Drawn to Success Preface
"ART IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE"
or...
"My Future's So Bright I've Got To Wear Sunglasses!"
THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME...
The 21st Century will be the greatest era for the Storytelling Arts in the History Of Mankind, and Those Who Master This Language Will Have No Limits To The Riches Placed Before Them.
That's right. You read that right.
"The 21st Century will be the greatest era for the Storytelling Arts in the History Of Mankind, and Those Who Master This Language Will Have No Limits To The Riches Placed Before Them!!"
NO LIMITS. RICHES. SUCCESS. WEALTH. HAPPINESS. A OPEN INVITATION TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE... AND EVEN CHANGE THE WHOLE WORLD!
How can I say this? Because I know that the universal language of all of mankind is art. No matter where you go in the world, a picture that is well drawn is understood. A story, that has no words, but is a series of pictures, or images, so well done that they grab your eye and won't let go can change the hearts, the moods, the souls of anyone from anywhere in the world.
HISTORY PROVES THIS TRUTH!
Egypt, 1889... Adventurous British Scientists "read" about the lifetimes of Egyptian Royalty through a series of carvings in the tomb walls.
A Movie House in France in 1934. A Mickey Mouse animated cartoon makes the crowd of Theatergoers laugh so hard they cry.
An Infantry Unit In Viet Nam pins a sheet up between two palm trees in 1968 and watches a wordless 8mm Tom and Jerry Cartoon ordered from the back of a Mexican Comic Book on a Kid's Crank Movie Projector.
1990... A father comes home from a business trip to Japan to his two small children in Connecticut with undubbed videos. His daughter immediately begins to beg for EVERYTHING she can ever find with the character from the video on it, after falling in love with "Hello Kitty", and his son begins jumping off the bed pretending to be "Ultraman"!
2007... A little 10 year old Iraqi boy smiles and points to the screen of a cell phone in an American Marine's hand, as Bart Simpson dances to a ring tone.
Cartoons, and the visual arts have always and ALWAYS WILL transcend any border, and make any language barriers disappear.
JIM HENSON AND ME
I know this from my own professional experience, going all the way back to the early 1980s when I worked for Jim Henson, drawing and writing the Muppets comic strip for him along with my younger brother, Brad.
From the very first day we were launched in newspapers with the strip, we were GLOBAL. The Muppets was the FIRST comic strip in history to be run all over the world starting the very first day. Brad and I became the first cartoonists in history to have to write every single joke for a worldwide audience. We had to work twice as far in advance as anyone else in our business at that time, because our strips had to be shipped via airmail and messenger (prior to the internet, of course) all around the world to be translated into every language of the 80 countries that read us each day.
We had to be extremely AWARE of the GLOBAL MARKETPLACE. We couldn't, for instance, write any "puns" or English language wordplay. It couldn't be translated, you see.
We were taught, from day one... that the best jokes we could tell to the world would be well drawn, easy to understand, and have as few words as possible. We were told to study the masters of early comic strip art, many of whom were European immigrants , who were master artists, but knew little of the English language. Because of this language "limitation", they were forced to tell their stories and jokes with few words, and wonderful, fully drawn, expressive artwork! This , in turn, made them among the WEALTHIEST of all turn of the century Americans! Why?? Not only were they THAT GOOD at it, but also, because the REST of America, who were ALSO in a large part immigrants to this country from all over the world, could READ the comics in the newspaper, NO MATTER WHAT LANGUAGE they spoke in their native country!
These turn of the century artists, coming to this country with almost no material possessions, with almost no knowledge of the English language, but extremely proficient at the GLOBAL LANGUAGE of ART... BECAME RICH beyond their wildest dreams.
JIM HAD STUDIED WALT, WHO STUDIED CHAPLIN, WHO STUDIED...
Walt Disney turned his little mouse, made in America, into a WORLDWIDE HIT by using gags and comedic situations that didn't rely on words to entertain the theatergoers. By using the universal language of picture comedy, and well-drawn, well-defined characters that the whole world could identify with, he created the world's largest entertainment empire. He started out in a tiny little room in Kansas City, which was so run down, mice crawled in through the holes in the walls and kept him company as he practiced his art. Good thing he decided to name one "Mickey".
Jim Henson stood on the shoulders of great storytellers and visual comedians like Chaplin, Bob Clampett, Walter Lantz and Walt Disney, and went global with Kermit and Miss Piggy as soon as he could. He always looked at the world as his stage. He always knew there were no borders to a great joke... or a great story! AND... No LIMITS to the riches that could made IF you were wise enough to always expand your audience to include the whole world!
Jim got rich with that way of thinking... and I'm grateful he took me with him.
I learned those lessons well.
A GLOBAL BASE
When I decided to come back to syndication and newspaper comics, after a few years in children's books and global sports marketing and children's entertainment licensing , I settled on redefining and relaunching NANCY, a childhood favorite. Nancy was appealing because of her GLOBAL BASE. Many of the hundreds of newspapers she had were around the world, owing to her creator's Ernie Bushmiller's knowledge of visual humor and the worldwide market for well done art with few words.
My TINY DINOS, Night Lights, and MUDPIE characters have been marketed all around the world for years. At least 1/3 of the millions in combined sales of all my book titles were from outside the USA. My Night Lights and Fairy Flights Sunday comic feature is sold around the world , with 77 of the 100 papers it has run in outside the states.
IF YOU MASTER THE ARTFORM, YOU WILL HAVE A FUTURE WITHOUT LIMITS!
Wherever you are in your life right now, wherever you are in your mastery of the arts right now, you can master your own future and make it as boundless as your creativity and imagination! Never before has there been the opportunities for the graphic artist, cartoonist and storyteller that exist right now. In this early part of the 21st Century. You, the Up and Coming Comic master... are right in the middle of what will soon be THE PERFECT STORM!
Yep. It's that time when all the elements are right. When the actions of the whole world, societies, faith, politics, pop culture, communications, technology, and CHANGE are whirling around you. THOSE that can COMMUNICATE GLOBALLY will not only survive... but thrive, and even redefine storytelling and entertainment for the future generations that will come.
THIS IS YOUR TIME.
We are living in a time of great change.
In those times of change, those that cling to the old ways and have no vision and heart to embrace the shining light of the next wave... will fall away. Those that don't have the imagination to reinvent themselves and their work will fall away. Those who refuse to accept everyday of their lives as the "present" that it is... the opportunity to learn something new... to try... to fail... and to try again, smarter... will make it easier for the ones, like you, to move forward in a less crowded field.
Newspapers as we know them are fading away. Print comic books sales have been on the decline for decades. Even TV is becoming less and less relevant everyday. So... how can I not only be optimistic, but tell you that THIS IS THE GREATEST TIME FOR ARTISTS IN HISTORY?
Because the whole world is watching, baby... and YOU have ACCESS to the whole world as YOUR audience, and YOUR MARKETPLACE!
The INTERNET has changed everything forever. The Comic Book publishers, the Comic Syndicates and Newspapers, The Movie and TV people... they don't know HOW yet. THEY don't know HOW yet to make a buck off YOUTUBE. But, since their lives and businesses depend on them figuring it out... they will. THEY don't know HOW to make enough bucks off sending comics out to cell phones, and PDAs, and all the next 752 things that Apple and Microsoft and Motorola and Sony will have invented and started marketing by the time I'm done with this chapter... but they will.
OR... YOU MIGHT FIGURE IT OUT FIRST.
Hey, Number one records have been cut in closets, basements and garages. The Beatles started in a basement. Kermit the Frog was cut and sewn from an old Pea Coat. "Mickey" was a mouse that a struggling cartoonist fed when he barely had enough food for himself. A man with hardly any family or formal education, who lost his first two elections for local office, became President Of The United States. Then he freed an entire race of people forever. I know... Lincoln wasn't an artist... but, come on? Abe was cool. You gotta go with Lincoln.
