Not too long ago, I wrote a post about a childhood hero of mine, Commander Mark Kistler.  So, imagine my delight and surprise when I should receive a comment from the man himself on that post!

This is a win-win.  From his comments, it sounds like he is happy to hear he made an impact on people and that people are still thinking of him.  And obviously it is awesome for me to get a personal comment from someone that I would never have expected to have any contact with.

So, thank you Internet (and Mr. Kistler) for making my day!

Today’s post is dedicated to Commander Mark Kistler. 

He’s like pretty much the awesomest man ever.  I used to watch his shows when I was little, like The Secret City and The Draw Squad.  That was back when he was Commander Mark and he wore the jump suit with the pencils and everything.  In fact, he even came to my school!  I still have the drawings I made that day.  Also, he would have this enormous drawing and at the end of every episode he would add on a little bit to it.  I took to doing that also and I think I still have that somewhere as well.  Later, when I was about in middle school, I would hurry home to watch the Imagination Station.  He lost the jump suit and all by then, but everything else in the show was pretty much the same.  We still drew like ninjas (“Hiiiiii draw-draw-draw”) and learned how to shade (“shade, shade shade…we love to shade”) and draw in 3D.  Every drawing somehow involved a guy leaning out of a space ship to hand you a twinkie with “action lines” to show he was waving.

Anyway, I forget what made me think of him today, but he was definitely a highlight of my childhood.  Looks like he’s still out there and still doing school assemblies, God love him.  If I were in charge of a school I would have him out so fast his head would spin!