We live in Los Angeles and come across our fair share of celebrities. We do not consider ourselves people who become starstruck.

Correction: Did not. Our outlook has changed in the past 24 hours.

We have been thinking about updating our avatar, so while considering various options, i.e., deciding on which of our artist friends to ask, we had a revelation: Why not ask Gerard Way, a gifted artist in his own right, if he’d be interested and willing to help?

Random, right? Not really. We are familiar with Gerard’s artwork. As mutual followers, we and Gerard had also interacted on Twitter before, so we figured that we had a (slightly) better than 0% chance that he would respond.

This is what we thought would happen after we DMed him:

1. Best case scenario: Gerard would politely say no.
2. Most likely scenario: We would never hear from him.
3. Worst case scenario: He would emphatically tell us to never bother him with unsolicited projects, and then unfollow us.

This is what actually happened.

Shortly after making the request for a simple drawing of eyeglasses (that’s all we asked for), we got this:

Then came this:

Again, all we asked for were eyeglasses, you know, like our current avatar. What he produced and delivered—for nothing, with no questions asked—was so much more.

So what is the ultimate point of this post? It’s to share and celebrate Gerard Way’s art and his generosity. He is not just the face of My Chemical Romance; he’s also a talented artist.

Secondly, it’s to share with all of you what we strive to do through Tumblr, Twitter, Medium, Pinterest, and wherever else you find our work. Gerard pretty much summed up our mission:

At a time when money seems to drive everything and everyone, Gerard reminded us to be “positive and helpful.”

Thanks again, Gerard. We will pay this forward by being as helpful to others as we can.

NOTE: You can enjoy this drawing on Gerard’s Instagram. (Now you know why he called this drawing “Grammar.”)

On many of our platforms, we are using the drawing upside down because it fits better on the screen. It is intentional. #LOL