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS. You have as much right as anyone else in the universe to think great, life changing, possibly world changing thoughts. WHY NOT YOU?
Hey... The Red Sox won a World Series. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
With focus, sincerity, persistence of vision, drive, determination... and your incredible gift of VISUALIZATION that you have as an ARTIST... ANYTHING you dare to dream, dare to do, dare to draw... can create your fate.
In coming chapters, we'll examine in greater detail, the emerging opportunities for you, the ARTIST... as you continue to be... DRAWN TO SUCCESS.
I look forward to hearing from you as you continue on your journey. Email me at the Academy, or post here.
God bless you,
Guy Gilchrist
Cartoonist of NANCY, YOUR ANGELS SPEAK, Night Lights and Fairy Flights
Founder
Guy Gilchrist's Cartoonist's Academy
Simsbury, Connecticut
http://www.gilchristcartoonacademy.com
Drawn to Success #1
"HOW DO I GET ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO HAVE EXPERIENCE?"
"Thinking Yourself Into The BIG-TIME!"
One of the most difficult things about being taken seriously as a Cartoonist when you're just starting out is having a professional "presence" and professional portfolio that shouts to the world, "This kid's BIG-TIME!"
Let's face it, you're NOT working very much, and when you are, you're doing small-time jobs for less than small-time money.
You and I both know that we only can get better as cartoonists when we're drawing all the time. Certainly, you would be a better comic strip cartoonist AFTER you drew, inked and lettered 36 daily strips, and a month of Sunday pages. Naturally, you would be a better Children’s' Book Illustrator AFTER you had penciled, inked, and painted a 24 page Storybook!
"ALL I NEED IS A CHANCE!!" you scream at the cold, unfeeling world! But those uncreative, uptight, and narrow-minded editors can't see YOU, the next boy or girl genius, standing right before them! They don't seem to realize that if they just gave you a chance... you would change the course of cartooning history! You're the next Caniff! The next Watterson! The next"___________________" (fill in the cartoon god or goddess of your choice here)!!
But, alas... no shot.
Are you done for? Are you defeated? Should you start practicing the words, "Do you want fries with that?" for your next McCareer? No. You're only defeated if you BELIEVE it to be so. There is no mountain you can't climb... if you have faith, and are willing to work at it.
How could I possibly know what you're going through? Me," Mister Already Syndicated for a Million Years Nancy®/Muppets/Mudpie Old Guy?" Because, young grasshopper, when I first started out, I was shut out, just like you. I was living with a roommate in a tiny little apartment in Hartford, not knowing how I was even going to pay the rent. The apartment of my post-high school youth was expertly furnished with my parent's cast-off couch, chairs from tag sales, and what we found by the side of the road. Our walls were exquisitely adorned with Beer Mirrors, posters of Lynda Carter and Farrah, and my "only my friends know I'm a genius" artwork.
I worked any jobs I could find, from cook, to part time bartender, and "too skinny to bounce" Bouncer. I took my off days and walked the streets with my portfolio full of the cartoons and illustrations I had done for the small time jobs I had gotten so far. With this "small-time jobs" portfolio, I was only successful landing even more small-time jobs.
But... I WANTED THE BIG-TIME JOBS! My heart ached for the big jobs...along with my meager bank account, and my empty stomach. I created a process to get the work I so desperately wanted. Let me tell you what I did in hopes it may also work for all of you who find yourself in similar straits.
First, I decided I HAD TO stop thinking of myself as small-time! That was the first step. I was surrounded by poverty, yet I wanted riches. I began to THINK of myself as already being successful. I had years of poverty to somehow force out of my mind. I had to BELIEVE I was already successful.
So, each morning before I went to work, I wrote down in composition books and pads, a daily affirmation and an ultimate goal for my success. I began to THINK of myself as a big-time cartoonist. I had read Napoleon Hill's classic motivational book, THINK AND GROW RICH, and it was highly instrumental in my conceiving of this approach. Dr. Hill had told me that only WE alone were commander of our THOUGHTS. That what we thought about, what we filled our heads with, ultimately dictated our approach to our lives. Everyday, I wrote down my goal in my journal. Every NIGHT, when my workday was done, I wrote down my goal in my journal. Before long, I believed I was going to be successful.
In those pages each day, I began to develop plans for how I was to achieve my goal. I believed it would happen. Plans began to form in my mind. I began to write down "deadlines" on my calendar, as if I already had the work I desired. As an example, I'd write down that one week from that particular day, say, Monday, July 7th at 10:30 am, I had an appointment with the editor at Western Publishing, the publishers of Little Golden Books. It had always been a dream of mine to write and illustrate a book for them, so that's what I DECIDED I WAS DOING!
I was to have a 24 page Fairy Tale all laid out in pencil to show the editor to get his okay. Then, every night after work, just like if I really HAD this job, I worked on the pencils. For a story I picked "Rapunzel", a story everyone knew. So, I did the job.
I got photo reference. I found reference on costumes, environments, castles, and horses. I measured a Golden Book for the correct dimensions. I laid out a "dummy book" and filled it with my drawings, leaving room for text which I typed out from another version of the story, and copied at the library. I found I was challenged. I had to work hard. This job was tougher than I thought! I had to work hard at page layout, composition, anatomy, environments, light sources, mood, the works!
All were "lessons" I would never had learned had I not "had this job"! By Monday morning at 10:30, I was done. Next, I gave myself the rest of the deadlines I would have to meet to finish the job. One week for a finished cover painting, one month for the interior color pages, and so on. You get the idea. Within a few short weeks, I had the portfolio to visit Golden Books and other publishers with the big pay-off? Did I get a job with Golden Books?? Not right away. The portfolio went with me for the weeks and months immediately afterward, however, and opened the doors of every publisher in NYC, and in Connecticut where I lived. I almost immediately got a job with Weekly Reader Books. That turned into steady freelance work, and finally a 5-year contract! I was on my way! My work was now national... and my pay was good!
I would have never gotten the jobs I got had I not first BELIEVED I was already successful, and created a portfolio that looked successful. Remember, I believed I was already in possession of the job I wanted before anyone but me knew of this.
I continued to do this with other projects: Comic Books and Strips, Magazine and Newspaper Illustrations, you name it. When I met with editors, I had the demeanor, confidence, and portfolio of a successful cartoonist. It wasn't long before the outside world believed as I did, that they were dealing with a successful cartoonist, and I became that successful cartoonist.
Oh... and those guys at Golden Books? Well, grasshopper, they eventually wound up hiring me after a few years, and I wrote and illustrated a book called JUST IMAGINE: A Book Of Fairy Tale Rhymes. It sold about a half a million copies. By then, I had gotten rid of the Salvation Army furniture, the Farrah poster, and the Beer signs. I was even eating steady.
Who'da thunk it? -- I DID.
So, let me ask you this: WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK? If I can do it, you can do it! I was no baby genius born with a silver ink brush in my hand. Less "White Wedding Rich" and more "White Trash Poor". I had little formal training. I had no influential contacts. But, I had a brain. That's it. A brain filled with the desire to succeed!
Believe yourself to be what you want to be. Then, work like you already are! Excuses are easy. Failure is a breeze. Success? That takes brainpower, and grit. But, if you possess a burning desire to become a successful cartoonist or illustrator... you already HAVE what you need to succeed. So, like old cop Sean Connery said to young whippersnapper Kevin Cosner in "The Untouchables"..."Here endeth the lesson."
Guy Gilchrist -- Nancy®, Mudpie, Your Angels Speak, Jim Henson's Muppets
Drawn to Success #2
“MAKING YOUR WEAKNESSES YOUR STRENGTHS”
"How I Got Pretty Girls To Model For Me, And Got Paid For It”
Okay. I’ll admit it. I like to look at pretty girls.
