Charles Apple

Let’s pause a moment this fine Saturday to offer the happiest of VizEds birthday wishes to Rick Tuma of the Chicago Tribune.

Rick with his toy collection in his cube in the Tribune’s
graphics department. Photo by Kevin Hand.
—

Rick is one in a million. The man has meant so much to me.

When I was a young artist, just starting out in graphics, I never really had the ambition to one day work at The New York Times or the Chicago Tribune.

However, I saw work like this…

…and I did aspire to create work like that.

And I remembered the names I’d see on the Tribune stuff that impressed me so. Dennis Odom. Terry Volpp. Steve Ravenscraft. Rick Tuma.

And I’d wonder what if I would ever be capable of producing work of that quality.

Ten years later, I found myself working in that very department. And what I discovered was that people like these were some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. And they were very helpful and generous with their time.

Rick and I found ourselves working many, many Sunday evening shifts together. He was always quick with a kind word, incredibly positive in his encouragement and a fun guy to work with. Just a pleasure to be around.

And very talented, of course. Incredibly so.

Now, yet another ten years have passed. I’m so glad I’ve kept in touch with Rick. When times are good, he sends bright, cheerful notes of joyful congratulations. When times are bad, he sends quiet, thoughtful words of encouragement. Over the last decade, I’ve received quite a few of each from Rick. I’m proud to be friends with Rick Tuma.

A bunch of other folks feel the same.

His close pal Steve Ravenscraft, a multimedia graphics editor at the Trib, writes:

Ah Mr. Tuma — a man of many talents and impeccable artistic skills and a great friend too. Happy Birthday!

Chris Soprych, who spent many years across the aisle from Rick and is now an AME at The Rockford (Ill.) Register Star writes:

Rick is really an unsung hero of informational graphics. He definitely one of the best vector artists out there, an art form in itself.

Rick is an inspiration to me and many other artist that had the chance to work with him, I almost didn’t have that chance.

About 2 months after I got hired at the Trib, Rick left for another job. I hadn’t had enough time to bond with him and he with me, in fact I got the impression that the jury was still out on how he felt about me. I couldn’t blame him for that either, I was and still am to some degree, a cocky punk.

Anywho, Rick came back a few months later and we had a second chance to get to know each other.

I learned a lot from Rick about art, graphics but most of all how to deal with different personalities. I always went to Rick to talk about the people we work with and our bosses. We really tried to figure them out, because we had to work with them, we have to like them and they had to like us— or else we would get burned out or bummed out.

Rick and I were really the optimists in the room so we really supported each other. Talk about support. I got in and out of trouble so many times I cant even count, but Rick was there for me. I guess that’s the power of positive thinking that kept our spirits up.

When I took this job, he told me I was ready for it. He also said that he could see me practicing for it over the last couple of years now.

See, back in the day, the artists were the low man on the totem pole, we had no power, but we tried to accrue some authority. Rick had a lot of it, that made him easy to like.

When I started gaining experience, expertise and finally authority, I started “practicing” for a leadership role and Rick was there the whole time (minus those first few months) to support and guide me through the good times and the bad.

Happy Birthday Rick, you’ve had an profound effect on me and many others.

Joe Knowles, AME of the Tribune and Rick’s current boss, writes:

You would be hard-pressed to find a better artist, teammate or person than Rick Tuma. The newspaper business is in flux, tomorrow is promised to no one, but there will always be a place for people like Rick. His talent is timeless. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with him, proud to know him.

Steve Cavendish — Graphics Editor of the Trib and also Rick’s boss — writes:

What Joe and Chris said.

Great artist. Better person.

Robert Dorrell, who replaced me at the Tribune in 1999 and is now the graphics editor of The Sacramento Bee, writes:

Rick’s flexibility, cheerful witticisms, and artistic powers are as kaleidoscopic as the colors in the army of toys who populate his desk. His crisp and exacting work made many of the files I worked on in Chicago far better than they had a right to be. You gotta love a guy who’s great to you and who makes you look better.

