Saluting the Sponge

Spongebob Squarepants turned ten years old this year, which marks a pretty big milestone for Tom Kenny (Spongebob's voice) as well. He's been working in animation for over 15 years (starting on Rocko's Modern Life), and in light of his most popular character's 10th anniversary, I thought it'd be cool to give him a thank you gift. I've been a fan since 2007 when I realized that Tom had worked on pretty much every favorite cartoon of mine.

I drew this (and my best buddy *squeedgemonster colored it) just in time to hand it off at Comic Con 2009. It features a selection of what I thought were his most notable characters: Spongebob, Mayor, Starscream, Spyro the Dragon, Heffer, Pat the Hammer, Eduardo and (Cat)Dog. We weren't sure how Tom would react, and to our surprise he actually teared up! Aghk! I didn't mean to make him cry! (They were happy tears though, so it's all good.) I'm so glad he liked it! I had a blast putting it together and handing it off to him in person.

By the way, Tom Kenny is one of the nicest guys around and everyone should draw stuff for him. Just sayin'.