I know.... what a shocking confession for any red blooded American Hetero to make! Right? I’ve always liked to look at pretty girls. I liked talking to them, dreaming about them, but, alas (a Lass?).... up until a few years ago, I couldn’t DRAW them.
As I grew up, desperately wanting to be a Cartoonist, I did everything in my power to AVOID drawing women. I was lousy at it, and I knew it. All my jobs were Babeless. I knew that was wrong. I tried everything to change that.
So, in my Fortress Of Solitude.... my basement studio, with my little Sears’ stereo playing in the background...I copied Mort Walker’s Miss Buxley. I copied Milton Caniff’s Femme Fatales. I copied Will Eisner’s bevy of 40s Beauties. This went on for years, in secret. I wouldn’t even ATTEMPT to copy Stan Drake, who I thought was the best at it. Stan drew “The Heart Of Juliet Jones”, a soap strip that featured two beauties, Juliet, a brunette, and her blonde sister, Eve. Stan’s work was exquisite, and beyond the reach of mortals.
As time went on, and I was starting to be successful in cartooning, first with Weekly Reader, and then with The Muppets, I still couldn’t do it. For cryin’ out loud, the only blonde I could draw was Miss Piggy!
Yes, here I was, one of the most successful, young cartoonists of the “new breed”, with one of the biggest strips of the era,”Jim Henson’s Muppets” in papers all around the world, and I, alone, knew that I harbored this dirty, little secret. I couldn’t draw girls!
In my heart, I knew I didn’t deserve to live.
I could date ‘em, love ‘em, maybe even marry ‘em...but I couldn’t DRAW ‘em.
Then... I met Stan Drake. That’s right. I met the Master. You might even say, I MADE SURE I met him.
I did this by joining the associations and groups Stan belonged to. You see, as I achieved my first blush of success, I sought out those clubs that successful cartoonists belonged to.
I applied for membership and was accepted into The National Cartoonists Society, The Newspaper Features Council, and a Cartoonist’s recreational golfing group called Artists and Writers (years later I was elected to the Board Of Directors of the two latter organizations).
Why was this so important to me? And WHY should this be important to YOU?
No. These clubs are not peopled with male and female super-models, so it’s not about meeting and drawing pretty people, sorry.
It’s not about empty “status” either. It’s about KNOWLEDGE!
Each of these groups I now belonged to were full of people who were the tops in their field! The very field I wished to be tops in! EVERYTHING I could ever want to know about Cartooning was HERE! In the great minds of these men and women!
Why wouldn’t you or me want to be around all that talent???
Getting to know people you share common talents and dreams with, and them getting to know YOU is one of the finest things you could ever hope to do to make your life happier, and richer.
Through Professional Groups, you LEARN MORE, MAKE CONTACTS, HAVE FUN, BUILD LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIPS and CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY and the ultimate BETTERMENT OF THE WORLD!
I’ll write more in subsequent chapters about the benefits of these groups later on...Right now, Back to the pretty girls...
After a round of golf one day in Westport, Connecticut, where the Artists and Writers group had an outing, I approached Stan, who was standing at the bar in the Grill Room. I spoke in the softest, most confessional tones I could muster, and told him that I couldn’t draw pretty girls, and asked if he might give me some tips.
My private, dark secret was made loudly public when Stan laughed a hardy laugh, shouted my problem to the whole room, slapped me on the back, and told me he’d LOVE to tell me how to do it!
I picked my pride up off the floor, stuffed it in my pocket and listened as he confessed that once upon a long time ago, HE couldn’t draw pretty girls either... until one of HIS cartoonist heroes taught HIM how!
He told me about the correct way to pose a model (exaggerate the pose) and how to take pictures correctly (always at eye level, or with a slight UPWARD angle) and to use as much photo reference as possible. He told me to pay close attention to how a woman tilts her head, darts her eyes, uses her shoulders, and hands. He told me to take tracing paper and trace over pin-up photos in magazine ads and catalogues, because the professional photographer knew how to pose his models.
Then, he said to exaggerate all the most comely features of the lady, as much or as little as needed for the desired effect. This, Stan Drake said, was how HE learned.
Tracing over and over and over till he could draw women in his sleep (which he and I now often do... more about managing deadlines later). Stan even invited me over to watch him work in his studio. He was, by then, drawing BLONDIE.
You can bet I did everything Stan told me to... including paying for his cocktails the rest of the evening!
What a tough assignment Stan gave me, huh?
Taking photos of pretty girls, drawing them from life, and tracing over beautiful models in magazines and catalogues. The only thing that is tough about the latter is convincing your girlfriend or wife that you need that Victoria’s Secret catalogue for BUSINESS!
Practicing all the time, I eventually mastered the art of drawing women.
It was a good thing, too. Within a few years I was called on to draw Fritzi Ritz for the” Nancy®” comic strip, Fairies and Princesses in my children’s books and Night Lights feature, and later, the Angels for my inspirational feature, “Your Angels Speak”.
None of my success with Nancy®, or any of the rest would have happened if hadn’t kept within my heart and mind a burning desire to learn more! To master what was difficult.
For Mort Drucker, it was “hands”. You all know Mort Drucker of Mad magazine fame. I think he’s the greatest caricaturist who ever lived. Mort got his start in comics because he could draw HANDS. He told me that when he was starting out, he’d look at some of the guys doing comic books, and saw that many of them “hid” the fact they drew hands poorly. They would hide them in pockets, behind doors, etc. in their panels. So, Mort went about becoming an expert on drawing hands. He figured that if he could be good at that, then he could beat out some of the other fellas and get work! Mort MASTERED something that was difficult. He got work because of it.
There is no substitute for practice. You will be applauded in public for what you practice in private!
Want work?
Want to rise to the top in this field?
Minimize and even eliminate your drawing weaknesses by concentrating your practice time on those weaknesses until they become your STRENGTHS.
You might even become such a BIG SHOT Cartoonist that a supermodel might actually talk to you.
Like, totally.
Guy Gilchrist -- Nancy®, Mudpie, Muppets, Your Angels Speak
Drawn to Success #3
“GIVING AND RECEIVING”
“How A Connecticut Hillbilly Got To Know Miss Piggy Intimately”
Do you like to give? Or, are you like I was.... living paycheck to paycheck, never even saving for a rainy day, because everyday, in your life, it’s already pouring?
I didn’t even have enough money to buy an umbrella!
It took a long time for me to realize what I want to share with you now...that “giving” doesn’t have to be giving money. The most valuable treasures you have are your time and your talent, and those treasures can get you all the money you could ever dream of possessing.
No. I wasn’t always this philosophical. No. I was not always this smart. There was a time.....(okay, cue the dream sequence video to start spinning.....cue the music.....fade to....)
When I was just starting out in my cartooning career, when someone would show up asking for money at my tiny little apartment in Hartford, Connecticut, I’d reach quickly for my wallet.
Not to open it, but to grab it tightly, wrap it in duct tape, to keep it closed while I mixed up some concrete to encase it.
“GIVE” was a four-letter word around Cartoon-Boy’s Ponderosa in those days. I was heavily into “GETTING”. Getting anything I could, and I wasn’t giving anything away.
You see, I had been born to a hard working, proud and poor Mother and a Dad that was never working and never even on the premises. Before my mom divorced him and later remarried, we had very little. My mom worked three jobs to provide for my little brother Brad and me, and did the best she could. But I remember very clearly going to bed more than once hungry.
It’s a funny thing, once you’ve been hungry as a small child, truly hungry, you never forget it. No matter what graces God gives you for the rest of your life, you never forget.
