It has become apparent to me over the last few weeks I am going to have to step back from doing daily and involved writing on The MAD Blog for much of the month of May. My regular work, my theme park operations starting, and trying to finish the book, is taking it’s toll—something has to give.

The MAD Blog will cut back to a Monday, Wednesday (Sketch o’the Week), Friday and Sunday (Mailbag) schedule through the end of the month. With the possible exception of a quick news post here and there, these will be the only days with active posts, and some of those posts might be a little on the lighter side. A more regular posting schedule and some more substantial writing will return in June.

Thanks for everyone’s understanding.

The artwork for the cover of the new issue of UTNE Reader:

Click for a closer look…

The job was a caricature of Kim Kardashian representing our 24/7 narcissistic society. The art director wanted me to convey how even a casual stroll shopping for someone like her becomes a staged event, and how the public seem to be willing sheep in the process. Here is the final pencil sketch (done on a mock layout with dummy text) and final color art:

Click for a closer look…

Click for a closer look…

I was the folks at UTNE’s choice to leave out any shadows on the dress and have it be a flat pattern. Their call. It does make Kim’s figure stand out more, but it looks a little out of place as well. I adjusted the values on the left side so the text popped better, which made for a nice “atmospheric perspective” effect while still leaving the large crowd intact.

In the traditional business model of goods and payment the seller hands the goods to the customer, who then hands over payment. That works pretty well when the transactions take place face to face, over a counter where the goods get examines first and the payment is in currency that goes right into the cash register. Conflicts and questions are asked and answered right on the spot, and if they cannot be answered or resolved the seller and buyer go their separate ways with their goods and money in their respective possession and no one is out anything except a little shopping time.

As a freelancer, i.e. a single entity trying to make a living dealing with many different clients whom you rarely meet let alone transact face to face, and increasingly are doing business from different parts of the globe, getting paid for your work is something that can sometimes become an issue.

You try and protect yourself by doing things like requiring new clients to pay an advance before beginning significant work, collecting payments at various stages of the job, requiring payment in full before delivery of the final work, etc. That system works to a certain extent, but often times for me the short time frame between a client calling and the deadline of the job makes it impossible to go through that kind of a process. This is especially true when working with a publication, because they usually don’t have their accountants sitting around with checkbooks ready to whip off checks at a moments notice. Many publications, in fact it’s probably accurate to say MOST publications, are owned and run by a larger company that requires invoicing, purchase orders, agreements and a process before payments are cut and sent out from some department far away from the art director’s office. Some clients of mine pay within a week of submission of the work, while others take up to 60 days. It’s part of the job, and as with everything communication is the key. You as a freelancer need to ask about payment policy and have a clear idea of what to expect, so if it doesn’t happen you can follow up as needed.

All that is tough enough, but what happens if the very payment the client makes to you isn’t a “real” payment until up to 2 months after it’s made? What if that money the customer paid for those goods that went into the cash register had a fishing line tied to it, and later on the customer had merely to yank on the line and the money was gone?

That is the risk a freelancer takes when accepting payment via PayPal or a credit card.

Maybe Big Box retailers are really at fault here. Companies like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target will take a return on anything, and they have conditioned the consumer to think their purchase isn’t really a purchase until they have used it thoroughly and decided it’s worth the money. Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) is dead… Caveat Venditor (let the seller beware) is the new law of commerce. Payment options like PayPal make “caveat venditor” applicable to freelancers.

PayPal has a 45 day period where the buyer can open a “dispute” over a transaction. Since freelance creative work deals with intellectual property and not tangible goods, the “proofs” PayPal typically requires from sellers to respond to a dispute… stuff like delivery confirmation and photos of the goods in the condition sent do not apply in these cases. This is especially true when a job goes sour, and even if payment has been made at the end of certain stages it’s hard for a freelancer to prove he’s met his end of the deal as far as the payments thus far are concerned. As a result, PayPal can and will refund money out of a freelancer’s account without their permission if they side with the buyer in a dispute.It isn’t simply a matter of if they got the product, it’s also a matter of if the product was what they expected to get. This policy gives a client Carte Blanche to decide months after the fact if they feel like paying for a freelancer’s work.

Accepting credit card payments can result in the same issues. Credit card companies allow “chargebacks” and disputes over goods paid with their cards, and you can imagine which side they tend to protect in a dispute… the customer paying their credit card bills. Chargebacks can be instigated up to 90 days after the charge was made, and for the following reasons: “if the card was charged fraudulently, either by an unauthorized user or an ignominious vendor, or the items or services that were received by the card holder were not received, or not the same quality or type of item or service they had anticipated receiving.” Again, the decision of if they like the work and want to pay for it can be made months after the work is done.

