Tooned In

Today I received a package from Stay Tooned Magazine in the mail. It's a publication that focuses on "Profiles of Professional Cartoonists."

"But Ed," I can almost hear you saying to yourself right now, "You're not a professional cartoonist. At most, you occasionally doodle celebrities, comedians, and your friends and at the least, you try to draw scenes from movies with the hand you don't draw with. That does not qualify you to be associated with a fine publication like STM."

I know. I know. You won't get any argument from me on that. But stay with me.

I turned over the large envelope in my hands and saw it was decorated with a large yellow cartoon speech-bubble sticker.

I opened the envelope, and this is what I found inside:

That's right. Not only did I receive a copy of Issue #6 of Stay Tooned! Magazine, it was a gift from the one and only master of caricature himself, Tom Richmond.

"But Ed," I can hear you saying now, "Who is Tom Richmond? And why is he giving you gifts?"

Well, first of all, it's not nice to interrupt me in the middle of my story.

Second of all, Tom Richmond has quickly become one of my artistic heroes. Yes, it's true, I enjoy the occasional doodle on a post-it note but I call them doodles for a reason. That's what they are. Just doodles. I'm a doodler, I freely admit it. Tom Richmond, on the other hand, is an artist.

Not only does he draw some of the best caricatures you'll see gracing the pages of MAD magazine and numerous other publications, he also maintains a blog that keeps my Google Reader worth checking.

Every weekend Tom opens the "Sunday Mailbag," where he fields questions about cartooning, whether it's something as simple as "What kind of pen do you use" to "How do I get published?" Some time ago I submitted a slew of questions to him I always wondered about and he chose my questions as the question-of-the-week over a series of weeks.

Then, as it turned out, Stay Tooned! Magazine decided to use my questions for a two-page spread of the Sunday Mailbag and...well...the next thing you know, I'm looking at my name almost spelled correctly on page 38.

I didn't print the whole thing, but there you have it. My first question and the first paragraph of Tom's answer. If you want to see the whole thing, I believe you can order a copy of it at the Stay Tooned! website. Or, you can just ask me to see it next time you stop by our place.

Pretty darn cool if you ask me. Sometimes people whom you admire go out of their way to do something nice for you for no reason at all, and that's not something that's soon forgotten or taken for granted. Thanks, Tom Richmond. Thanks, Stay Tooned! Magazine. You made this doodler feel like the king of the world.

Or, at the very least, The Wizard of Id.

You can check out Tom's blog here.