So, even after my mother remarried and we moved on up to the sparkling lower-middle class, I guarded my meager belongings like Roy Rogers guarded the Wells Fargo box on the Noon Stage!
I’m not exactly sure of the exact moment I changed. When that time in my life came that I realized I liked giving more than getting...but it probably involved a pretty girl.
Broke, but desperate to impress the little girl of my dreams at that moment, I’m sure I probably drew her a picture, or wrote her a poem, in hopes that she’d like this kid who didn’t have enough money to buy her jewelry.
When I got that kiss on the cheek as payment, I guess I got hooked on “giving”.
That kiss, and that change of heart put me in the right place for life, I think. Maybe “giving” could do the same thing for you.
Yes. It can get you better dates. Maybe the girl or guy of your dreams. It did that for me. But, giving can also get you the career of your dreams. GIVING got me syndicated all over the world!
You know, if you read your Bible, which I strongly suggest you do, right AFTER you read this brilliant column on cartooning, you might find that it is full of really good advice from a smart, all-knowing, all-seeing being.... and no, I don’t mean your mother.
You’ll find a place where God tells you to give your full-measure, and if you do, that your full-measure will be given back to you many, many times over.
I’ll bet Mort Walker has read a Bible. He gave me the world.... and it was his to give. He has a lot, as worldly possessions go. Having comic strips in every paper ever printed for 50+ years will do that for a guy. And when Mort (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Boner’s Ark) gave me the world, it wasn’t on a silver platter...it was on a golf tee.
Mort was golfing with his pal Bill Yates, who was a great cartoonist in his own rite, having drawn magazine gags and a syndicated strip (Professor Phumble) for many years, and now was the Editor at the world’s biggest comic strip syndicate, King Features. Bill told Mort about a problem he was having with Jim Henson, and The Muppets. Bill said he had auditioned every good cartoonist he could think of to please Jim Henson, who had signed a deal to have his world famous “Muppet Show” adapted to a comic strip. This strip was going to be HUGE, if Bill could just find the right talent, but Jim didn’t like anybody that Bill liked, the deal was almost blown, and Bill was at his wit’s end. Mort suggested Bill call me.
ME.
It still, after 25 years, blows my mind. ME. An unknown Connecticut Hillbilly kid who drew comic books for Weekly Reader. ME. I can’t even believe the great Mort Walker even knew my name.
By now you know, through my credits, that I got the job. How I got the job, and my experiences during it and after it will fill many other columns to come. For now, I just want to tell you HOW Mort knew my name.
GIVING. Since that kiss on the cheek so long ago, I loved to draw for people. It is what I do.
So, when Weekly reader sent me around to schools all over the place to draw and teach drawing to promote our books to schools, I took to it like King Kong to Fay Wray.
Mort had opened a Museum Of Cartoons in Greenwich, Connecticut that subsequently moved to Ryebrook, NY. I went to the Museum all the time to hear the speakers they would have at special Sunday Programs in their small auditorium. The speakers were all famous cartoonists and friends of Mort’s who would do a talk about themselves and their work. I saw John Cullen Murphy (Prince Valiant), Bob Clampett ( Looney Tunes and Beany and Cecil), Dik Browne (Hi and Lois and Hagar The Horrible), Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes), and so many more there!
Every once in a while, the famous cartoonist had to cancel for travel, health or personal issues and the museum would call on local talent to fill in. I put my name on the LAST MINUTE LIST.
Every time I got a call, I went. I drove the two hours to the museum and gave a drawing lesson and talk for free. I loved it! I did it 10 times in five or so years. Mort didn’t know me, or anything about me. I found out later that he thought I lived right in the neighborhood; I was there so much. I didn’t. I lived far away. But it was truly AN HONOR to be asked to give of my time and talent. I really felt that way.
So, one day, Mort told the guy who ran the museum to tell me I could have a little art show the next time I spoke. I could hang a bunch of my work up in the foyer of the auditorium, so the folks could see what I did, (since no one had ever heard of me, probably) and as a “thank you” for all my effort.
It was those few pieces of comic book work that were hung there for that day in the museum that Mort Walker remembered when Bill Yates told him they needed to find a “Muppets” artist. Those pieces, my work ethic, and (I guess) pleasing personality were all Mort knew of me.
And you know the rest.
While I can’t guarantee anyone that if they give of themselves they will soon find themselves in 660 newspapers like I did, I can guarantee EVERYONE a few things.
If you give from your heart without desiring anything in return... you will get the greatest feeling of self-worth you can imagine. You will make your little piece of the planet a better place. You will know what it feels to be needed. You’ll get love. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
You might like giving so much; you might even find that you get “selfish” about it, as I did. I like that feeling I get so I give all that I can.
And don’t worry, there will still be plenty of time to take care of Number One, too. Don’t give the store away... just give of yourself what you comfortably can. Let the world know how talented you are! Show off a little! The rest will all take care of itself.
I haven’t needed that rainy day umbrella for years.
Guy Gilchrist -- Creator of Nancy®, Mudpie, Your Angels Speak, Night Lights and Pillow Fights, and Jim Henson’s Muppets
Drawn to Success #4
“LIGHTING THAT FIRE DOWN DEEP IN YOUR SOUL”
Or...
”How I Sang RUBY BABY With A Pencil And Shirt Cardboard From The Laundry Delivery Truck”
When you're driving down that road to "Big Time Cartooning Success", you're bound to hit a bump or two in the road. I don't care if you're driving a Hummer, or a '68 Dodge Dart held together with super glue, a coat hanger and a prayer, the bumps are going to come. The Hummer drivers are the ones whose cartooning careers seem to be humming along very nicely, and for quite some time. Established. Recognized.
The old Dodge drivers are those who have made enough noise in the business to start climbing out of their paycheck to paycheck prior lives, and have enough going for them that they seem to be slowly getting on their way�just a couple of jobs away from trading in the old hoss for something snappier.
Then�a bump of trouble. The phone doesn't ring as often. A project doesn't sell. Too much month left at the end of the money. Tragedies. The inevitable personal storms of life. It's when you're faced with those tough moments in your career when sometimes it's easier to forget the fire. Douse the flame and move on to a real job. The fire of desire can easily fade and become a dying ember. That's the time when it can help to go back and remember that spark. That first spark you felt down deep in your soul that made you want to become a cartoonist or illustrator in the first place!
Instead of doubting yourself and your true feelings, maybe it's about time you go back in time for a while and remember WHY you want this dream so badly! In every person's life, there is a moment of change. A moment of inspiration. That experience that winds up defining our life's goal, and US in the process. Let me tell you about my "first time."
Okay, yes�I'm old. I'm so old I watched Andy Griffith when the show was new. I'm old. I bought two comic books and a Bazooka Joe piece of gum for a quarter. I'm old. I went to Elvis movies when they were in theaters. I remember rock and roll before The Beatles. I'm OLD. In 1963, I was six years old. In 1963, JFK was still president; Roy Rogers was still on Saturday morning TV. And Dion DiMucci was the biggest rock-and-roll star in the world. WHO? Dion. He sang "Runaround Sue," "Why Must I Be A Teenager In Love," "The Wanderer" and lots more.
I, at six years old, knew who Dion was because I had seen his poster in a mill discount store hanging off the ceiling in the record department. There were three posters at this mill store, as I remember. One was of Grace Kelly, by then Princess Grace. She had a crown on her golden head, was dressed in a white gown, and was surrounded by white roses in a white room. I thought she was married to God. I had an old record by her and Bing Crosby that my mother had bought, where she and Bing sang "... For you and I have a Guardian Angel on high...," and she was very pretty. So pretty that, at six, I thought that she must be singing about Heaven because she was Mrs. God.
As you can tell, I wasn't all that bright a boy.