It’s that last statement that is troubling. You see, it would be very easy for a disreputable client to decide well after the fact they didn’t like what you did and literally not have to pay for it. Accepting payments via PayPal or credit card leaves you vulnerable to those kinds of issues. Here’s an actual story illustrating just such a problem from the excellent resource Freelance Switch. In this story the client in question not only won their dispute through PayPal and was refunded payment for work that was done and delivered, but the client had the audacity to use the artwork they did not pay for anyway on their website and yet PayPal still did nothing for the freelancer. Hard to believe in the face of such obvious proofs PayPal would not return the freelancer’s payments, but they did not.

Of course, the real underlying problem with accepting a PayPal or credit card payment is the same as accepting any kind of payment…a bad client is a bad client. In fact I suppose you can say that if a client is unreliable with payments why would they bother to make a payment via PayPal or credit cards in the first place? They could probably string you along promising a payment and then not delivering it and achieve the same thing… you having done work and not gotten paid for it. The difference is that they can string a project all the way to final by delivering what seems like timely payments while knowing that if they decide not to pay for it they can get out of it, where as if they are pulling classic “the check is in the mail” tricks the freelancer has the opportunity to stop work and not deliver a complete job to someone for what may end up being no payment.

I didn’t have this problem with a freelance job, but did get stuck by PayPal when I sold an HD Home Theater projector for $1000 through eBay. In my description I said the projector had “about” 800 hours of run time on it. It was in perfect working order when I sent it to the buyer and I packed it like a tank. Exactly 45 days after the transaction he initiated a dispute saying that the projector had stopped working. I said I was sorry that happened but it was working fine when I sold it and there was no way I could foresee there would be a problem 6 weeks later. He claimed there were over 1000 hours used on the projector (there is an internal timer I didn’t know about and only estimated the time). My response was I estimated the time which is why I said “about” 800 hours. EBay/Paypal refunded his entire payment and I got a broken projector back because I used the word “about”. The guy probably dropped it, or had one like it that was broken and swapped them out. I had no proof of either, so I was the one who got screwed. I canceled my eBay account right after that and will never sell anything on eBay again. Likewise I won’t accept a payment via PayPal for anything except tangible personal property I can prove the receipt of… certainly not for freelance work.

With the increasing frequency of doing business with international clients, it would be nice to have a solid solution to getting paid that is more fair and protected that PayPal’s broken policies. Until then, I’d rather the check was in the mail.

Q: Now that I’m working freelance full-time, I’m wondering: what do you do when you get sick? As I’m typing this, I’m dealing with a nasty cold and although I want to spend the day in bed, there’s work to be done. What’s your experience with being sick while dealing with deadlines, Tom? I can’t imagine trying to pull an all-nighter with a puke bucket by your drawing desk!

A: That reminds me of my standard answer to the question “What’s it like working at home?” My answers are:

“The best thing is you get to work out of your home” and “The worst thing is you are never out of the office”.

Similarly, you don’t get to call in sick and turn whatever work or productivity your company was planning on getting out of you that day into someone else’s problem. It’s a drag and maybe a little unfair but it’s also the cold, hard truth. You’ve got a job to do and nobody else is there to pick up the ball if you are too sick to play. I’m fortunate in that I don’t get sick very often, and when I do it’s short lived. However it would take me being really, seriously ill to keep me from getting something done when I have a deadline. Everybody gets colds and has the flu and that little stuff sometimes. If you have a deadline and no wiggle room, then you just suck it up and get it done unless you are so sick you can’t function properly.

People are human and do get seriously sick sometimes, or have accidents or personal crises or some other catastrophe. I guess in that case you just have to call the client and explain the situation and hope they understand. If they do, then that’s fine. If they don’t, I guess you have no choice if you just cannot continue your job for whatever serious reason. If the client has a drop dead deadline date and it gets blown as a result of you being sick, then that’s simply life. If the client is not understanding then maybe you never get another call from them, but that is out of your control. Life happens and sometimes things get in the way. It’s just as easy to get in a car crash and be laid up in the hospital for a couple of days with broken ribs… there is no “sucking it up” from something like that. That’s why operating at the very edge of a deadline is not a good idea… there is then no cushion for the unforeseen.

