Latter-day Saint Life

How His Father's Imprisonment and a Heart Attack Led One LDS Cartoonist to Fame and His Faith

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This is the second article in a two-part series about Ron Leishman: his conversion, his faith, and his career. For more about how Ron's family converted to the gospel,click here.

His father’s imprisonment. Struggling to provide supplemental income. A heart attack. Few would consider these events some of the greatest blessings in their lives—but not Ron Leishman. He considers each of these challenges a “pivot point,” a moment when Heavenly Father stepped in to help direct his life.

Canadian cartoonist Ron Leishman didn’t anticipate creating a superhero legend or cartoons that would be featured on everything from billboards to TV shows in countries from Taiwan to Mexico. In fact, cartooning has generally been a hobby or supplemental job for Ron, who taught junior high art for 22 years. But by following the Lord’s direction during unexpected or trying times, Ron has found a level of fame and success he didn’t think possible.

 “I am not the sharpest crayon in the box and sometimes the Lord has to hammer at me,” Ron says. “I don’t hear voices and things like that, it is more through experience [the Lord directs me].”

Creating Captain Canuck

After his father was arrested for the greatest gold heist in Canada’s history, 14-year-old Ron Leishman struggled to help his mother and six siblings stay afloat financially while his father served his prison sentence. While Ron recognizes the challenges his unique home life presented, he mostly looks back with gratitude on those events, recognizing that those challenges brought his family closer to the Church.

 “If dad had stayed around, our family would have never been active in the Church,” Ron says. But when Ron’s branch embraced his family following his dad’s incarceration, Ron quickly discovered comfort and joy in the gospel—a fact that has shaped his entire life. “The Church is everything,” Ron says. “It gave me purpose.”

But even after Ron followed the path he felt the Lord wanted him to take by starting his mission papers, he was met with frustration and disappointment. Ron’s branch president and district president asked him to stay home to continue helping his mother financially.

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Ron at age 19. Photo courtesy of Ron Leishman.

But out of that disappointment came some of the biggest blessings of Ron’s life. “The Lord is in the details,” he testifies. “I didn’t get to go on my mission when I wanted, so there was some loss and disappointment. It wasn’t until later in life it dawned on me there was a reason why I didn’t go when I wanted to go. [My wife and I] would have never met.”

During the three years Ron waited to serve a mission, he not only met his wife, Nancy, he also met a new convert named Richard Comely.

An avid artist, Ron had drawn several comic characters growing up, and one drew Richard’s particular interest, an image of a Canadian superhero with a bright red maple leaf emblazoned across his mask. With that drawing as inspiration, Richard and Ron came up with the idea of Captain Canuck—a wholesome hero who often prays for help and uses his superhuman strength, given to him by aliens, to protect Canada and the world.

At the time Ron left to serve a mission in Brussels, Belgium, at age 23, Capt

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ain Canuck was just an idea. He wasn’t yet the legendary icon with his own stamp, maple syrup, TV series, and even an upcoming movie. But during the two years Ron was away serving, 1975-1977, Richard began creating and self-publishing the first independent comic book printed in full color, Captain Canuck—and the endearing Canadian champion soon inundated the country. "Every newspaper, pretty well every magazine, and every television network in Canada did several stories on Captain Canuck," Richard says. Even the prime minister and governor general printed a letter in an issue of Captain Canuck—a first for a comic book.

"The physical strength of Captain Canuck is not what distinguishes him as a hero; it is his dedication to others. We see this same heroism reflected in our friends, family, and neighbors who unhesitatingly help those around them," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote.

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Richard quickly leveraged Captain Canuck as a missionary tool by being open about his faith and republishing articles from the Ensign and Church pamphlets in Captain Canuck issues. He even published a letter from Elder Leishman, who detailed the work he was doing as a missionary for the Church.

Half a world away, while Captain Canuck mania was just taking off in Canada, Elder Leishman used the character in his own ways to share the gospel. “When I was on my mission, I was able to use the character in certain situations. Like when I was with investigators, if they had children I could draw them a cartoon,” Ron says. “It was interesting to bring it up when I was teaching a family because it was something that sparks interest and something that helps break the ice. Certainly, the other missionaries were finding out about it,” Ron says. In fact, his fellow missionaries began calling Elder Leishman "the Captain."

During this time Elder Leishman and Nancy were writing to each other, but they were not an exclusive couple yet. But Nancy says, “My dad was so excited about Captain Canuck; he would always go around and say, ‘My future son-in-law created him.’”

Starting an Eternal Family

When Ron returned home from his mission, he anticipated getting more involved with Captain Canuck. And while the superhero may have been a legend, at the time he was not providing a stable source of income. In fact, the challenges Richard and Ron kept coming up against began to impact Ron’s relationship with Nancy.

“We were going to get married on April 1, and we delayed our wedding because I was trying to make it work [publishing Captain Canuck],” Ron says.