The other posters were of Elvis Presley (my mom's favorite), and Dion with a red-orange guitar. So, on this particular Saturday afternoon in 1963, I was sitting in front of our black-and-white little TV set, set for life with peanut butter and jelly on Wonder bread and a Dixie cup full of Kool-Aid, because it was raining outside. If it hadn't been pouring, my brother Brad and me would have been outside climbing trees, jumping out of them, playing underneath the old house and in dangerous old barn lofts, running around shooting each other with our Roy Rogers six-shooters, scaring girls with frogs and spiders, and exuberantly living the Opie Taylor lifestyles that got us into trouble with Mom�if she found out.
After all the cartoons were over on Saturday morning, American Bandstand came on in the afternoon, and then a local version of Bandstand came on, hosted by a local disc jockey and sponsored by the Connecticut milk companies. I liked music, so I usually watched those shows... if it was raining. All the time I watched, I would be drawing on whatever paper I could find. Usually I'd be drawing my favorite cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker. Sometimes I would steal the shirt cardboard out of a laundered shirt because it was so crisp, hard and white. WOODY looked better on shirt cardboard. I had an uncle that worked as a delivery guy for the cleaners and eventually he found out I needed paper and would stop by and give me stacks of the stuff. He was my favorite uncle.
Now, even at six years old, I knew the singers sang along with their records and really didn't perform live. At least I was THAT smart. But, still I watched and I loved to hear the singers talk to the host about their new record, or their lives that were so glamorous to me. Really, I just wanted to know where their "art" came from, and . . . would they take me away with them on their swell tour bus to Hollywood, so I could go to Disneyland and visit the studios of Walter Lantz, who drew Woody Woodpecker? I watched The Woody Woodpecker Show each day after school. Walter Lantz would introduce his 7-minute cartoons with a sort of "show and tell" about how he created these WOODY, CHILLY WILLY, or ANDY PANDA cartoons.
He would draw his character, and then show us his cool studio, where 3,000 people (or what seemed to me to be that number) all copied his style to animate these full-color, moving things of Heaven-sent beauty. I would sit there with my cardboard and pencil and copy him, dreaming, every day, and wishing with all my heart that someday I might be one of Lantz's Army, in Hollywood... at The Walter Lantz Studios... where the Chiffons', or The Drifters', or The Beach Boys' or Dion's tour bus would take me... if I could just get to Dion! Well, as God would have it, on that day, on our local Bandstand show, DION was set to perform his new smash.... RUBY BABY.
I was watching intently. Out came Dion, into the gymnasium that was packed with teenage guys and girls. Everyone was clapping like crazy! He walked up to the microphone, with his red-orange guitar (I could tell because on my black-and-white TV, red and orange were black) that I had seen so many times on his poster. And then he spoke those immortal words that every kid from the Bronx to Brooklyn to Canton, Connecticut, where I sat longed to hear: "How you doin'?" So much for finding out some secret to his art. Then, two special things happened. He KEPT his mike on, talking all the while, as he reached down on his guitar and flipped a switch on it. He turned ON his guitar. There was a loud WHOOOOOMMMMPPPFFFF that crackled over the airwaves from the gymnasium. WHAT WAS THIS??? I had never heard or seen anyone EVER perform live.
Then, Dion started to strum the guitar, and sing. "Welllll . . . I've got a girl an' RUBY is her name . . ." For two minutes, he sang and, as he sang, he changed that atmosphere in that old gymnasium into a party, and he changed my life. By the time he was done, the place was going crazy! All the guys wanted to be like him! All the girls wanted to know him! The air was super-charged! He had changed the world with his talent, his song, his ART. Just one person. He made the world a more exciting, beautiful place.
I looked down at my cardboard and pencil. The pencil became my voice. The picture on the cardboard . . . my song. I didn't have to be one of 3,000 members of Walter Lantz's Army to create art, and make the world a more beautiful place. I could do it all by myself. I gave my little picture to mom, who kissed the top of my head, told me it was lovely, and stuck it up on the refrigerator (or "Koolerator" as Chuck Berry would say) for the whole wide world to see. That was the day I KNEW I would drive down this road. This bumpy, pothole filled, beautiful, glorious road of Cartooning.
Remember your dream when the world tries to snuff it out. Troubles are temporary. Talent, hard work and your inner fire are forever. You can make this world a more pleasant place to live. You can put excitement, humor, and love out there to inspire us all! Sometimes it ain't easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
Oh, and Dion? Years later, he and I became close friends. Brothers. One day I asked him about that day so long ago when he sang that song LIVE, instead of lip-syncing the record. Incredibly, he remembered that very day! The only time he ever did that, he told me. It seems the record had broken, and couldn't be played. They had no back-up 45 on the tour bus. So, he was "forced" to go get his guitar and sing and play LIVE with the sound pushed through the old school PA in the gym. He said to me, "I always wondered why that happened. Now, I KNOW. God made sure the record was broken, because YOU had to become an artist."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go over to my Sears stereo and flip the record over. I want to hear the flip side of this dream.
--Guy Gilchrist Artist of "Nancy," "Mudpie," "Your Angels Speak," "Jim Henson's Muppets"
Founder, Guy Gilchrist's Cartoonist's Academy
http://www.gilchristcartoonacademy.com/
Drawn to Success #5
"GETTING IN THE MOOD"
"Where Are My Groupies?"
I don't have to have my favorite album playing in the background in my studio to get in the mood to draw or write.
I don't need candles and a bubblebath.
I don't need a glass of beer, some oysters and a Viagra to get up for drawing and writing.
I just go ahead and do it.
When I finish my strip, pretty little groupies don't rush my drawing table to show me how much they appreciate my masterful brush and ink solo.
Yeah. I know. Bummer. But, you know what? I do it anyway. Everyday.
I AM A PROFESSIONAL CARTOONIST.
My motivation is a soul-deep love for what I do, and a soul-deep love for my family that needs to be sheltered, clothed, and fed.
If I needed any additional motivation....how about daily deadlines in a thousand newspapers? Daily deadlines are something else, man. Everyday a newspaper goes to press. Everyday I need to fill my slot. Death, taxes, and my daily deadline.
I meet folks almost everyday who tell me they are "Artists", have tried to be "Artists", or that they have a kid who's an "Artist". They feel they have something in common with me. They tell me how lucky I am, and then tell me that they would like to be that "lucky", too. They would like to be professional artists, too...
Then it starts. Their ROLLERCOASTER. All loaded up to go. Going UP when their art is working out, and when they are pumped up by outside forces. Spiraling DOWN when their art isn't working out, and they go on to blame the nearest distraction or latest disappointment for their lack of production.
As I understand them, their LIVES got in the way of the LIVES they wished they had lived.
That's very sad. But that's how many "Artists" are. There is a big difference between ART and THE BUSINESS OF ART.
The reason I capitalize and put "Artist" in quotation marks is because of the self-importance and mystism of the muses that these creative, well-meaning but misguided folks seem to drape their work in. That stuff applies to the Weekend Artist, but NOT to the Artist-Businessperson!
We can't go outside and dance in the meadow and chant at the moon before each cartoon we draw, people! We've got find a way to do an honest, masterful piece of artwork anytime we have a deadline, drop it off and go cash the check.
I remember a long, long, time ago when I was a teenager and was eagerly reading an article about "The Eagles' "newest album in Rolling Stone magazine. I always loved reading about my favorite artists and where the art came from. The Eagles had just put out two huge first albums and had become " The California Beatles".
Don Henley and Glenn Frey were talking about how they had previously had their entire lives to write all those songs that filled their first two albums, but now had to tour the country, deal with fame, and having no quiet time at all, and STILL had to figure out how to write a whole album of new, great songs. This time, with the WORLD looking on and the record company screaming for hits.
