This is a question from a while back that I thought was timely to repost today:

Q: It’s obvious that networking is a very valuable practice in the cartooning and illustration world, but are situations such as a comic-con or other gatherings of that nature an appropriate venue to try and foster such contacts? Those with booths and tables are likely there primarily to sell their own work, so would they view that sort of thing as an annoyance or an opportunity?

A: Comic cons are weird animals, to be certain. I actually haven’t been to that many cons, but I think I know what you are driving at. You want to know if it’s worth attending a comic con as a way to network in the pursuit of bigger and better things.

The short answer is that it depends what you want to get out of it. If your goal is to directly find and pursue work, then you will likely be disappointed. If your goal is to get people in the industry to know who you are and to in turn get to know people, then comic cons are a great place to be.

Like any large gathering of people from a single industry, there are a wide variety of types of individual in attendance at a comic con. As you observe, a lot of artists are at these conventions to make a buck selling their latest self published comic or book or what have you. In fact, the majority of those in attendance are selling something. A few are there to promote their latest project they have produced themselves or for a publisher. Some just go to meet their fans and to socialize. A small few are editors or art directors and of them almost none are interested in seriously considering an artist’s portfolio, although some may look to be polite. There is almost zero direct contact for work going on at a comic con.

That’s not to say it’s not worth attending one. As you observe, networking itself is valuable. It’s smart to get out of your cave and meet other people in the industry. Not everything has to be about getting jobs… just getting to know people and have them know of you and your work is a good thing. In that context, comic cons are great. They are highly social, and you can burn through a good stack of business cards over a weekend.

Comic cons used to be places where aspiring artists brought their porfolios to show editors of comic book publishers. There would be set times for portfolio reviews, and long lines of eager artists with bad Batman drawings under their arms. Not so anymore. While people do bring their portfolios around to cons it is more about asking for opinions on the work than the pursuit of work. Editors don’t go there looking for talent.

If you are looking to do some networking, go to one of the smaller cons as opposed to the big one in San Diego. It’s easier to meet people at the smaller shows. Have a promo piece/postcard made up to give away. Introduce yourself about. If you keep your eyes and ears open you can learn a lot about the type of projects and work going on, and that might apply to some ideas of your own.

Actually I have to revise my thoughts on this a bit after attending the San Diego Comic-Con this year. This show in particular has a great deal of panels and seminars on getting into the business, what you need to have and show in your portfolio and instructional seminars on a variety of subjects and techniques. There are also a few structured portfolio “talent search” sessions by companies like DC which are obviously good places for feedback. I still stand by my opinion that very few publishers come to something like Comic-Con LOOKING for new talent, however.

Thanks to Patrick LaMontagne 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!

Promo art by Peter “PG” Gustafsson

“The MAD Generation” is an exhibition of MAD inspired artwork showing at The Gallery at East Atlanta Tattoo in Atlanta, GA. It only runs for two weeks and the final three days are today, tomorrow and Saturday. The artwork in the show are tributes to MAD and the visual images that made it successful as seen through the eyes of about 50 different artists.

This looks like a fun show and I wish it was nearby. I don’t get to Atlanta anymore after having closed up my Underground Atlanta caricature location over a year ago… not that I would have happened to be in town anyway. Still it’s a cool concept and some of the art is really outstanding.

You can see much of the artwork from the show here, but if you happen to be in the Atlanta area it looks to be a very cool show… some great pieces. Check it out.

This is a picture of one of my first theme park caricatures in progress,
taken at Great America in Gurnee, IL in the summer of 1985.

People sometimes ask what got me started doing what I do. As far back as I can remember I wanted to be an artist. Comic books and Batman got me started loving art and storytelling, but I never set out nor really wanted to be a comic book artist. The truth is I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with art… I just wanted to be a “commercial artist” and make a living drawing and illustrating. Caricature was not something that particular interested me early on. I knew what caricature was, of course, but I never made a connection between it and what I did as an artist, or what I wanted to do. That would all change one day thanks to a pretentious art teacher and a pointless art class at the University of Minnesota in 1985, and the change of heart of another caricature artist.

I wish I could remember the name of that art teacher at the U of M… I’d send her flowers.

The class was called “alternative sculpture”, which was one of those silly filler classes that applied to virtually no actual career direction, but was apparently just there to fill up student schedules and collect tuition money for credits. It was “alternative” because you created your sculptures with any material EXCEPT clay or similar. I could go on about how big a waste of time that was, but suffice it to say I was disappointed but it was the only art class with room in it when I registered. The class was so boring and useless I took to skipping it a lot.