Nancy adds, “My father was more worried about me living with a cartoonist and living starving in an attic than me marrying the son of a felon.” After thinking about their future together, Ron “graciously decided to go back to the university and get a teaching degree,” Nancy says. “Ron sacrificed 22 years to have a regular paycheck . . . and not follow his passion.” Ron found a job as a junior high art teacher to support his family, which included five children—three sons and two daughters.

During his time as a teacher, Ron began looking for ways to financially support his sons on their missions. That’s when he got the idea for Toonaday—a subscription-based website where he would provide a clipart cartoon each day.

Less than a year after starting Toonaday, the Leishmans were still worried about how they would support their sons financially on their missions.

“We were going out the door to drive our oldest son down to the MTC, and we were still worried about our finances, and the phone rang,” Nancy recalls. “Ron was wondering if he should go back and answer it, and we did. It was a company that wanted to pay us royalties and take his cartoons and resell them. It funded our son’s mission, and it was such a blessing because we were doing everything on faith.”

About this small miracle, Ron adds, “[The money from the royalties] was almost the exact amount of what it cost for our son’s mission each month.”

As the concept for Toonaday began to change, the Leishmans noticed a change in their income as they acted in faith. During the short time when both of their sons were serving missions simultaneously, the royalties increased to help them meet their needs. When Nancy followed a prompting from her patriarchal blessing to finish her college education, their supplemental income made the possibility a reality. But the biggest blessing came after Ron suffered a heart attack in 2003.

Sharing Faith Through His Work

At the time of his heart attack, Ron had been praying for a change in his life—he just didn’t anticipate it being a change that would leave three stints in his heart.

“My heart attack, that was another huge pivot point in my life,” Ron recalls.

After a clerical mistake at the hospital gave Ron more time off to recover from his heart attack than he expected, he began dabbling more in Toonaday. “I had been praying for a while that I wanted to make a change in my life,” Ron says. “At this point, it still hadn’t clicked in my head that this is the Lord working.” When it was nearing the time for him to return to teaching, Ron decided to take a leave of absence to see where following his passion might take him. He’s never looked back since.

“It wasn’t until afterward I realized the Lord was in that every step of the way,” Ron says. “For some people where a heart attack might be a tragedy, in my case, it was one of the greatest blessings of my life. I never went back to teaching. I cartoon every day, something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s worked out fabulously.”

Nancy adds, “At the end of the day he says, ‘I could do this all day long.’ And then he says, ‘Wait, I do.’”

While some might wonder if Ron regrets not becoming more involved with Captain Canuck, he says, “To draw the same character over and over and over—I decided early on that wasn’t really the direction I wanted to go. What I do now, I draw a new character every day.”

On March 31, 2018, Toonaday celebrated its 22nd anniversary. Having drawn over 8,000 cartoons spanning a whole variety of scenarios and sending them to subscribers in 33 countries all over the world, Ron says he stumbles across his artwork in the most unlikely of places.

He’s seen his cartoons everywhere from the Ellen DeGeneres Show to decals in a grocery store to sides of trucks on the freeway. “People will call him from the Canary Islands or from Korea and will say, ‘I just saw your work on this or that,’” Nancy says.

As for Ron himself, the strangest place he’s found his artwork is “probably a giant flying pig on the side of a hotel in Mazatlán, Mexico.” He continues, “It was about 20-feet high. And then another time was when I was driving with my son-in-law to Texas and there was a giant billboard with one of my cartoons on it.”

While Ron says “it would have been nice if I could have been cartooning right from the beginning” of his career, he also recognizes that the characters he creates now would not have been possible at the start of his career. “The internet is everything to what I do. And that wasn’t around,” he says.

Crucial to Ron’s success are the standards he sets for himself. “There have been a few times where my values and belief system have helped me in making decisions along the way. I’ve always said I will not use my talents for anything that would embarrass the Church or go against my principles,” he says. “Anything that I create, I am always sensitive that it is family friendly.”

In fact, earlier in his career, Ron was contacted by animation companies who wanted him to draw characters for a series, but after reviewing the scripts, Ron turned down the offers. “It just didn’t go with my value system,” Ron says.

Nancy adds that one of the producers was shocked by Ron’s reply, commenting, “We just don’t hear that much from people who would turn down Hollywood for values.”

Through his interaction with subscribers on Toonaday, Ron has found subtle ways to share his faith. In fact, one woman who has been a subscriber to Toonaday for 15 years recently wrote to Ron, saying, “Two lovely men from your church came by and we had a nice visit the other day.” While Ron does not know where her conversation might lead, he is happy he could have played a part in shaping her view of the Church and its members.

About the unexpected turns his life has taken, Ron shares, “I certainly questioned things. We all do, but it works out. Maybe not in the way that we want it to work out. It certainly doesn’t happen in the time we want it to work out. . . . Now when things happen in my life, if there is a setback, I just step back, take a deep breath, and say, ‘Okay, let’s hang on for the ride.’”

Nancy adds, “I think there will be other turns and other pivot points. We’re just not sure where the Lord will take us."

Captain Canuck images courtesy of Richard Comely. All other images courtesy of Ron Leishman.
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