"They called this process ,"The Hardening of The Artistry". They had to figure out how to turn off all personal and business distractions to do what they were born to do.
That's what professional cartoonists have to do, too. That's what I do everyday.
I'm not sure where I developed that gift, but I know that if you want to make it , you'll have to develop it, too.
No matter what is going on in "Yourlifeville", newspapers come out every day, and if you're a syndicated cartoonist, you need to fill your space, and admirably so. You need to a find a way to do your job everyday!
Some of you have full time jobs, and still need to find a way to work on your craft every morning or night when you get home.
Here's a tip to start to separate your life and your art.
Keep two journals. One journal, you'll never re-read it once you've written in it. The other, you'll re-read all the time.
The first journal is called your " Morning Journal". Set your alarm clock 45 minutes early each morning. Then grab your journal and write. Write down anything that comes to mind. Not so much ideas for cartoons, or stories or anything that has to do with your art... but, write about ANYTHING else.
Like life. Whatever you're going through. Whatever is bothering you, or pleasing you. Whatever comes to mind. Never edit this!! This is stream of consciousness writing.
All your roller coaster of emotions rolls out onto the tracks of your paper right here. All the STUFF that gets in the way of your creativity pours out into this journal. You have to do this everyday. Write three pages in long-hand in this journal everyday!
THREE PAGES. I know. It's a lot.
What if you have nothing to write? If you have nothing to write, start writing anyway. Begin your writing in your "Morning Journal" with the words,"I have nothing to write". Write it over and over until something emerges. Just fill up the three pages. Eventually, you'll write down something.
Do this all alone, with no one around. Find a quiet place the night before where you know you will not be disturbed the next morning. Do this before you DO ANYTHING ELSE! No newspaper reading, or email checking, or feeding the kids, or ANYTHING at all. You can make a cup of coffee while you're doing it and drink it. That's all. Never re-read what you wrote, or you'll edit yourself. No editing! Just write anything and everything down . This will get you released from your emotions that might be tying you down or hindering your creative output. You can always write MORE than three pages if you're obsessing that day, but never LESS than three!
Julie Cameron, in her book, "The Artist's Way", calls this process "doing your Morning Pages". She meant this exercise to help unblock your "writer's block". I use this exercise to free up my imagination each and every day. You can write down anything!!
And you WILL!
One thing you might want to write down somewhwere in it are your dreams and aspirations .Perhaps you'll want to describe a definite goal for yourself professionally. These might flow out of your pen, along with fantasies about some hottie, the neighbor who's bugging you, the benifits of mowing your lawn, the exact count on dents in your ceiling, or how ugly and stupid your boss is. I don't care what you write, just write.
Then, when you've filled that journal up, burn it. Trust me. Just burn it.
This journal is simply the place you fill up with your roadblocks...or "Brain-blocks". So, Never save them, or re-read them. If you do, you will then begin to subconsciously self- edit these pages, your emotions, and your thoughts in these pages, and destroy their purpose! Burn 'em, baby. As soon as you fill one up. Burn 'em!
The OTHER journal? Now, that's the money, honey.
Write down your jokes, your ideas, your stories, your poems, your art. Keep it with you all the time. Write down anything you think you can use. It's all going to be good in this journal. This is the journal you'll look at again and again for ideas to use when you have a job to do as a professional cartoonist. You'll find that writing in this journal almost right after closing your other journal might be the most creative time to write. It is for me!
You'll have your good days and bad days as a writer. When things are flowing, you'll fill this journal. When things aren't flowing, this will be your reserve. You won't be able to turn everything you write in this journal into gold right away....but this is your garden where you'll always go to create.
When you fill one up, date it with the last day you wrote in it, and start another one. Keep this filled-up journal around to check back in on when you need to find a starting point for your creative process anytime! I have stacks of these journals going back twenty years! Jokes and poems that I wrote years ago but could not at the time PERFECT, I have found the seed of something I could later use! These journals are GOLD.
I hope this idea helps you separate your personal life and your professional life.
It's helped me for over two decades to be productive, creative, and enthusiastic at my drawing table.
I still wish I had groupies like The Eagles do, though.
Cartoonist: Nancy®, Mudpie, Your Angels Speak, Jim Henson's Muppets, Night Lights and Pillow Fights
Founder: Guy Gilchrist's Cartoonist's Academy
Drawn to Success #6
“What To Write About?”
"or: 365 Days in a Cat Suit and a Plaid Dress”
"It's all right now, I've learned my lessons well. You see, you can't please everyone, so...you gotta please yourself." --Ricky Nelson, "Garden Party"
Rick Nelson's anthem for individuality was a big hit back when I was in high school in the Stone Age. I'd like to change a word or two in it to reflect my own ideas on what makes a comic strip worth reading.....
"You see, you can't BE everyone, so... you gotta BE yourself" - - Guy Gilchrist, "Cartoon Party"
When you write a comic strip everyday for 365 days a year, you had better be HONEST. Write what you know. Write WHO you know. Write about yourself! We all do it. Any successful comic strip is a true reflection of its creator.
A person who knows his or her own self can become a successful writer. Those that write material strictly because they want to appeal to everyone, and therefore writing "jokes" that come from outside themselves and not from within themselves is doomed to failure. Try it. Wear a Halloween costume for one day a year and it's a lot of fun. Wear that same Halloween costume everyday and they'll lock you up in a place where the walls are covered with mattresses. Wear a costume for a day, and the opposite sex might find it sexy. Wear a costume EVERY DAY and the same person you were trying to attract will RUN for the hills and leave "DIAL-A-PRAYER" as their phone number if you ever try to reach them again. That's because HONESTY is ultimately attractive.
In relationships, in business, in life, and in cartooning. I've known otherwise brilliant men and women who never let this sink into their cute, little craniums. They try to be something, or someone they're not. It works for a while, but ultimately; one's own true self emerges. Then, it's either, "Nice to finally MEET you!" or "HEEEERRRRRRREEEE'SSSS Johnny!!!" When I started out, I sought out the "Keys To Success" from those who were the most successful in building a loyal following to their comic strips. I tried writing about all the "stuff" I read in other people's comic strips, thinking that I could write like THEY wrote and become successful in that way. I copied the writing styles of Charles Schulz, Mort Walker, Johnny Hart, Chic Young. I got nowhere. I had enough syndicate rejection slips to wallpaper my apartment! THEN...I decided to ASK THEM what I should write about. Here's an approximation of what I learned. BE YOURSELF IN YOUR WRITING.
Is there any doubt that Mort Walker shares of himself in Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois? Mort was in the Army during World War II. He was always caught up in the middle of the chain of command. He was a little guy, a corporal, who heard it from both sides. The grunts, and the officers above him. He also knew that the Army was a bunch of guys, completely different from each other in every way, trying to somehow get a job done as one cohesive unit. So, what's your strip about, Mort? In "Hi and Lois," Mort is all over the place in that strip, as a family man in the suburbs. Mort's got seven kids... so there is PLENTY to write about! Mort told this young KNOW-NOTHING to write about what I knew... and who I was.
So did Dik Browne, Mort's partner on "Hi and Lois"... a father of three and a closet Viking. When Dik created "Hagar The Horrible," he was drawing himself. Not only did Dik LOOK exactly like Hagar... but, INSIDE, he was Hagar as well. A family man, just trying to earn a living. Sure, Hagar did it by pillaging, plummeting, and taking over countries... and Dik did it by taking over the laundry room in the basement as his studio... but he wound up taking over countries, too... newspaper by newspaper. Hagar WAS Dik Browne, in life, and in his dreams and fantasies. Now, "Hagar" is being done by Chris Browne, one of Dik's sons, and written by Chris and some of Dik's closest friends.....all folks that share common experiences of family. So.... the Viking fun continues. "Hi and Lois" is now written by Brian and Greg Walker. Both are Dads from the suburbs, writing about what they know, and the strip is drawn by Dik's other son, Chance Browne. Also - - you guessed it - - a dad from the suburbs.
