Sunday Mailbag

Q: Do you do personal commissions, and how much would you charge?

A: I get this one a lot, so every few years I repost the answer because, if anything, it’s even more accurate than it used to be.

I really hate my answer to this frequent question, but realistically I have no other answer to give. No, I am very sorry to all who inquire, but I had to stop doing personal commissions a long time ago. Due to a plain old lack of physical time I have to often turn down very high paying freelance publication or advertising jobs. If I accepted personal commissions, I would have to turn down even more of the freelance work. For a while I tried charging the kind of prices I would get for a publication illustration in order to justify the studio time taken for commissions, but I just couldn’t bring myself to charge that kind of money for personal work. I know that sometimes I mention personal commissions, but the very, VERY few I do are special circumstances for friends, professional colleagues or clients.

I really do feel badly when I have to turn these down, but there just isn’t enough time in the day.

Thanks to various 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 your questions and I’ll try and answer them here!