MAD writer extraordinaire Desmond Devlin sent me this link to a highly interesting article about a lively exchange between comic book writer Mark Waid and Sergio Aragonés at last night’s Harvey Awards. Mark gave a keynote speech about copyrights, public domain and the dawning new era of electronic publishing where he took the viewpoint that, with regard to rampant piracy on the internet, the “genie is out of the bottle” and that energy expended in efforts to protect ownership would be better served being used to figure out how to profit from one’s intellectual property. Sergio strongly disagreed and a heated discussion ensued.

I wonder if Mark knows Sergio used to be the Mexican equivalent of a Navy Seal?

It’s my opinion that, while the creator of a piece of intellectual property still draws breath, that creation is theirs to do with as they will and to receive any and all profits generated by said intellectual property until they either relinquish the rights to it or they die. It’s that simple. Why should a creator’s idea, concept, cartoon or character be any different than some inventor who patents their invention and profits by any use of it? Because one is done with formulas or software code and another with words or a pen and brush?

Q: So I really want to pursue my passion for caricature and cartooning. I want to give it a go but Sunday is my only day off so live gigs are hard to come by. I look on E Lance and Solo Gig but seems like a lot of professionals are on there. So my questions are, should I capture what is going on in local news and submit my work to the A.D. Of the local papers, without contacting them first? Undercut everyone on E Lance? And last, I need to create a portfolio and needed to know what to include. Should it be online, on disc or hard copy?

A: I’m not very familiar specifically with E Lance and Solo Gig, but in general online resources for finding freelance work and workers like that are still fledgling and are not very productive. Most of the stories I’ve heard from those who have gotten some work from these sources is that the clients they are put in touch with are looking for work done very cheap or for nothing. Those who go to these sites looking for freelance work are often new to hiring freelancers or, more often, one of those “I’ve got a million dollar idea and only need an artist/writer/programmer to do it” types that want to pay by splitting the phantom profits with the freelancer or, worse yet, working for “exposure”. Maybe these types of resources will eventually become a great resource for the working professional, but right now they aren’t quite there.

That said, for someone trying to break into the business it might be a good place to start. You can always say “no” to someone looking for your skills to do a job if you don’t feel the time and effort is worth the rewards. However I would not pay a single dime for any of these services… you’ll get better results by doing a little leg work on your own.

As far as doing live gigs, by which I assume you mean live caricature, being only available Sundays is a major problem. Do you work evenings every day?? Because most events and parties that look for caricatures as entertainment happen in the evenings. It would be inexpensive to print a single page flyer and send it out to all the members of your local Chamber of Commerce advertising your services for company parties and events.

You mentioned sending your work “cold” to the art directors of local papers… by that I assume you mean editorial cartoons based on local politics and news. Certainly you should do that if you have the inclination… editorial cartoons targeting local topics are something newspapers SHOULD be desperate to get their hands on, but their budgets for that kind of thing are pretty small. Don’t expect to get paid a lot if your cartoons are picked up by a single paper (it’s getting syndicated that makes you the money) but appearing in your local paper, even the suburban type small community papers, can get your name out there and net you work in other areas locally. In fact, suburban newspapers are a relatively untapped source of publication for an ambitious cartoonist with local ties. Most suburban papers are printed by a single company that does a dozen or more different local editions. Doing cartoons that are about local city topics can get you in several of them at a pop… grab a copy of your local small paper and look up the publisher.

Finally, I’d concentrate on a digital, online portfolio. The days of schlepping around a leather bound portfolio are long over. It’s easy, cheap and quick to put together a simple portfolio online where you can change the content 24/7 within seconds at your leisure. Your business card with the URL of your online portfolio becomes your portfolio itself, and anyone can see your work at any time.

Check out these past posts for more info on portfolios and breaking into the freelance cartooning/illustration business:

Getting started doing freelance illustration

Modern Portfolios

Marketing yourself as a freelancer

Thanks to Billy Melago 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!

I think John Read needs to get a hobby.

You’d think he’d have enough to do writing, editing and producing the excellent cartooning industry magazine Stay Tooned!, but apparently he has a lot of time on his hands. Instead of doing puzzles or collecting rozzers or veeblefetzers he’s put together a traveling exhibit of original cartoon strip artwork called “One Fine Sunday in the Funny Pages” which features 140 comic strip and panel originals… all published in American newspapers on the same Sunday, April the 11th.

Here is the show where it is currently hanging in a former jewelry store space in Northpark Mall, the busiest mall in Jackson, Mississippi:

Managing to get a Sunday original strip or panel from 140 different syndicated cartoonists is an amazing feat in and of itself, but to be able to get every single one that was published on the same day is sort of mind boggling.