Chance, Chris, Brian and Greg are all good buddies of mine, so I have a first-row, 50-yard-line seat to watch as they all put pieces of their experiences with their children, and their lives into these comics and come up with awesome gag after gag. I've watched as Greg's and Brian's children have grown up, gone through all the changes and trials that all children do and how Greg and Brian have taken much of their every day life, filtered it through the cheesecloth of comic timing and understanding... and turned it into a timeless strip full of love and laughter.
Brad, my brother, and partner on "Nancy," and I do the exact same thing. We are both dads. Brad is the father of two brainy, beautiful and talented girls, Jayme and Carly, who have provided him with enough material for a dozen comic strips...all of which I'm sure he'll get around to writing after the girls let him get one good night's sleep, and myself, the father of three. My son, Garrett, is out in LA working on trying to be a filmmaker. My oldest daughter, Lauren, is a talented artist, a successful professional retailer, and the woman who made a grandpa out of me. Oh... and my youngest, Julia, is a breathtaking high school beauty, so full of brains, wit and charm that I need two baseball bats to keep the boys at bay. So... d'ya think Brad and I have any trouble writing NANCY? Nope. Plenty of SLUGGOS running around.
And the beautiful Aunt Fritzi? My wife Angie poses for her when I need a model. The reason I knew Brad and I could make a good team on NANCY and could keep Ernie Bushmiller's strip rolling was because we were doing, at the heart of it, a family strip. Aunt Fritzi is Nancy's "mother," even though they are really niece and aunt. Aunt Fritzi also takes care of Sluggo, a boy with no immediate family.
Coming from my place in children's books, I knew that I wanted to take Nancy more in this direction of family than even Ernie himself had done. The heart is the strongest bond. LOVE is at the center of everything I do. Therefore...our comic strip is about LOVE. Fritzi has centered her life around her niece and this bald-headed kid who raids their refrigerator. She is not immediate family to either of these children, but still she provides in every way for her niece. Love, compassion, discipline, role modeling and...oh, yeah...food, clothing and shelter. And she has plenty of love and fried chicken to go around for Sluggo, too. She has no love life to speak of, since that would just gum up the works...and instead finds joy in the raising up of her orphaned child by choice. That's how I see it.
We live in a world where "families" come in all shapes, sizes and configurations. Children being raised up with love and strong hearts by grandparents, aunts and uncles, stepparents and adoptive parents of all kinds. LOVE is the strongest bond. That is the heart of NANCY, and both Brad and my lives. I'm not saying that in REAL life anyone should put their love life on hold forever to raise children. But the star of the NANCY strip is NANCY, not Fritzi, and giving her a love life in the strip might take the focus off her relationship with the star of our show and dilute the daily message we try to put forth. That's important message of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE that we feel so strongly about.
When you do a daily strip, you have to constantly reintroduce your cast of characters, since there are people who are always reading you for the first time, in addition to those who are faithful readers of many years. Now, some folks don't like NANCY. It's not for everyone. That's where "being yourself" comes in. If you try to write for everyone, you'll wind up writing for NO ONE. That's not to say, I write without the audience in mind! Completely the opposite! I ALWAYS write with the audience in mind. MY audience. I write a strip I feel is easy to understand. I write with the idea that many people probably feel the same way I do about things. Then I try to make a strip that communicates my feelings, and my emotions in a fun, thoughtful way. I also try to make it universally understandable, as my comics are read in many different languages in many different countries.
I do the same thing with YOUR ANGELS SPEAK, NIGHT LIGHTS and MUDPIE. They are ALL pieces of ME. My spiritual side, my side that longs for direction, my side that longs for love and acceptance. MUDPIE is a cat... but really, he is me. He really wants to get the girl, and once he gets her...he doesn't have a clue as to what to do with her. ME...in high school. Or yesterday. The fact that he's a cat, has a guardian angel who's a mouse.... well, that's just a furry coating I put on things in hopes that more people of all races and nationalities will be able to identify with the soul of this white, middle-aged Connecticut hillbilly.
Same goes for "Night Lights," where I write poems illustrated by pictures of fairies and monsters. Still me. All of the characters I draw are bits and pieces of me. So, I make it easy on myself in the writing process. I write about their hopes and dreams, really what were or are my own hopes and dreams, and hope and dream that some readers out there will identify with what I'm writing and drawing about. And having my characters slip on a banana peel once a week doesn't hurt either. Sure...it hurts them... but they're pen and ink and they'll bounce back tomorrow. Just like my audience... and me.
We all go through triumphs and tragedies... but we hope that we can bounce back tomorrow. I hope that this column has been worth the time you spent reading it. I hope you will look inside yourself and find your own message. Your own art. Your own truth. You are a one of a kind, never-to-be-duplicated child of God with something to say that is valuable and enriching...and maybe even funny. Don't deprive the world of that.
Drawn to Success #7
“How Character Licensing Works” Or “Cha-Ching ! Went The Strings Of My Heart”
You hold in your hot, big hands the next big, big thing to hit our pop culture! This creation of mine is going to be on everybody's lips, in everybody's heads, and emptying everybody's wallets! This new breakthrough group of characters, now available for licensing, is called "Skunk-Head Kids"! I am the brilliant but still undiscovered creative genius who came up with this riveting concept. I hired a local artist to flesh out the characters, and now I offer them to you. See the art work for details."
(BTW, the "artwork" is three pages of group shots of these characters, with no concept copy, no personality profiles of the characters and no background or environmental elements drawn. Really.) I would like to make you this earthshaking offer, Mr. Gilchrist. If you will create a comic strip or comic book or children's book about the characters, I'll cut you in on "The Skunk-Head Kid" for 50 percent of future revenue! How about it?
Sincerely,
Delusioned Idea Man"
Dear Skunk-Head Kids Creator,
No thanks.
Guy
The preceding exchange was real. Really. I'm not kidding. I did change the name of the property that was offered to me� but, believe me� it WAS Skunky.
I get "incredible" offers to work for free all the time. Even before I became established, "creators" would seek me out, like they do others, to do jobs for them for no up-front money and a piece of the future "action". So� what is wrong with this proposal? If you said "Everything!" you win a prize. Asking you to work on "spec" (meaning no up-front payment) Telling you they have a concept when they really don't. They haven't worked out a story line. They have no idea what the personalities of the characters are. All they have are a group of "cute" drawings. No idea how licensing works. No idea that they are offering you 50 percent of nothing. These letters can be funny, but they are also symptomatic of a lack of understanding in the creative community about what the label "professional cartoonists" means and what the business of "character licensing" is all about.
Let me address the first problem. "Professional" means it's your "job." You must be paid to be called a professional. Working on spec is something a professional cartoonist doesn't normally do without a good reason. Part of being a professional cartoonist is knowing when to do a spec project. In my opinion, working on something for no payment from a stranger is always wrong. If you want your work and yourself to be valued, to have worth, you have to set a value on yourself and what you do. If you don't ask for what you're worth, and stick to your guns about it, who will? If you think that doing free work will enhance your professional standing, then, in my opinion, you're wrong.
You will get offers of future pieces of a pie for free work your entire career. You alone will have to decide whether you want to take that chance. I have made a lifelong decision to only do projects on spec if it is my own idea or an idea created with another established creator I know and I trust. I only work for free for charities.
