If Not For Bono Of U2, I Never Could Have “Gone Green
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Bono (of the band U2) and his wife Ali put me in business, and did not even know it. I could have never done it without them. My new cartoon t-shirt business is eco-friendly, thanks to them. The great irony is, they probably will never read this, and will never know what they did for me. But what they are doing for the planet, with Edun Organics is not only a business they launched, of organic cotton textiles to make eco-friendly clothing, but (at the risk of sounding overly-dramatic) a gift to humanity.
After working for twenty years in the corporate world, by the late ’90’s I faced unemployment due to health issues which would eventually disable me. I could no longer do the work I had been trained to do. I was now officially disabled.
Days passed, and turned to months and turned to years. I took on a number of menial sales jobs when I could work. Finally, I became a cartoonist and freelance writer. I put up a cartoon site and it became more or less a hobby, with eventual small sales to publications. By 2005, I had been doing this from my home for so long, so robotically, I never really looked up to see the achievement. But I was now getting requests from major charities to send them autographed cartoons for their celebrity auctions. I was getting requests to buy cartoons from magazine, website, and Ezine publishers. Manufacturers wanted to license my images. I was surprised to see I had over 8000 original cartoons on my site now, over 3 million annual visitors, and highly rated on Google and Alexa among other analytical sites. Now I had thirteen stores yet something was missing. I had always been aware of the environment and how fragile our planet is. Even though my products were selling wonderfully on such items as tees, mouse pads, coffee mugs, hoodies, and the like, something was still missing.
The world was turning eco-friendly, finally, and I was being left behind, even though I had always tried to live my life that way. So I started my search for organic cotton manufacturers and though I found a number of them, the minimum order was just too much. Then I came across a POD (Print On Demand) established firm called Zazzle and noticed they handled men’s and women’s organic cotton tees that uses a totally nontoxic dye process. Not only that, but all I had to have was the graphic, and place it on the product digitally, and they did the rest, from producing the product to shipping it. No minimum. I could sell them individually, or wholesale.
The firm making the product is called Edun Oganics. Edun is “Nude” backwards. I launched my organic cotton tee store last month and discovered I was the first cartoonist, I’m told, to “go green”. Today, I read that Edun was launched and is owned by Bono (of the band U2) and his wife Ali. Chances are they will never see this article, and that is alright. I will write them a thank you note. They leveled the playing field for me. I finally was able to align my actions with what was/is in my heart, thanks to someone who had already brought me much joy with his music, and his wife, Ali. Thank you Bono and Ali, in case you ever see this. You made this cartoonist, who was once considered disabled, a very happy man, and I finally get my chance to give something back to the planet.
