Katy Sai: “How would you like to escape your adult responsibilities and renew your childhood hopes and dreams?”

Carleen Wild: “That’s the purpose of the Kim & Jason comic strip that is created everyday right here in Madison for readers around the country. And joining us today is the strip’s creator, local artist Jason Kotecki. Jason, welcome to Live at 5.”

Jason Kotecki: “Thank you. Thanks for having me.”

Carleen: “Yeah, well, I have to say I don’t read the comic strips very often, so I apologize, but tell us a little bit about Kim & Jason. I was just reading about it.”

Jason: “Well, it actually started in kind of a cheesy sappy sort of way. It started when I first started dating my wife Kim. She had this awesome childlike spirit - it kind of attracted me to her. Being a college student I was pretty broke as most college students are, so I created the characters based on what we looked like as kids and they showed up on greeting cards. I think I made a calendar for her one time. It just kind of took off from there. The website, KimandJason.com kind of grew from that. Now we’re in 50 stores across the Midwest and a handful of newspapers and stuff, so it’s really kind of taken off from there. It’s kind of neat.”

Katy: “I guess. And you not only encourage people to go back to their childhood, you also spend time with some local kids.”

Jason: “Absolutely, it’s something I had a chance to do today- was to go out with Red Caboose, a bunch of younger kids in a summer program. That was a lot of fun to totally be with them, encourage them, show them a little bit about cartooning. It’s just a really fun experience. So, I definitely like going out and doing that.”

Katy: “You also sell merchandise. Part of it goes.....Oh, they look like they are having such a great time....Part of the proceeds goes to help children.”

Jason: “Yep, 3% of our sales goes to organizations that help children, The Make-A-Wish Foundation, St. Jude’s Research Hospital, things like that. I was very blessed to have a very good childhood and it bugs me that kids can’t have that same thing. So we try to do anything we can to kind of help kids out and have better childhoods and have fun, you know.”

Katy: “And the kids today certainly looked very engaged. I would think that they are pretty responsive.”

Jason: “Yeah, you never know what you’re going to get with a group of kids. My wife is a kindergarten teacher so she can handle them a little bit better than I can but they usually respond pretty well to the cartoons and the comic strips and things like that.”

Carleen: “All right, well we’re going to encourage people to check it out.”

Jason: “Thank you.”

Carleen: “To view some of Jason’s comic strips you can just visit KimandJason.com and thank you very much for joining us.”

Jason: “Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.”

Katy: “And good luck with the comic strip.”

Jason: “Thanks very much.”