I was skipping the class one day and wasting time in the art building commons area when I spotted a flier on the wall that said “can you draw?”. It was an advertisement for caricaturists to work at a local theme park called Valleyfair by a company called Fasen Arts. I thought I could draw pretty good, so I answered the ad and mailed them some drawings. A few weeks later I interviewed for the job with the company’s owner, Steve Fasen. I showed him a number of drawings I had done of celebrities, and he critiqued me pretty harshly before sending me on my way with a “we’ll give you a call”.

Now, Steve is quite a guy, and today I count him as one of my good friends as well as a mentor and surrogate big brother. He’s a great caricaturist and an even better businessman. However Steve has a very selective memory. He will tell you that he took one look at my work and hired me on the spot, knowing I would really take to caricature and make it one of the center points of my career. That’s not how it happened. I in fact did not get the job at Valleyfair, and heard nothing from them for weeks (not that I blame them… despite my overconfidence I know in retrospect my work wasn’t very impressive). Just as I was figuring I was out of luck, I got a call to do a second interview at Steve’s home. There I was given a quick lesson on live work and tossed into a chair and made to draw Steve as his brother Gary watched over my shoulder. No pressure! Wish I had that drawing today… it must have been awful.

Well, not too awful. I did get a job, but not at Valleyfair. Fasen Arts had another operation in a theme park near Chicago called Great America, and they said they had a place for me there. So, I packed my bags and moved to Waukegan, IL, where I lived in a townhouse with 5 other caricature/airbrush T-shirt artists I did not know, worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week all summer and had my life irrevocably changed…. I later found out that I got the job only because another artist who they had selected bowed out, deciding to stick to gigs and fair work back in Minnesota.

I wish I knew the name of that artist… I’d send her flowers, too.

That summer I fell in love with the art of caricature and cartooning at the same time I learned what it would take to realize my dreams of being a working artist. I was privileged to work with a small group of outstanding artists, most of whom went on to have very successful careers in animation, illustration, comic books, children’s book illustration and fine art. I was humbled by the talent these guys possessed, and realized quickly this art thing was not something you just did or were born with… it was something you had to work incredibly hard at. That summer got me off my rear end and instilled a determination and drive in me that still motivates me today. I drew until my hand was sore… literally. I worked hard at my skills and did live caricatures at Great America every summer all through college, eventually being offered a manager/trainer job by the Fasens at a new operation at Six Flags Atlanta. From there I started my own caricature operations and began freelancing. It was a long road (one I’m still on), with many lucky breaks and many failures and roadblocks. I am still constantly humbled by the skills and talents of artists I admire and that continues to motivate me to improve my abilities and to grow as an artist. My philosophy is still “be confident in your skills today, but do not be satisfied if they are still the same skills tomorrow”.  Today I am lucky enough to do what I love and earn a living at it, supporting and raising my family in the process.

…and I owe it all to a boring art class and a caricature artist who got cold feet.

It seems like every time I open the newspaper, there is more bad news about the economy. Apparently we are in a recession… The beauty of it is that the “experts” figure it started about December of 2007. I’m still not entirely clear on how we can be in a recession and not realize it for an entire year, but that’s how these things work.

Whatever label you want to put on it, the economy is in rough shape. The real indicator, to me at least, of that is the unemployment rate. At over 8%, it’s pretty bad. Since our economy is essentially built on the buying and consumption of goods, less people with jobs means less people buying stuff meaning less stuff being made meaning less jobs for people who make the stuff. A vicious cycle.

So, what does that mean for freelancers? We can’t be fired, so we can’t lose our jobs, right? We can lose WORK, however, and with dwindling budgets many clients have cut back on buying illustration in order to save money. The publication business was in trouble long before our economy started to spiral, that’s a double whammy for those who depend on magazine or newspaper work for a lot of their jobs.

So what’s a freelancer to do? There are a few things that you can do to help bring in jobs during these tough times:

1. Step up your Marketing- It is a natural reaction to cut back on expenses like advertising to try and save money when things get tight, but that is the opposite of what you should be doing. One thing that is absolutely guaranteed to happen if you cut back on your marketing budget: you will get less work. There are two reasons to not just continue but to increase your marketing if you can: First, more marketing might or might not lead to more work, but less will DEFINITELY decrease your visibility to potential clients and will lead to less work at a time you can least afford to have that happen. Secondly, many of your competitors will foolishly choose to cut back on their marketing, leaving you with a wider window to get work they might have been called for had their work been marketed properly. Their mistake can be your gain.

