SMILE

Cartoonworld is a small world. I live in Cartoonworld and I know. Or rather, I should know and I should not be surprised. If you have a couple of pro cartoonists as friends, you're never more than a few degrees from pretty much any other cartoonist that's out there.

Case in point, after reading Tom Richmond's blog, I watched EL TIGRE, co-created by my friends Sandra and Jorge. My friends are never far.

So, this afternoon, I should not have been surprised (but I was) when I saw my pal Brian Fies blog about my friend Raina Telgemeier. I didn't even know they knew each other! But, hey, this is what life is like in Cartoonworld.

Brian, who created one graphic novel (the award winning MOM'S CANCER) and will have a new one out (WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW) in Spring '09, lives in California. Raina, whose 4th graphic novel of THE BABYSITTER'S CLUB came out this fall (and her new GN, SMILE, about her dental problems, was just picked up by a publisher), lives in NYC.

Like Brian's MOM'S CANCER story, Raina's latest, SMILE, began as a Web comic. You can still go and read the beginning of it here.

Now I see that Brian has drawn a special strip for Raina about his own particular dental experiences. Go read Brian's blog, Fies Files, for the whole story.