There is a difference between being truly too sick to work or having some other crisis interrupt your life and just coming up with excuses as to why you can’t get the job done on time. You know the difference, and if you only allow something really unavoidable to get in your way you will not lose many jobs or have many problems because of those issues. Allowing the minor ones to get in the way will eventually catch up to you.

Thanks to Chris Houghton 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!

Q: If I have just begun working as a cartoonist/illustrator what should I include in my portfolio since I never gotten published before? I know I should include my best work but what’s the subject for me to illustrate? Finally, how to get my work noticed?

A: These days a “portfolio”, meaning a little case that contains samples of your illustration work, is almost a thing of the past. It’s the electronic age, and websites have taken the place of the traditional leather portfolio. Website porfolios have so many benefits over thier physical counterparts… they are accessible 24/7. They do not need to be dropped off or returned, thus the client has it at their fingertips always, you can change it easily while sitting at home with no pants on, etc. I can’t remember the last time I sent out my actual portfolio or brought it to show to an art director. Still, many of the concepts that apply to the preparing and presentation of the old fashioned leather portfolio still apply to the virtual kind. Preparing a portfolio is like any exercise in marketing: you identify your target audience and their needs, tailor your presentation to fulfill those needs and then present it to them in an easily digestible form.

Your target audience is of course your potential client and their readership or audience. You determine what they are looking for by examining their magazine/publication to see what kind of content they publish. I’m not talking about looking at the illustration work already in their and trying to show them something similar (although the type of illustration they use can tell you if your style is something that might or might not appeal to them), I’m talking about seeing what kind of articles and audience they are reaching. If it’s a magazine about sports, showing them product illustrations of sandwiches probably won’t be very effective. Some things are universal… like illustrations of people and people interacting is some kind of scene, but it’s best to show them work that fits within the scope of their audience. If it’s a sports magazine, show illustrations of athletes and people playing various sports. If it’s a magazine for the entertainment industry, caricatures of celebrities are always good. Medical magazines want illustrators that can draw hospital equipment and doctors in uniform, etc. Art directors as a rule won’t spend any time trying to imagine if the artist who’s unrelated work they are looking at would be able to draw their kind of subject matter. They want to look at pieces in a portfolio that they could imagine being printed as they are in their publication.

It might seem unrealistic to tailor a portfolio for a single client like this… it likely would involve doing some sample pieces specially for that client, and who has time for that? True, but you can generalize and use many pieces for multiple portfolios. A caricature of a baseball player could be shown to any sports related publication, but would also fit well for showing to newspapers, entertainment magazines (especially if the player is A-Rod or some other tabloid darling), health and fitness magazines or any publication that might use caricature. A humorous hospital scene would be good to show not only medical themed publications but those dealing with insurance, finance, business or health in general. In fact a humorous scene like that would be good to show any art director looking for humorous illustrations.

Also, you need not have every single piece in your portfolio specifically targeted to the client in question. Actually just a few of them would do, as long as the rest are in general of the type that would appeal to them. If you are showing your work to a serious art colletors magazine, having a bunch of goofy cartoon work in it would probably not be wise. Likewise if you are showing a portfolio to a kid’s entertainment magazine (if there even is such a thing anymore) it’s pointless to show them realistic paintings of ducks.

The virtual online portfolio is a little harder to tailor to a specific client since you don’t show it just to them but it is there for the entire world. In that case it’s best to break your work into categories of sections, possible using tags and simple links for things like “Caricature”, “Sports”, “Humorous”, etc. It’s tempting to put every piece you’ve ever done on the website since you have virtually unlimited room, but too much work makes it unappealing and overwhelming to browse. Limit yourself to a few dozen pieces at most, or create more specific sections with similar themed artwork in multiple mini-portfolios like the categories previously mentioned. If you want a great template for creating a solid onlien portfolio, visit this link at FreelanceSwitch.

Finally, there are some things you DON’T want to include in your portfolio. Sketchbook work is one. It’s fun to look at people’s sketchbooks… if you are another artist or a fan. If you are a professional art director you don’t give a damn about a potential illustrator’s creative process or how good they draw stealth caricatures of people in the coffee shop. They want to see publication-ready work. Likewise do not include life drawings, which are just another kind of sketchbook drawing and have no commercial applications. Don’t include x-rated or possibly offensive stuff unless that’s the kind of work you are aiming for.

