Ivo Tobin Is Real!

So, I got an email message the other day. It read, "My name is Ivo Tobin and I found your comic by websearching my name. I can't imagine there are a lot of us in the world..."

I think that Ivo is correct as, up until he wrote to me, I firmly believed that I had invented his name. You see, as I was fishing around for an appropriate name for an undead bad guy, I decided to combine two references from the movie Ghost Busters. The first was Ivo Shander, the mad architect who created the building that Sigourney Weaver's character Dana lives in. The second was the book Tobin's Spirit Guide, a tome that Dan Akroyd's character Ray refers to.

When I explained all of this to the Ivo who wrote me, he explained that his name was also a combination. His parents apparently named him after Ivo Pogorelich, a Yugoslavian pianist of some renown whom they happened to see in concert while he was still a passenger in his mom. And Tobin was pulled from a baby naming book. Not that they pulled his last name from a baby book. Tobin is his middle name and I have merely withheld the information that he has a last name so as not to breach his privacy. Because, I would never breach anybody's privacy.

Anyway, the Ivo who wrote me concluded by saying, "...I kind of think I should get a free copy."

Ivo, I agree and one of these days I'll be sending you your very own autographed copy of The Helm.

Any other Helm-named real life humans out there? Write me and maybe I'll send you your very own copy.