Sunday Mailbag

Q: Have you ever considered creating a comic strip to submit for syndication, since this is a more stable job for a cartoonist than it is to freelance? Have you ever submitted cartoons to magazines or to a syndicate and if so where?

A: I have never submitted any gag cartoons for either syndication or for magazines. That is something very different from what i do, and it’s never been something I have tried to pursue nor that I feel I could do effectively… just not my bag.

As for the syndicated strip, I actually have been kicking an idea around for that for some time, but just can’t find the time to develop it properly to give it a try with syndication. I am still hopeful of giving it a shot in the near future. I think it’s a bit debatable whether or not a comic strip would be considered much more stable than freelancing. The newspaper industry is having a lot of problems right now, and strips come and go regularly. You have to be in a certain number of papers with larger circulations to make a living at it. That is extremely hard to do.

Thanks to Matt Lassen and Michael Garisek for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!