From here the show will go to the Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest in Marceline, MO in September, and then will hang at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE starting at the beginning of October. I will be seeing it in Omaha as the show coincides with our fall National Cartoonists Society chapter meeting on Oct. 1st and 2nd. Looking forward to it!

The comics in the exhibit include (list courtesy of The Daily Cartoonist):

• ADAM@HOME by Rob Harrell & Brian Bassett
• AGNES by Tony Cochran
• ALLEY OOP by Jack & Carole Bender
• ANDY CAPP by Rogers Mahoney & Kettle
• AMAZING SPIDER-MAN by Stan Lee & Alex Saviuk
• ANIMAL CRACKERS by Fred Wagner
• ANNIE by Ted Slampyak & Jay Maeder
• APARTMENT 3-G by Frank Bolle & Sandra Moy
• ARCHIE by Fernando Ruiz & Craig Boldman
• ARCTIC CIRCLE by Alex Hallett
• ARGYLE SWEATER by Scott Hilburn
• ARLO & JANIS by Jimmy Johnson
• ASK SHAGG by Peter Guren
• B.C. by the John Hart Studio
• BABY BLUES by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott
• BALDO by Carlos Castellanos & Hector Cantu
• BALLARD STREET by Jerry Van Amerongen
• BARN, THE by Ralph Hagen
• BEETLE BAILEY by Mort & Greg Walker
• BETWEEN FRIENDS by Sandra Bell-Lundy
• BIG NATE by Lincoln Peirce
• BIZARRO by Dan Piraro
• BLONDIE by John Marshall & Dean Young
• BORN LOSER, THE by Chip Sansom
• BOUND & GAGGED by Dana Summers
• BREWSTER ROCKIT by Tim Rickard
• BRILLIANT…EDISON LEE by John Hambrock
• BROOM-HILDA by Russell Myers
• BUCKETS, THE by Greg Cravens
• BUCKLES by David Gilbert
• CATHY by Cathy Guisewite
• CLEATS by Bill Hinds
• CORNERED by Mike Baldwin
• CRANKSHAFT by Tom Batiuk & Chuck Ayers
• CROCK by Bill Rechin & Don Wilder
• CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson
• CURTIS by Ray Billingsley
• DADDY’S HOME by Tony Rubino & Gary Markstein
• DEFLOCKED by Jeff Corriveau
• DENNIS THE MENACE by Ron Ferdinand
• DIAMOND LIL by Brett Koth
• DICK TRACY by Dick Locher & Jim Brozman
• DOG EAT DOUG by Brian Anderson
• DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau
• DRABBLE by Kevin Fagan
• DUPLEX by Glenn McCoy
• DUSTIN by Jeffry Parker & Steve Kelley
• EDGE CITY by Terry & Patty LaBan
• FAMILY CIRCUS, THE by Jeff Keane
• FLASH GORDON by Jim Keefe
• FLO AND FRIENDS by Jenny Campbell
• FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE by Lynn Johnston
• FORT KNOX by Paul Jon
• FOXTROT by Bill Amend
• FRANK & ERNEST by Tom Thaves & Co.
• FRAZZ by Jef Mallett
• FREE RANGE by Bill Whitehead
• FUNKY WINKERBEAN by Tom Batiuk
• FUSCO BROTHERS, THE by J.C. Duffy
• GARFIELD by Jim Davis
• GASOLINE ALLEY by Jim Scancarelli
• GINGER MEGGS by Jason Chatfield
• GRIN AND BEAR IT by Fred Wagner & R. Dunagin
• HAGAR THE HORRIBLE by Chris Browne
• HEART OF THE CITY by Mark Tatulli
• HEATHCLIFF by Peter Gallagher
• HI & LOIS by Chance Browne & B. Walker
• JUDGE MORGAN by M. Manley & W. Wilson
• KATZENJAMMER KIDS, THE by Hy Eisman
• KNIGHT LIFE, THE by Keith Knight
• LIO by Mark Tatulli
• LITTLE DOG LOST by Steve Boreman
• LOCKHORNS, THE by John Reiner & Bunny Hoest
• LOLA by Todd Clark
• LUANN by Greg Evans
• MARMADUKE by Brad & Paul Anderson
• MARVIN by Tom Armstrong
• MARY WORTH by Joe Giella & Karen Moy
• MIDDLETONS by Ralph Dunagin & Dana Summers
• MOMMA by Mell Lazarus
• MONTY by Jim Meddick
• MOOSE AND MOLLY by Bob Weber
• MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM by Mike Peters
• MUTTS by Patrick McDonnell
• NANCY by Guy Gilchrist
• NON SEQUITUR by Wiley Miller
• OFF THE MARK by Mark Parisi
• OLLIE AND QUENTIN by Piers Baker
• ON A CLAIRE DAY by C. Ventresca & H. Beckett
• ON THE FASTRACK by Bill Holbrook
• ONE BIG HAPPY by Rick Detorie
• OTHER COAST, THE by Adrian Raeside
• OVER THE HEDGE by Michael Fry & T Lewis
• PAJAMA DIARIES by Terri Libenson
• PC & PIXEL by Tak Bui
• PEARLS BEFORE SWINE by Stephan Pastis
• PHANTOM, THE by Paul Ryan & Tony DePaul
• PICKLES by Brian Crane
• PIRANHA CLUB, THE by Bud Grace
• PLUGGERS by Gary Brookins
• POOCH CAF’E by Paul Gilligan
• POPEYE by Hy Eisman
• PRICKLY CITY by Scott Stantis
• PRINCE VALIANT by Gary Gianni & Mark Schultz
• PROS & CONS by Kieran Meehan
• REALITY CHECK by Dave Whamond
• RED AND ROVER by Brian Basset
• PIRANHA CLUB by Bud Grace
• RETAIL by Norm Feuti
• REX MORGAN, M.D. by G. Nolan & W. Wilson
• RHYMES WITH ORANGE by Hilary Price
• RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT by John Graziano
• ROSE IS ROSE by Don Wimmer
• RUBES by Leigh Rubin
• SCARY GARY by Mark Buford
• SHERMAN’S LAGOON by Jim Toomey
• SHOE by Chris Cassatt & Gary Brookins
• SIX CHIX by Margaret Shulock
• SLYLOCK FOX by Bob Weber Jr.
• SNUFFY SMITH by John Rose
• SOUP TO NUTZ by Rick Stromoski
• SPEED BUMP by Dave Coverly
• STRANGE BREW by John Deering
• STONE SOUP by Jan Eliot
• TANK McNAMARA by Bill Hinds & Jeff Millar
• TINA’S GROOVE by Rina Piccolo
• TUNDRA by Chad Carpenter
• W.T. DUCK by Aaron Johnson
• WATCH YOUR HEAD by Cory Thomas
• WEE PALS by Morrie Turner
• WIZARD OF ID, THE by Jeff Parker
• ZACK HILL by John Deering & J. Newcombe
• ZIGGY by Tom Wilson
• ZIPPY THE PINHEAD by Bill Griffith
• ZITS by Jim Borgman & Jerry Scott

