License to Ham

K6SPY ham radio cartoon QSL by N2ESTYes, his name really is Bond. James Bond.

Some QSLs just design themselves, and this was one of them. When James, K6SPY (yes, that really is his call sign, too) commissioned me to create a cartoon QSL for him, I knew exactly what I needed to do: Go full-on James Bond, shaken and stirred.

I started with the call sign, eventually finding a font I could modify to mimic the 007 logo. The name and QTH are set in a font called 007 GoldenEye. And the background is a stock image of the iconic “gun barrel sequence” at the beginning of every Bond movie.

Drawing James himself was easy: I simply copied the classic Sean Connery pose, arms folded, gun over the shoulder — except this gun is a soldering gun.

Did I mention that designing this was a lot of fun?