2. Smarter Marketing- The previous point doesn’t mean you should start spending money on ineffective marketing. If you haven’t had past success with a given marketing effort like a source book ad or an online portfolio service, it is not likely that venue will suddenly prove effective now. Concentrate on direct, personal marketing with postcard or mini-poster mailings directed straight to the art buyers of your target clients. Time spent researching and preparing mailings and personal notes is only a waste if you are putting off actual jobs to do it… and if you are honestly too busy to do that research and effort then you don’t have a problem in the first place, do you? A few evenings spent compiling a list of current publication art directors, their addresses and hand addressing current work mailings can pay off big later. Trying other avenues is risky but might also pay off.

3. Cultivate Past Relationships- You already have one excellent source of proven potential clients… your freelance records. Go back through your last few years of invoices put together mailings to those clients you’ve done work for in the past and reconnect with them. Show them what you are up to and remind them you’d love to work with them again if something comes along they think you are right for. You may find some art directors have moved on… often you can get their current contact info and reconnect with them at their new publication (if any). Out of sight is out of mind, and a reminder of your past work with a client will often lead to them remembering your work when something comes up that you might work well on. Past clients should be on a permanent mailing list anyway, but if you’ve been remiss on this then now’s the time to reconnect.

4. Seek New Opportunities- Have you been relying on a few key clients or work from a certain section of the industry for most of your jobs? It’s easy to get comfortable with too many eggs in one basket. Now might be the time to explorer other places your work would be of value. Product packaging, website graphics, character design and/or branding, advertising… there are lots of venues out there needing good quality illustration work. Spend some time thinking about other possible avenues your work might apply to. Maybe some of your marketing budget can go to advertising your skills to an entire new potential client industry.

5. Stay Positive- Things will turn around and get better. Good things happen to good people, even if it takes time. Treat your clients with professionalism, respect and appreciation, and they will reciprocate.

Q: In a past article you said, regarding showing potential clients your reliability and professionalism: “the easiest way to demonstrate this is by having a body of work already established… in comics, magazine illustration, advertising, etc.”  As someone who has only done commissions for friends and very small published works, my big question is how do you go about getting professional freelance work in the first place?  You have an impressive client list and I realized I don’t know the first thing about trying to contact those types of clients (ex: Scholastic, magazines, advertising).  Any hints, tips or tricks for a beginning freelancer on how to break into the business in general?

A: “Commissions for friends and very small published works” is professional work. Few people go straight from zero to the cover of TIME. The most productive way to “break in” is to start small and built up a body of work. There is a lot of work to be had at a local level, even in the smallest of towns.

Every town has small businesses that need advertising and images to go with them. Set up meetings with local resturants, pizzarrias and coffee shops (not the big chains, but independently owned stores) and pitch them on cartoons for kids menus. For caricaturists, there are lots of “personality” driven small businesses like used car lots, personal training centers, realtors (ugh) or travel agents that might be interested in caricatured “characters” as part of a branding or ad campaign. Local printers will often get jobs designing fliers for businesses and might need some illustration work done. If you live near a bigger city, there are usually free creative-type newspapers that like to use illustration for features and sometimes covers… they don’t pay much but your goal at first is to build up a body of work. Obviously any publishers in the city, including ones that just publish ad circulars or catalogs, will find they need illustration now and then. Even your church and local schools need some stuff done now and then. Most towns have local newspapers or suburban papers that will occasionally need illustration. Whether they give you work on the spot of not, they should know who you are and that you are in the area.

The important thing is to treat even the most humble client like they are TIME, and their job is important to you. Nail your deadlines, and do your best work all the time. Word gets around, both good and bad.

In the meantime, do not be afraid to send work to larger potential clients… just make sure what you send them is professional and well presented. There’s no secret way to contact them. Magazines have a mailing address and the name of their art director on the masthead, somewhere in the first dozen or so pages of each issue.

Check out the article in my FAQs on “How to get started doing Freelance Illustration” for some more detailed info.

Thanks to Char Reed 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’m headed back home from Orlando today, but in the meantime here is another of the weekly caricatures I have been doing for The Independent, a local newspaper in North Carolina. These are used as header art for a column called “Good Old Boys Gone Bad” .