Pest Control + Art Hobby = Fun Comics for Orkin’s Leach

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The pest control industry provides numerous opportunities for people to use their creative thinking. Rick Leach, a commercial account manager for Orkin in Montgomery, Ala., uses his creativity to make cartoons about pests.

Known as Bug Toons, Leach posts his cartoons on social media daily. The images feature different insects or pests with witty or comical captions and dialogue.

Leach said anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human form of behavior to an animal, makes insects and pests a good subject for his cartoons.

© Rick Leach

“I love to substitute insects and pests in the place of human activities and human situations,” he said. “It just seems funny to me. Plus, I just enjoy making people laugh.”

The cartoons are not Leach’s first attempt at using his artistic abilities. Leach previously worked as a professional comic artist and he has done work designing logos, t-shirts, banners, store graphics and more.

His lifelong passion for both reading and creating comics started at the earliest of his childhood memories.

“I honestly can’t remember not having comic books in our home,” he said. “I have an older and younger brother and we all had different tastes in comics. Whether it was superheroes, comics based on classic novels, horror, western or just plain goofy. You name it, we had it.”

While all the brothers like comics, Leach said he was the only one that loved to draw, which also began at a young age.

“My mother used to tell the story of when I was about four or five years old, I had gone to the doctor for some ailment, came home and started drawing everything that I had seen in the doctor’s office,” Leach said. “It was most certainly crude, caveman-like scratches, but my mother never discouraged my passion for art and drawing.”

Even though his brothers did not share his love of drawing, Leach still thought the passion for art had come from his family.

“When I think about it, my father used to oil paint and my grandfather drew engineering designs,” he said. “I suppose the ‘bug’ got passed down to me. I loved comic book artists and dreamed of becoming one someday.”

Leach’s dream grew stronger after he received encouragement from Joe Kubert, an artist who illustrated Tarzan for DC Comics.

“Mr. Kubert had worked for decades as an illustrator in the comics field and had opened an art school,” Leach said. “On a lark, I decided to call the school and see if I could speak with Mr. Kubert. To my utter amazement, Kubert answered the phone himself and spent 15 minutes talking with a nerdy kid from Alabama, who dreamed of doing what he did. I’ve never forgotten the encouragement he gave me.”

As a kid, Leach said that he tried to create his own original superheroes and comics.

“I failed miserably,” he said. “I had the strong guy, an arrow guy, a Batman-type character, a fast guy, an ocean guy but no women. I could draw a fairly decent male physique, but women…were a challenge. I just couldn’t get the female figure down.”

He had learned to draw women by his early 20s when a comic book publisher opened in Montgomery, Ala. The publisher had seen some of Leach’s work and invited him to join their team as an illustrator for a superhero comic called “The Mavericks.”

“My writer had laid out a skeleton of about 10 characters and their powers, but it was up to me to design their look and costumes,” he said. “That was a two-year blast until the company wound up closing their doors.”

In 1993, Leach and his wife moved to Macon, Ga. Needing a job, he heard about an opening at a small pest control company and applied.

© Rick Leach

“I didn’t know the first thing about pest control, but I went and applied anyway, and somehow got the job,” Leach said. “I worked with them for about a year and then transferred to a larger company with better benefits.” He currently is the commercial account manager of the Orkin’s Montgomery, Ala., office.

Leach stayed in the industry after falling in love with the people he worked with, the team spirit and the feeling of solving customers’ pest issues. Now, with Bug Toons, the pest industry and his passion for comics have found common ground.

“Drawing cartoons just became an outlet to cause others to laugh and that in turn makes me smile,” Leach said. “Especially when they get my warped sense of humor.”

For those who want to be a good cartoonist, Leach suggested drawing everything.

“If you want to be a fashion designer, don’t just draw the human form with clothes on it,” he said. “Draw landscapes, animals, whatever. By expanding your vision, trying new things and new experiences, you’ll unwittingly become a better artist. To become a good cartoonist, the ability to laugh at oneself is also necessary.”