Happy birthday, Meester Reek, many happy returns. Go enjoy a cigar.

A Rick Tuma self-portrait.
—
We’ve saved the most unusual testimonial for last.

Kevin Hand, who worked with us a while in Chicago and is now a senior artist at Newsweek, writes:

Rick Tuma?! Who or what is a Rick Tuma?!!

Why waste time finding out, anyway? He is just an artist anyhow. AND he just sits in his cubicle, quietly collecting figurines from Happy Meals and drawing.

He just sits there. Look at him. Sitting. And there.

I know you don’t have time to look at him. You think I do? Just take a second and look!

Look at how he sits and draws. The old-fashioned way, with pencil.

Look at the intricacies of his work and how he takes such care with every detail. Ridiculous, in this day and age — someone taking such care.

See that? See the way he frets over the artistic outcome? How incredibly neurotic, that he takes that much to heart with such a mundane piece of work. Amazing, the emotional attachment and forthright understanding of life’s most delicate details.

I mean amazing in the most amazingly absurd sorts of ways, of course. Why would I “like” anything so mothered over in artwork?

Let’s face it, today everything needs to be “hop to it,” ready in a flash. No one has needed to hover over a piece of art for more than a few seconds since the Adobe generation took hold.

Hey! Stop admiring what Rick is doing!

You’ll just encourage him! Remember that he is much too friendly and will surely charm you into loving his presence.

Don’t let me see any of you meandering around his work. If you do, you might see the unprofessional side of him, which is pleasant and unassuming. His ability to give you encouragement when times are tough is stuff of legend.

No time for encouragement today. Those days are gone. Everyone knows that staring straight ahead is the new black. How can anyone encourage?! Unconscionable!

I see he has added to his cubicle collection of Happy Meal action figures. Besides being the highlight of Chicago Tribune tours to total strangers, Rick manages to brighten the office with his immediate need to make them feel at home when those strangers happened by.

“Get them in and the GET THEM OUT!” Is the rule of the day, I say. Who needs friendly chatter when there are deadlines to meet?

How about that family of his? How many kids does he have now? 25? 30?

He obviously goes against the grain with his whole “time for family” thing. God-fearing love for family!

OK, I will admit that this is a requirement to restore the spiritual batteries. Family will do that for you. In my case, restoration of batteries to GET BACK TO WORK!

Hey, I don’t want to be too harsh here, but why are you still standing there? Don’t you have some copy to edit or colleagues to trample on the way to the top? You are not getting the desired amount of greedy fuel for that here.

Rick Tuma is producing too many nice and talented fumes for you to be inhaling here. Why don’t you go over there to the sports editor’s desk and get re-indoctrinated?

And take that really great caricature of you that Rick drew with you. I am sure those guys will put out their cigars on it for you.

As for you, Rick, I am sure your inner beauty is off the charts, but could you tone it down? I can feel it all the way to New York and I got some puppies to sell.

Whew. Sounds like Kevin has gone off his medication again.

We appreciate the sentiments anyway, though. I think.

We’re not surprised by all the kind things folks have said about Rick this week. Last year, we published a relatively modest happy birthday note for him in this very blog.

We received more comments on that post than any other single post we’ve made all year. No fewer than 16 folks attached their best wishes.

A few more samples of Rick’s work:

You can view more of Rick’s work on his personal homepage.

Rick shares a birthday with longtime Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, singer Harry Belafonte (”Daaaay-O!“), Roger Daltry — lead singer of The Who — director Ron Howard and actors Robert Conrad and Donovan Patton.

Who is Donovan Patton? He plays Joe on the kids’ show Blue’s Clues, on Nickelodeon.

In addition, today is National Pig Day and Peanut Butter Lovers’ Day. Seriously. So make sure you order your Bacon, Ham and Peanut Butter sandwich for lunch. Yum!

Best wishes for the happiest of birthdays, Rick.
And thanks for everything, my friend. Thanks for everything.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Graphics, Happy birthday, Illustration, VizEds Blog, Web news design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.