foam-headed family isn’t so different, just special.
    The company also is developing characters who may or may not show up in other media. A smart-mouthed blond kid in a Jeep pops up in Foodmaker's annual report, a reincarnation of the same teenager who whipped up to a drive-in window in a television commercial and asked to speak to Jack personally. He soon was connected by phone to Jack, who was winging his way to a business meeting in the corporate jet.
    Is Jack a counter attack on Taco Bell's hot Chihuahua? Not exactly, explains Schellhorn. Jack in the Box is a regional chain and does not consider itself in direct competition with Taco Bell. The hip Jack, a Little League coach/corporate executive/ presidential candidate, is designed to speak to the 18- to 36-year-old male, the fast food chain's prime target audience: guys who take their kids out to eat, but want to find food and atmosphere that appeals to them as well.
    The 18- to 36-year-old crowd likes a little irony, and they will find it when they get to the end of the annual report and read the names of the board of directors. They will discover that Foodmaker's chairman of the board also is named Jack.
    So who is the foam-headed Jack? The reincarnation of the clown who used to take orders at the drive through (and who got exploded in an advertising campaign about 10 years ago) or the current chairman of the board Jack W. Goodall? When posed with that question, Foodmaker's Schellhorn simply smiles smugly and says, "Jack is Jack."

A contributing editor of the Metropolitan, Janet Lowe is the author of 10 books, including "Bill Gates Speaks: Wisdom from the World's Greatest Entrepreneur" and "Oprah Winfrey Speaks: Wit & Wisdom from the World's Most Influential Voice."