The Chocolate Kidney

With his longish black hair and dark-rimmed glasses, Connor Comeans bears a striking resemblance to one of his favorite literary characters, Harry Potter.

All the Newnan 12-year-old is missing is the lightning-shaped scar on the forehead that serves as the trademark of the fictional boy wizard.

Not to be outdone, Connor, sitting in his family’s house last week, raised his shirt to show a pretty impressive scar that runs down his abdomen.

“I think it’s about 6 inches,” the Madras Middle School student said matter-of-factly. “I won a contest once at a soccer game. The announcer was giving out prizes to people with the biggest hole in their jeans and things like that. I won for the biggest scar. When I showed it to him, he said, “I don’t even want to know about that.”

That’s OK, Connor signified with a laugh. He knows he’s not likely to forget what it’s about. It’s a constant reminder of how much his life has changed since February  2003.

The 5-foot-tall seventh-grader, who is making his debut onstage this month as a pickpocket in the Newnan Theatre Company’s production of the musical “Oliver!”, moved about his family’s living room last week with the ease and energy of a typical adolescent.

“There’s a bridge across the stage and tables that rotate on pivots,” Connor explained. “We walk in from under the bridge and start singing: ‘Is it worth the waiting for? If we live till 84, all we ever get is gruel!’

Three years ago, the singing and dancing that Connor comfortably demonstrated would not have been possible, said his parents, Bob and Caren Comeans.

“He was tired all the time,” Caren said. “He would wake up after sleeping for 10 hours and still be exhausted.”

Connor’s lack of energy, along with anemia and delayed growth, led the Comeans to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where he was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2002.

“He had been in kidney failure, technically, since birth,” Caren said. “He was born with little kindeys, which, in his little body, were fine. But he just grew out of his kidneys.”

Once it was determined that a kidney-transplant would be best, Bob and Caren were tested, and both were found to be above-average matches.

“I just assumed I would do it,” Bob said. “But Caren got on her knees and begged me to let her do it.” She said, “This is what I was born to do.”

There was no question in her mind that she would be the one to donate a kidney to Connor, Caren said. “I am athletic, I always have been, and I still work out,” she said. “It just put reason to everything I do in that sense.”

Though her recovery was somewhat more difficult than she had anticipated, Caren said it was woth it to see Connor a week after the surgery throwing a frisbee in the front yard.

“There I was hunkered over, having trouble walking forward, and there was Connor feeling better than he had in two years,” Caren said. “It made it twice as good. It was awesome.”

Bob, a practicing magician, was the one who got the family interested in performing.

“It started as a stress relief for me,” said Bob, who held a benefit performance for the Kidney Foundation in 2004 on the first anniversary of Connor’s surgery.

“From there it has just evolved through the family, and it’s been a great outlet,” he said.

Caren was in the play “Wit” earlier this year, Bob said, though younger son, Landon, 10, is still on the fence.

Connor, who cannot play contact sports, decided to audition for “Oliver!” after attending summer camp with the Newnan Theatre and working as a sound tech for “Charlie Brown.”

Though he still enjoys playing xbox and reading, he says theater is fast becoming his extracurricular activity of choice.

“I like to get onstage sometimes and be somebody I’m not,” he said.

As the family prepares for the third anniversary of Connor’s transplant in February, Caren said she and her son recognize they share a special bond that goes beyond their physical scars.

“He was always kind of a healthy eater,” Caren said, “and I would tease him because he didn’t like chocolate.”

She said she jokingly predicted his aversion to chocolate would end once he had one of her kidneys functioning inside him. And sure enough, it did.

“I always tell him I gave him the chocolate kidney,”

Original article published in Atlanta Journal Constitution

12/15/05

Written by Donna Soper

Atlanta Journal Constitution

The following was written by Karl W. Ritzler for AJCjobs after an interview and photo shoot at my house.

Thanks Karl for the great article!

 

WHY I LOVE MY JOB

Bob Comeans, Caricature artist

Published on: 07/11/08

• Job: Caricature artist, Newnan

 

Photos by KARL W. RITZLER/Special (ENLARGE)

Bob Comeans compares his self-portrait drawing with the real thing at his home. He attends festivals, weddings, company parties and other events to create ‘gentle’ caricatures of people. During the week, he’s an aircraft mechanic for Delta Air Lines.

(ENLARGE)

Bob Comeans and his self-portrait caricature

• What I do: It takes Bob Comeans about two minutes to capture a person’s character on paper. He draws caricatures — cartoons that emphasize people’s facial features and personality traits — at fairs, company picnics, school events and even weddings.

“I’m an entertainer through the artwork,” said Comeans, 50. “My goal is to help people have a good time.”

They also take home souvenirs — portraits drawn in black marker or color crayons on cardstock — that Comeans creates on his portable easel or laptop pad.

“I like to draw fast,” he said. “They are in the chair two minutes, then go back to the party.”

Comeans works at fairs and festivals, such as the Georgia Renaissance Festival, where he charges individually for the caricatures, and at corporate and private events, where he’s paid a flat rate for a certain number of hours.

His sons, Landon, 13, and Connor, 15, help at festivals by holding up signs “to hawk them in,” then framing the drawings and taking the money.

“I draw everybody and anybody who want to be drawn,” Comeans said.

He starts with an outline of the face, then looks for a prominent feature — hairstyle, goatee, eyes — that he “gently” exaggerates.

“I try to capture their most distinctive feature. With women, it’s usually the hair that does it. With men, it’s often facial hair,” he said.

Adults are easier to draw, he said, because they have more character in their faces than children do.

The result isn’t a formal portrait, but what the person looks like as a cartoon.

“I don’t go to extremes,” Comeans said. “It’s a caricature in a gentle way.”

 

• What got me interested in this: “I was interested in drawing in high school, playing around with caricatures,” Comeans said. He attended art college and worked for a while as a graphic artist.

Comeans had held a variety of jobs before he got the idea to become a caricaturist. At his sister’s wedding about two years ago, he saw an artist drawing caricatures of guests. “I watched him for three hours,” Comeans said. “I thought, ‘I could do this.’ “

After practicing for about a year, “I went public and just kept right on going.”

Sitting at an easel isn’t his full-time job. During the week, Comeans is an aircraft mechanic for Delta Air Lines.

 

• Best part of my job: “I get to go where people are happy,” he said. “They sit and smile at you. When I’m finished, I flip around the drawing, and they’re smiling.”

 

• Most challenging part: “Trying to focus and concentrate when 10 people with drinks in hand are at your elbow and the DJ has the music cranked up,” he said. “You can’t look like you’re focusing and concentrating.”

He also must keep his subjects comfortable, relaxed and smiling. Because people don’t like to be stared at, “I look at people without looking at them.”

 

• What people don’t know about my job: “People are in a hurry. They don’t want to pose for me for 15 minutes,” he said. “That’s OK with me.”

 

• What keeps me going: “It excites me,” Comeans said. His goal is to grow the business enough so he can retire from Delta in a few years.

 

• Preparation needed for this job: You need an interest in art and people, Comeans said. “I went to art college and worked in the field. I went into entertainment and learned to handle people and crowds.”

Beyond artistic skill, Comeans recommended getting training to learn the technical aspects of art.

He also said he has to know business and marketing.

“Drawing pictures is 10 percent of the whole operation,” he said. “You have to market, sell, promote and find venues. Then you have to make people happy when you get there.”

Comeans attended Columbus College of Art and Design and the former Columbus Technical Institute in Columbus, Ohio. He has been a graphic designer, professional ski instructor and emergency medical technician. He also studied magic and has performed as a magician.