Currently have four projects going at once and all of them demanding roughs, final pencils or finishes in short order. No time for blogging or sketching.

For the freelance illustrator there are two tasks that are absolutely essential for being successful:

1. Finding new clients
2. Keeping the clients once you’ve found them

The first one is all about marketing yourself, doing appealing work and targeting the right clients with your promotional efforts, and is universally considered the hardest part of being a freelancer: Finding the work.

The second one is at least as important as the first, however. Once you find a client, doing ongoing work for them is one of the cornerstones of building a successful (and stable) freelance business. One cannot rely on a constant influx of new clients providing enough work to stay busy. You need a core group of clients who give you steady or semi-steady work that you can count on to be your “rock” while you continue to pursue new work. When you find a client who gives you constant work… they are worth their weight in gold and you should do everything you can to keep that relationship strong and healthy.

I’m fortunate to have a few of those types. MAD is of course one, but I also do a fair amount of work every year for Scholastic and National Geographic World publications. Penthouse is proving to be a client that gives me a handful of jobs a year, and I have been doing a lot of work for Ray Griggs and his various movie and TV projects.

I was asked in a comment last week to explain about these “workplace posters” I am always posting the artwork for on The MAD Blog. Those jobs all come from one client, and this client is one of those long term, constant work types that are so important to a freelancer’s success. The client is The Marlin Company, and they produce communication materials for industries and employers all around the U.S. They make both print and electronic display units that a company would put up in their employee areas and provide a subscription based service that sends monthly content for those displays. The content consists of posters, placards and electronic animations that promote teamwork, safety, stress management and other important employer messages to the subscriber’s work force. The content is tailored to the specific display unit and some target certain industries like health care or manufacturing, but most are universal messages that any business wants their employees to understand. The poster art  I do is part of their “humor” line and usually depicts some zany scene or situation that enforces the message that goes along with it. The final printed poster is 17″ x 21″ with my image being 17″ x 17″ and text at the bottom. I basically do one a month for them, and have been doing so for about 8 years or so… although to be honest I can’t recall exactly when I did my first one. It was a physical painting and not digital, so that was a while ago. I estimate I’ve done over 100 poster images for them.

