Tom Fishburne began sketching cartoons in the school newspaper and now has reached world wide success. Over the last 25 years, Fishburne has been able to grow his company, Marketoonist, to over a million followers across all of his platforms due to weekly cartoons and big name companies bringing him fame.
Fishburne is a local Marin cartoonist who created the company Marketoonist in 2010, after working in marketing for eight years. Fishburne attended Harvard Business School in the early 2000s, where he began learning his future company’s marketing side while drawing a weekly cartoon strip for his school newspaper, “The Harbus.”
After graduating business school in 2002, Fishburne started a marketing career at General Mills, with online cartoons remaining his side hobby. Eventually, Fishburne realized that this could form a fulfilling career path as cartoons began taking up most of his time while working in marketing.
Fishburne quit his job as a marketer for General Mills to pursue his passion for drawing cartoons and has been with his company, Marketoonist, for 15 years.
“I’ve had the chance to work with over 200 different clients and a wide range of types of projects, but cartooning was always at the core for me,” Fishburne said.
This new unique company combined Fishburne’s marketing past with his love for cartoons, allowing him to partner with major companies such as Google, Adobe, Microsoft and LinkedIn. One company he worked with, Marketing Week, offered to help him acquire a Guinness World Record for the most contributions to a life sized color by number.
“It ended up being fun to see everyone collectively draw [the color by number] because I [got to add] to it too,” Fishburne said.
Fishburne is a father of two daughters both college students who have helped change his work to connect with the humor of younger generations, increasing his audience.
“They’re the best editors and don’t hold back,” Fishburne said. “It helps make [the cartoons] more relevant and real by getting my daughters’ perspectives on it.”
A friend and colleague of Fishburne’s, Jen Scales, has helped expand his work to various companies over the years. Scales added to Fishburne’s relevance by explaining his impact on the cartoon and real world.
“He has had a huge impact [on the world] because he has a special way of staying on top of trends and current events and finding a way to stay engaged with his audience, no matter the age,” Scales said.
When prompted about her friendship with Fishburne, Scales quickly described his unique ability to stay humble despite his great success and consistency throughout the years. Though it started as just an email to his friends, nearly every Monday for the past 22 years, Fishburne has published cartoons across many different platforms.
Eventually, Fishburne would consistently send them out via email. Slowly, other companies would hear about this and reach out, asking him to make cartoons for their company. These side gigs began to stack up, earning him a good share of profit.
Fishburne’s wife, Tallie Fishburne, who originally came along as a business partner, was supportive of a career switch as the demand for cartoons increased.
Fishburne would tell her, “When the side hustle is making half as much as my salary, then I will jump [careers].”
Tallie explained how this new career started, pointing out that the natural spread of the word was a perfect way to get going, along with the pureness of the cartoon.
“There was no ad or sales pitch; it was so pure; it’s just a cartoon to make you laugh,” Tallie said.
Ultimately, Tom Fishburne successfully transformed his passion for cartooning into a unique and successful business, demonstrating how creativity and hard work can lead to lasting success.
