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| COMBINING FAITH AND FUN
— Madison comic strip artist Jason Kotecki
and his wife, Kim, put their beliefs into all they
do. Their company, JBird Ink Ltd., produces the
“Kim and Jason” comic strip and related
products. The Koteckis are active Catholics who
met on a Teens Encounter Christ retreat in high
school. (submitted photo) |
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MADISON — “You know what’s
weird about God?” the little girl says to her friend.
“He never got married. I think there should be a
Mr. and Mrs. God.”
“It’s probably hard to find someone who
doesn’t just want to be with him because he’s
famous,” the boy replies.
Welcome to the world of Kim and Jason — a world
full of lemonade stands that charge $25 because they couldn’t
agree on the proper symbol for “cents,” where
the only adult, “Boompa,” a grandfatherly
carpenter, models a childlike spirit, and where you’re
invited to journey back to the universe known as childhood.
Madison comic strip artist Jason Kotecki, 27, initially
had loftier ambitions. While he drew a sports panel comic
in college at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb,
Ill. — wryly described as “a cross between
the Far Side and SportsCenter” — he’d
intended to pursue fine art instead.
“I went to school for illustration,”
Kotecki said. “I thought cartooning was below me.
But then I realized how challenging it is. A lot more
artistic things go into a comic strip than people think.”
The “Kim” of “Kim and Jason” is
Kotecki’s wife, 25, a public school kindergarten
teacher. While the two went to the same university, they
actually met in high school, through the Teens Encounter
Christ (TEC) program. A mutual friend “forced”
Jason to go, and he’s never looked back.
“TEC, for me, really started everything,”
he said. “We’d always been Catholic, but it
wasn’t really part of my daily life.” He attended
a Catholic grade school, but “I was from a very
small town (Peru, Ill.), and the parishes were dry and
old. By the time I got to high school, I didn’t
want anything to do with it. TEC allowed me to see there
was more to it.”
“I think it’s neat the God piece was
there from the start,” Kim Kotecki said. “My
mom always told my sister and me to pray for your husband,
that he’ll be ready for you. I believe that had
a lot to do with how we met — God had a lot to do
with it.”
Two of the other people who work for the couple’s
company, JBird Ink Ltd., are college friends whom the
couple met through NIU’s Newman Center. Jason co-led
a retreat with Sue Gudenkauf, the company’s finance
manager, titled “Faith Like a Child,” which
nicely sums up his philosophy toward life and toward his
comic strip.
“Kim, when we met, had a really neat childlike
quality — she drew it out of me,” he said.
“I started drawing the strip just for us, then had
the idea of using children to be teachers of adults.”
He initially submitted the strip to his college paper,
but it was denied “because they said no one on a
college campus could relate,” Jason remembered.
“Kim and Jason” first appeared online in April
2000 (see <www.kimandjason.com>).
Jesus’ admonition to have the faith of a little
child resonates with both. Jason said the strip’s
“overall mission is sort of covert. I take Christ’s
statement of becoming more like children and try to infuse
that into everyday culture. My ultimate goal is to reach
millions of people. I want to bring happiness and joy
to as many people as I can. There are so many negative
entertainment things out there, (such as) reality television;
I want to create positive entertainment, something really
funny and good quality with good values.”
“When we’re kids, we just have this faith
about us,” Jason added. “Kids know when to
let go, relax, dream. Kids aren’t cynical. We could
be better served by having more of that.”
Kim told of one of her students who brought a play guitar
in for show and tell and said he wanted to sing a song
he’d composed. “It was all ‘God loves
Jesus, Jesus loves God,’ Noah’s Ark, he kept
throwing things in from the Bible,” she said. “Being
a public school, if kids bring up God, we listen, but
we can’t say much. But (faith is) something that’s
just in kids. They have deep philosophical discussions
going on while they’re cutting paper — ‘the
devil killed Jesus.’”
“That’s how I looked at ‘Kim and
Jason’ from the beginning,” Jason said. “There
are no adults (except for Boompa) because it was meant
to be as if parents could watch kids talk and play without
being there. People get confused that what we do is for
kids — I think that it’s not for kids, but
the main mission is to escape adulthood. People who sign
up for the daily strip (via e-mail) are 25 to 50 years
old. It’s a break from the stresses and the grind.”
In addition to the comic strip, JBird Ink Ltd. produces
a number of other Kim and Jason products, such as T-shirts,
mousepads, greeting cards, mugs, books, and motivational
prints. The company’s name has an interesting history.
JBird is Jason’s nickname, given to him by his father,
and the Ink naturally ties into cartooning.
The business has taken over the couple’s apartment
— “it’s basically a TV and a gift shop,”
Jason said. “Working at home definitely takes an
adjustment, but I don’t have a problem because I’m
driven in such a way that I want this to be something.
I’m more likely to work longer hours. It’s
hard to get away, because I’m interested and excited
in what I’m doing. There’s so much to do,
so many directions we’re going in.”
“The more you do, the closer you get to where
you want to be, the harder it is to draw the line between
hobby and work,” Kim added. Jason said that he “takes
weekends to just not think about it. The best ideas come
when you’re doing something irrelevant from what
you do — read history, listen to music. I got that
idea from Charles Schulz.” He stays four weeks ahead
on strips, giving him time to devote to other Kim and
Jason ventures.
The Koteckis donate 3 percent of their sales per month
to groups that help children. (For September, it’s
Childhelp USA.) They’ve begun a line of greeting
cards designed to be used as fund raisers. Each set of
cards has a fruit-themed name, such as “perfect
pear” for cards of love and friendship, and comes
with a small pack of Jelly Belly jelly beans. Kim devotes
much of her time to the fund raiser.
“I really believe in our product,” she
said.
“You don’t get a nice little pick-me-up
or encouragement from gift wrap,” Jason added.
The couple has sponsored a child in Ethiopia through Compassion
International for the past six years, and in June became
wish granters for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“It saddens me to see kids with illnesses,
abuse, homelessness,” Jason said. “I had a
good childhood and I wanted to do something with my company
to influence the lives of kids.”
The Koteckis are parishioners of Christ the King Parish
in McFarland, in the Madison Diocese. “That was
my favorite part of moving up here,” Kim said. “We
started our life together, and we got to go church shopping.”
They hope someday to have a family to take to church with
them.
“The biggest sacrifice we’ve made that
has been the hardest for us is giving up a home and family,”
Jason said. “My younger brother just built a house,
he has kids, all our peers have houses and kids. I just
think we’re called to this right now. It’s
not so much a control thing as ‘this is going to
work before we do this.’ We know eventually we will
have those things, but it tests the patience. It comes
back to trusting God; he has a plan.”
“We give him suggestions all the time,”
said Kim. |
