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The Day We Met Jim Davis!
It was nineteen years ago that Hoade [1] and I met Jim Davis, [2] creator of
Garfield. [3]
Back then, Hoade and I were huge fans of Jim Davis, and we both had
asprirations of being cartoonists ourselves. When we found out that Jim Davis
was going to be at the local bookstore (at the Lauderdale Lakes Mall in
Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. Alas it is no longer, having been transformed over
the past nineteen years to a strip mall).
We were elated until we found out that the 20th of April fell on a Monday and
that our parents would most likely not let us skip school (let's see … 1981 …
that would put us in the 6^th grade). But fortunately, Easter that year fell
on the 19^th which meant we had the following monday, the 20^th off and we
could go meet our idol—Jim Davis!
My maternal grandfather drove us the few miles to the Lauderdale Lakes Mall,
were we promptly got in line with our Garfield books (I think there were only
three out by that time) and a few samples of our work.
At 2:32 pm, Eastern we met Jim Davis! He not only signed our books but our
sample cartoons as well! Being the two youngest people at the signing brought
us to the attention of a Miami Herald [4] reporter and we ended up being
profiled. They even printed Hoade's cartoon in the newspaper (I would link to
the article, but I think being nineteen years ago it might not be available
via the web).
Since then we've gone on to careers other than cartooning.
[1]
http://www.dharmabum.org/
[2]
http://www.garfield.com/news/paws/jimindex.html
[3]
http://www.garfield.com/
[4]
http://www.miamiherald.com/
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