Hyphenated Fixation

When making cartoons online, it's easier to call myself, “Mr-Toontastic.”

I normally would go for what you’d expect when you see “MR.”, but a lot of online platforms tend to not like using the “.” for reasons far beyond my monkey-brain comprehension of web design.

DeviantART was the site that brought this conundrum.

Funny story, I was first signing up to the platform when a high school friend and an old Flipnote Hatena friend told me about the website. I almost rage-quitted when I discovered that I couldn’t make my username as “Mr. Toontastic.” I was a very oddball high schooler, what did you expect?

So I told my Hatena friend about it, being all like, “This site is stupid! They don’t allow periods in usernames! What kind of coding is this?!”

In response (and laughter), they suggested I put a hyphen in the name similar to how there’s a hyphen in my real name. At first, I didn’t really like the idea, but did it anyway because I wanted a place to share my art with others very badly. I was honestly just waiting for a future update to the website that allowed periods in usernames. I waited for a long time.

In the interim, I had to do the same for future sites I signed up for, and again I had the same situation. Heck, what makes matters even funnier was that whenever I browsed my username/pen-name (as one would do), I found results led to either a cute little Storytime app named TOONTASTIC, an old music band album named TOONTASTIC, or the happy quote from Disney’s Toontown Online. The last one is the one I’m more familiar with… and may have let the quote stick with me.

Hey, I played a LOT of Toontown growing up. It’s why I even have my old toon, Super Ernie Gigglepoof as one of the main mascots of the “Jean-Luc & Friends” branding. Ernie, you are now immortalized.

LIVE from Toontown [Rewritten] is Super Ernie Gigglepoof! (Pfft! What a silly name, that dog...)

Anyway, I let the hyphen stick because I figured that no other site would allow the period. Sure, I could have made an X (formerly known as Twitter) [I finally get to use that phrase] account, but I’m not a big fan of that website’s infrastructure. Plus, I’m distracted enough, a Twi-X account would just retire me from art altogether.

Honestly, I like using and seeing my pen name as it is. It’s easier to distinguish myself from others, and I can always use the appropriate version in my books, and even here! Heck, when I’m signing my name on my art, I always use a different version where I just rearrange the placement of the hyphen.

I guess some good things come from petty little squabbles after all.

Until next time, and don’t forget to…

BE TOONTASTIC~!

~Mr. Toontastic

P.S.

To that old Hatena friend and high school friend, if you happen to find this website... Hi! I hope you've been well! It's been years. Send me an email, we can catch up!