So how do you retain these kinds of clients? The first step is of course to do a great job on the artwork and on meeting any deadlines they have. Communication as always is key, so staying in touch and keeping them informed of your progress is important… but of course that is something you do for all clients and all jobs. You just don’t know when that first call from a new client might evolve into steady, on going work, so you need to do every job like it will be the first of many. It also is important to make the client feel like you appreciate their business, so the occasional thank you note or holiday card is a great way to convey this message.

It will become apparent quickly when a client falls into that “steady source of work” category, and that’s when you need to go the extra mile for them. When I have a client like that, I will make sure they are taken care of ahead of other work if that becomes necessary. I won’t blow a deadline for another client, but I will pull an all-nighter if my “gold” client calls with an emergency piece or something with a shorter deadline without batting an eye. I certainly will never turn down a job from a client like that no matter what the cost in effort may be.

The reason these kinds of clients are so hard to find and retain is that is is rare for anything to continue in the long term in the publishing world. Some things are out of your control, and no matter how good of a job you do changes will take place that will change everything. This often involves an art director losing their job or moving on, and a new art director taking over who has different ideas and tastes. I used to do a lot of work for a company called Business and Legal Reports, but when the art director I worked with left I never got another call from them. I know a lot of illustrators who would do a steady gig like a spot illustration for a column for some magazine for years and then lose that work when a new art director takes over the publication. You can’t get worked up over that kind of thing… it’s life and it will happen. All you can do is a great job and let the chips fall where they may… it’s always been my philosophy that when you work hard and put great effort and heart into what you do, good things will happen eventually. The world of business has a lot of cut throat to it, but the good will outweigh the bad if you just don’t give up and keep giving it your all.

Here are a bunch of my favorite Marlin Co. posters I’ve done over the years:

Q: You seem to straddle the divide between traditional and digital illustration, with one foot firmly entrenched in the age old techniques of drawing and inking and the other in the modern techniques of digital color and painting. One thing I’m concerned about is the eventual disappearance of any form of original art once the digital world takes complete control. What’s your take on that?

A: It’s funny how things come full circle. Way back in the day before I was a working illustrator, artists didn’t even think about stuff like the resale value of their original art, especially for magazine or advertising illustration. They didn’t care about stuff like the archival quality of their work… they only cared about how it would look in print and the originals were disposable. Case in point, in the 50′s and 60′s one of the most popular mediums for doing color humor illustrations and cartoons were Dr. Martin Dyes. These were Synchromatic Transparent Aniline Dyes watercolors that had a distinct chemical nature to them that resulted in brilliant and consistent color. They came in liquid form and were true transparent. They were easy and fast to use and the color reproduced very bright and strong. The problem was they were not light fast, and faded/color shifted significantly in short order (especially the reds). Nobody cared because they only needed to look good until they were shot for color separation, then they went into a drawer or a closet of a trash can. The point being in those days even original comic book art had little resale or collectible value. Comic book companies routinely kept all the art sent to them and the artists didn’t get it back. MAD, for example, never returned artwork and Bill Gaines kept virtually everything ever drawn for the magazine.

In the 70′s and 80′s the rise of collectors made for a big secondary market for original art. Comic books and cartoon strips especially were in demand, but even magazine, newspaper and advertising art done by notable artists would fetch good prices at auction or via private sellers/galleries. In the 70′s comic artists like Neal Adams started campaigning for the rights of creators including the return of their original artwork, which by then was proving to be a source of secondary income through the selling of the art for comic’s artists. By the mid to late 80′s comic book companies changed their policies and artwork was returned to the artists who created it, split between the inker and penciller. MAD also started returning artwork at some point, although exactly when I am not sure. I have never sent a single piece of physical artwork to the MAD offices, so my originals were always with me, but I believe it was about the same time that comic book companies started returning art that MAD did.

