Okay, this is awse. You'll recall last week I was intrigued by the Microsoft webding that looks like the Two Tone Records ska man. Well, the blogger in Australia whose webding comic I linked to, Adam Ford, sent me an email. He said he was going to try to track down the typographer who designed the mysterious character. And sure enough, he did. First, an excerpt from his inquiry:

I'm a comic artist from Australia, and I'm curious to find out more about the history of the creation of the Webdings font for Microsoft. Specifically, I'm curious about one specific icon in that set, the character represented by shift+M, which can only be described as a hovering man in sunglasses and a porkpie hat - reminiscent of the mascot of the 1980s ska record label Two-Tone.

Amazingly enough, he received a response confirming that the character was indeed inspired by the Two Tone man:

Yes well spotted. it was inspired by the Two-Tone logo. From a Japanese version of a live Specials LP. I designed that character originally when we need something in a Exclamation mark position but it was moved to be more random. It shouldn't be exactly the same as the TwoTone logo but similar.

So there you have it. A bona fide ska webding. Thanks to Adam for his investigative efforts!