As far as “getting your work noticed”, well, that’s the trick. Having a strong portfolio is great but doesn’t do you much good if nobody sees it. You need to aggressively look for publications and clients who you think your style would appeal to, and then get your work out to them. Doing a postcard mailing with a few samples on it and your website URL is a good direct marketing technique, but it involves a lot of legwork to find the contact info you need. There are mailing list services that will provide you with a list of buyers of illustration for a price, and that might be a good place to start. Postcards and mailings cost money, but you have to do some investing in your business to get it off the ground. Other possibilities are source books like the Directory of Illustration or the Workbook. which cost a fair amount of money to be a part of.  There are also online source books like the iSpot. Again, these cost money and may or may not be effective for you. I would start with the direct marketing mailers and go from there.

Thanks to Kim Chen 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!

We might be seeing this ugly guy a bit over the next two weeks… I’ve got a lot on my plate just now.

Q: Have you ever had a client that wanted things done in a certain way that looked bad? Did you try to educate them, refuse to do the project, or just complete it as they asked even if you thought it looked bad?

A: Yes, certainly. There have been many times where I disagreed with the art director/client’s idea of what would result in the best solution for their project.

There are basically three kinds of art directors:

1. The “do whatever you want” ones- These are the ones that tell you what the project is and then let you do whatever you want without direction. These are very rare, and although it sounds like it would be the best type of scenario that is not the case. I prefer the art director to be engaged in the project and to explain what they want and provide feedback at the various stages. Letting me do whatever I want might be fun but it doesn’t guarantee the client will be pleased with the final result. It’s the AD’s job to communicate the client’s needs to me and usually this type provides little of that communication.
2. The “open minded but informed” ones- these are the best to work with. They value the creative input of the illustrator and fully participate in the process. They usually begin with a detailed description of the project’s needs and then let me as the illustrator come up with my ideas for possible end results. Then they provide direct and smart feedback and direction to take my ideas and make them work with the client’s needs to create a solution that is both successful and artistically strong. They are sometimes tough but they never refuse to listen to my thoughts and can be persuaded if I feel strongly about a certain concept or direction if my arguments are strong enough.
3. The “my way or the highway” ones- these are single minded, stubborn folks who think their ideas are genius and there is no room for another idea or solution. They have a clear cut vision of the final result and hire an illustrator not as a creative collaborator but as a “wrist” who just executes their vision. If the idea is ineffective or just plain stupid they do not care, they don’t want to hear any alternatives. The worst part of this interaction is if a client ends up not liking the final result, this type of AD will blame the illustrator rather than confessing it was their idea all along.

The scenario you are asking the question about would relate to the last two types of art directors. If the AD is such a case as a type 2, I would present my ideas and discuss why I think they might work better. If they were a type 3, then I’d just save my breath. I might persuade the type 2 AD my concept was a better solution, and I might not. Either way the fact they are willing to listen and consider my point of view is appreciated.

No matter which type I was dealing with, I would absolutely follow through with the project and complete it to the client’s satisfaction. I can usually take any idea and still execute a piece of art I don’t mind my name being signed to, but I suppose if it came to really hating something I was embarrassed by (and I cannot envision a scenario where that would happen) I might ask them not to credit me. I would never not fulfill my agreed upon obligations nor complain once my ideas were rejected over the completion of a job. I might refuse to ever work for that client or art director again if the experience was truly terrible, but refuse to finish a job as long as they were fulfilling their end of the bargain as far as the agreement and compensation went? Never. Unprofessional.

Thanks to Sharprm 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!

FYI- This Sunday Mailbag post was written and posted en route from Hartford Connecticut to Minneapolis, Minnesota at 34,000 feet via an inflight wifi internet connect… ain’t technology wonderful!

Not a whole lot on the board right now. That’s a good thing as I have to travel over the next two weeks opening up my theme park operations in Missouri and Massachusetts. I always have to turn down a few jobs at this time of year because of the theme park demands. I just wrapped up a series of storyboards for some animated segments in a movie as well as a few additional character designs for it, and another Marlin Co. poster illustration.

Here are the things I am currently working on:

• 2010 NCS Reubens T-Shirt Art- My annual illustration for the cartoonists weekend
• Two personal projects- Real painting!
• Movie Poster- For the film I did the animated characters and storyboards for

Here’s the art for the latest Marlin workplace poster. … Click each image for a closer look:

Pencil Roughs

Final inks

As you can see the client had a few changes. They wanted the firefighters on each side of the grill to be wearing hazmat suits as opposed to regular firefighting gear, and one to have a hose. They also wanted to lose two of the firefighters in the background.

The finished illustration…

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.