Of Good Guys & Squirrels

The planet is filled with all sorts of people. Some good, some bad, some giving, some selfish, some talented, some cogs... The "news" (both within comics specifically and in the broader realm of journalism) tends to focus on the exceptional on either end, with seemingly a greater emphasis on the asshat end of the spectrum.

Me? I don't care about those people. If they're misogynists or jackasses, or they flap their mouths like idiots, I just avoid them. Both in person and online. I prefer to focus on the cool things people are doing. Particularly the cool things done by good people.

Here's a quick example of what I'm talking about. Cartoonist Frank Page had a sale over the Thanksgiving weekend. For ten bucks, he'd send you an original drawing of his Bob the Squirrel character saying anything you want. Here's the promo he was using...

I thought, "Ten bucks? Absolutely! That's a great deal!" But what would I want Bob to say? It occurred to me that it might be kind of cool to have him say hi to folks in the library that I'm going to have next year. But trying to keep Bob in character, I'd want a bit of cynicism too, so I decided on the simple "Kleefeld Comics Library... such as it is."

I sent off my ten bucks with a note about how I didn't need mine quickly, so please take care of everyone else first who might be using them as gifts or something. I'm in no rush. But I got a notice on Wednesday that the package had been sent already, and I found the envelope in my mailbox last night. And when I opened it, I found this...

That's a bit more than Bob and some text. Not only did Page add some extra effort into the fonts, but there's a significant context-appropriate background, tonal shading AND he went out of his way to come up with a Latin slogan to run underneath! I was expecting Bob, no background, and one or two word balloons. But Page went above and beyond here, sussing out the context which I was aiming for (based on nothing more than that the one line of dialogue I sent him) and providing a fairly extensive and well-thought-out design.

Did Page have to do all that? No. I would've been happy with the simplified version I had in my head. But he's one of those good guys that I like to support. Is he going to make the evening news for saving a baby from a burning building? Probably not. And he also doesn't land on comics news sites often because he's not talking shit about women or minorities or whomever. For me, personally, these are the types of people I want to support. These are the folks who are doing good, quality work without a lot of fanfare. How about we all talk about these kinds of creators and just ignore the asshats altogether?

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