Had to pass along a story to you guys cause it’s too cute.

I ran out to the local Starbucks today to pick up a coffee before I got back to the stressful business of troubleshooting my recent website issues. The guys at my local store know me pretty well, they’re a friendly bunch, and we always have a good visit.

There was a young mother in front of me in line, with her 11 year old son, Carlos. Carlos ordered a white hot chocolate with soy milk and walked away from the counter over to the newspaper rack. He picked up an edition of today’s paper, pulled out the lifestyle section, spread out the comics page on a table and hunched over to hungrily eat them up.

I was floored by this. I can’t tell you how good it felt to see that kids are still reading the funny pages. Carlos said to his mother “Goodbye bad day, hello comics.” We all laughed.

The barista informed Carlos’ mother that I was a cartoonist. She asked if I would draw something for Carlos and talk to him about my job since he wants to make comics when he grows up. We sat down with our drinks and drew a bit on the back of some order pads the barista gave us.

Carlos drew his character Club Boy, a young super-hero with matching red clubs and a cape. I watched him draw and then drew my version of Club Boy on a separate piece of paper. After handing my drawing to Carlos he studied it, and asked if he could keep it.

“Of course.” I said. “I drew that for you.”

Carlos said “good.” Then he put the paper on the table, picked up his pencil and started correcting my drawing. He added some lines, removed others and filled in some areas blacker than I had them. His mother was mortified.

“Carlos! That’s so rude. Don’t change his drawing. He made that for you.” Without missing a beat and with complete sincerity, Carlos looked at his mother with a puzzled look and said “I’m the editor.”

I assured Carlos’ mom that he was well on his way to success.