Well, now we are coming back to the days when no one seems to care that there is no more original artwork coming from sources like comic books, cartoons and illustration. MAD hasn’t had a non-digital cover illustration in years. I believe the last one was Mad #484, a parody of the Rockwell Thanksgiving dinner painting “Freedom from Want” done by Richard Williams in 2007. Digital art is really cool and all, but hanging a shiny CD-Rom on your wall is anticlimactic. Not everybody has abandoned traditional media of course… not even most artists. There is still a lot of original artwork being produced the old fashioned way, but it will continue to dwindle. Maybe in as soon as 10 years most illustrators won’t have a dip pen, paintbrush or piece of bristol board anywhere within reach when they produce their work. When today’s young kids who are being weaned on pixels and gigabytes are the full grown working illustrators of tomorrow, original art will be hard to come by. I don’t think it will ever go away altogether, but the traditional mediums will become more of an oddity as the years go by.

My take on it is that it will be a sad day when you no longer get to hold in your hand a physical piece of art that some artist toiled over and poured his or her creativity, skill and inspiration into. The printed end results we see everyday will be just as fantastic from the digital artists as what the traditional ones produced, but there is something magical about the tactile interaction of artist, canvas and medium that working on a computer takes away. I’ll never stop drawing and inking physically because I enjoy the tactile experience too much, and the imperfect union of hand, pen and paper surface produces too much charm and warmth to give up in my opinion. Call me old fashioned, I suppose, but having something you can hold in your hand and say “this is my work” as opposed to a hard drive full of 1′s and 0′s has a kind of satisfaction it in.

Thanks to Grant Jonen 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!

Last year I participated along with several other cartoonists in judging a show of college student cartoon work organized by Toon Ed. Toon-Ed is dedicated to educating the student of cartooning and provides a chance to showcase students cartoon art that are enrolled in post-secondary schools, colleges, art schools, and universities. It’s a great organization headed up by cartoonist and educator Ken Alvine.

This year’s Toon Award Exhibition is officially announced and will be judged by memmebrs of my chapter of the National cartoonists Society at our fall meeting in Ohama, NE on Oct. 1-2. Heres’ the official press release:

You can visit the Toon Ed website for all the details! It’s a fun show and gets some really great work. I’m looking forward to the exhibition.

Plenty going on right now:

• MAD- Really digging in to a 5 page TV show parody for #506. Due on news stands in October
• Character Design- very cool project for a well known comedian… someday I’ll be able to share the details
• MAD Animated- Actually awaiting the next segment assignment
• Workplace Poster- My usual monthly assignment

Speaking of workplace posters, I promised to post the final art on the last one that I posted the pencil sketch for a few weeks ago. Here’s the pencil sketch again:

Click for a closer look…

And here’s the final. There were some changes on the sketch. They wanted the girl on the right to have longer hair and an Asian look, and to add another female character:

Click for a closer look…

Illustration done for Minneapolis Star Tribune last fall

Oh Boy! Brett Favre is back in town and going to play for the Minnesota Vikings!

Yawwwn.

I’m a Minnesota guy in most things, but as far as sports go, the only team I care about around here are the Minnesota Twins. I can’t stand the NBA and don’t know or want to know about hockey, so the Timberwolves and Wild hold zero interest for me. Baseball is my favorite pro sport and I love the Twins and all they represent. They play the game the right way, develop their own players and make smart moves that allow them to compete without resorting to buying championships like some teams do. However when it comes to football I’m still a Wisconsin guy, and that means the Green Bay Packers. Thus I can’t stand the Vikings and I really can’t stand Favre and his diva/circus act. It’s really pissing me off this week since with Favre finally deciding to grace the Vikings with his presence his name is all over the sports page and on talk radio… meanwhile the Twins are regulated to page 2 and barely getting mentioned on radio/newscasts despite taking two of three (so far) from their chief division rival the Chicago White Sox in dramatic come-from-behind fashion the last two days. The Twins deserve better.

I think Favre might be in for a surprise this season. A lot of the big, mean football players playing on the other side of the line of scrimmage from him might also be as sick as I am of his privileged, pampered antics. You know, the 300 plus pound guys that had to show up and sweat out training camp and OTA’s all spring/summer? I have a feeling Favre might have a few more games like the NFC championship this winter where the other guys deliver some vicious hits with malice to show their displeasure. He is not the well respected player he once was.

So, go Pack and good luck Vikings… Here’s a little drawing for all those Vikings fans out there:

It’ll still look like that after the 2010 season, but don’t worry… I predict in a few years the Vikings will win their first Superbowl!

… of course they’ll be the Los Angeles Vikings then, but still…

This week’s sketch: pop star Katy Perry. A lot of people seem to dislike her, thinking she’s extremely vulgar and overtly sexual… but I think she’s doing all that over the top stuff with tongue firmly in cheek (insert “tongue firmly in somewhere joke here”). She’s intentionally being a parody of the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera school of candy-like sex doll pop singers.