Bono of U2 Helped Me Launch My Eco-Friendly Business
Rick London
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.
It took some time, but I finally decided on cartooning and writing; something I could easily do from home. I created an offbeat single-panel cartoon website, with eventual small sales to publications. By 2005, I had been doing this from my home like a robot, 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 three million yearly hits, and highly rated Google and other major engines. So I created numerous web shops with products featuring my cartoons, yet something was still amiss. 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, but my life's mission didn't feel right. But I couldn't immediately put a finger on what it was.
Now, our population was going green and I felt 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 wholesale or by the piecemeal. Win-win for Zazzle, Edun, Rick London Organics, and our customers.
Bono's manufacturing firm is Edun Oganics. Edun is "Nude" backwards. I created my organic cotton tee store last month and discovered I was the first cartoonist, I'm told, to "go green" and I'm printing on Edun products. 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 our fragile world, and I sleep better at night, thanks to Zazzle, Bono, and Ali.
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