I strongly believe we have to give all we can, the full measure of our heart, souls and talents, to make this world a better place for our humanity. I am a religious man. I know the Lord has blessed me in more ways than I can name. So, I give. Just not to "The Skunk Head Kids." Now, let me explain what character licensing is and how it works. A character, or group of characters, is only going to be eligible for crossover on licensing success after it is successful in its original place in pop culture as a comic strip, comic book, movie, TV show or book. Disney marketing only existed because Mickey Mouse was such a beloved cartoon show. After all of the early success of Mickey Mouse cartoons, Kay Kamen, the original merchandising man for Walt Disney, was able to find companies to make books, dolls and watches.
This was always the way to licensing success. Then, in the �70s and �80s, characters began to be created by huge, wealthy, multitiered companies in partnership with other huge companies. These huge licensing campaigns used characters in dozens of product lines to create characters recognizable around the world seemingly overnight. In other words, they used mountains of cash to shove cartoon characters down our throats. We gagged as those mountains of cash turned into continents of cash. Rainbow Brite, The Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake� Decades later, you still know their names�
Ever since those heady days, well intentioned amateur cartoonists, writers, and "idea men" have been sending me letters like the "Skunk-Head Kids." I blame Parker Brothers and American Greetings for every "Skunk-Head Kids" submission I've ever gotten. When creative amateurs saw the "overnight" success of the Care Bears, etc., they started thinking they could be overnight millionaires if they could just come up with "something like that!" They couldn't. Here's why. Parker Brothers was a toy and game company, (with deep pockets and a huge staff of talented artists and writers) who would get together with American Greetings (a huge, wealthy greeting card company with another big creative staff). Together, these companies could create character properties that were bigger than Godzilla. They would put these characters on toys, games, books, greeting cards, and dozens of other products needing no outside help from anyone. Then they would spend tidal waves of cash in promotional campaigns so enormous that no mom or dad could withstand the wallet-emptying force.
I know this for a fact. I had to take my daughter to the Rainbow Brite movie. Back in the �70s and �80s, I got into working on successful licensing campaigns with The Muppets and Muppet Babies, Looney Toons, Tom and Jerry and Pink Panther, to name a few. I learned how to design products and write books and create stories for these established characters. Then I took that education into my own licensing campaigns. I created my own characters. I wrote stories. If my ideas were successful in one area - -for instance, children's books- -I would work with toy and clothing companies to create crossover product. I didn't have huge sums of money to "buy" a successful character licensing campaign like Parker Brothers, American Greetings, Hallmark or Disney could. I also was just "me." I wasn't a huge creative staff of artists and writers. I was a staff of one. But I did it. I sold 14 million books, had stuffed animals, pajamas, games and puzzles, greeting cards and school-kid valentines with my cartoon characters on them.
It wasn't the Muppet Babies, or the Care Bears, but it wasn't small-time either. I worked with Gibson (the third-largest card company), Gerber children's wear, Thermos lunchboxes, and Applause and Russ Berrie Toys. I'm not telling you this fishing for applause while I'm bowing. I'm telling you this so you will know YOU can do it, too. You�little nobody you� can compete in the character licensing business! You can IF you stay true to yourself and your art� IF you don't think about putting the cart before the horse!
You must first start with creating characters that are meaningful to you and your audience. You must first create characters that have a meaningful story, that have well-developed personalities and that are well-drawn. If you do that, you have a chance to get a following in comics, children's books, TV or movies. Once you've proven yourself in this first area of entertainment, you will be at least eligible for crossover success. You can be a success. Just ask Charles Schulz.
But remember, FIRST comes the comic strip and THEN you get the blimp.
Drawn to Success #8
“Using the Computer to be a Successful Cartoonist”
"Or "What Program Do you Use to Make Those Comics With, Because That's What I Want To Do Tomorrow" ”
I have an old high school buddy who doesn't get it. Every time he asks me to take off with him to the lake and I can't go because I have a deadline, he says, "Don't you have all your "Nancy" characters saved in your computer? Can't you just do a week of them in Photoshop or something?
The answer is "Yes" and "No." Yes I have all my drawings in the computer. No I don't feel comfortable recycling old drawings into a week of what are supposed to be new comic strips. I draw new stuff every day. I don't work on a Wacom pad. I use two- or three-ply Strathmore Bristol board, a number 2 pencil, and I finish my drawings with a Windsor-Newton series 7 Red Sable Brush, Hunt 102 Dip-Pens, and a 50/50 mix of Higgins Black India Ink and Speedball Black. I've been drawing comics pretty much the same way since 1975.
I know. I'm old. Ah, you wise-guy, know-it-all kids with your spiffy, new-fangled computers! Now, when I was a kid, we had to draw our comics with sharpened dinosaur bones dipped in tar. Then we had to walk 50 miles across volcanoes carrying the stone tablets we drew on to our editors at the Neanderthal News-Times. That's how old I feel sometimes. I feel like the guardian of the old treasure. The old ways of paper, pencils, inks and paints standing fast as the slings and arrows of Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator fly all around me. My drafting table is my shield. "Forgive these marauders, Lord! For they know not what they do!"
If you look at some of the bad web comics out there, you'll see what I mean. Computers have forever changed how comics are drawn, written, distributed and read. Mostly for the better. In some ways, for the worse. To be a successful cartoonist, one has to adapt to each change in his or her chosen field. It's up to us all to meet the new challenges head-on. We have to use any new weapon we can to win, while overcoming each new technological challenge with talent, brains, and renewed determination. You can be a successful cartoonist in the new millennium, if you do your work, and understand the 21st century landscape. Part of understanding the landscape is not only seeing the opportunities but also the negative forces.
Let's get the bad news out of the way regarding syndication and newspapers and the Web first� The Web is killing the newspaper business. More and more people get their news, sports, features and comics online. Online "newspapers" and "magazines" continues to grow and flourish, while the old printed newspaper I used to hold in my hands disappears as I'm reading it. The newspaper is another bygone century's technology. It is becoming less and less relevant. It is also expensive to produce. Newsprint, labor, distribution, and real estate prices go up� and the sales figures go down. Even this old dinosaur of a cartoonist can figure this out. The fewer newspapers that are sold translates to smaller circulation numbers, which means less money from the newspapers for fewer comic features.
Newspapers thrive off big distribution. Their advertising rates are tied into their circulation numbers. If they have a readership of 250,000, they can demand and expect, say, $2,500 a page for display advertising. As their circulation of the printed paper goes down, so does their ad rate. The bigger a paper is, the more it spends on comics. If I sell a comic strip that I'm producing to a 14,000 circulation small-market newspaper, I can expect a weekly check of somewhere about $14, or $1.00 per thousand readers. A big paper in a large metropolitan area of 250,000 SHOULD be paying $250 a week. They don't. They tend to pay less than that. Why? Because they know they can. If you want to be in their market, you'll let THEM dictate what they're WILLING to pay. The days of two-, three- and four-newspaper towns are over.
Back when there were two or more papers in a big town, newspapers would actually "bid" for a hot, popular strip! The costs of producing a newspaper, combined with the rise of the 24-hour news networks and the rise of the Internet, have spelled the end of those days. I remember in 1981 when I started creating "The Muppets" comic strip for Jim Henson and King Features, we actually had two papers in Philadelphia go to court to decide which one of them would get the "honor" of running our comic strip. We were HOT, and every big town had more than one paper. If the syndicate asked for $200 a week, and the paper didn't want to pay it, all the sales person had to do was threaten to go across the street to the other newspaper! That was my kind of war. I paid for two houses and a bunch of cars. Good Times. Good Times. Nowadays, there are still areas where there is more than one newspaper, but the days of bidding wars on comic strips are over. Now� THEY tell you what they're going to pay. PAYBACK TIME. Ouch!
As the circulation of the printed newspaper has gotten smaller, the newspaper owners have learned to adapt by offering online versions of their newspapers. These are scaled-down versions of the daily paper. They HAVE to be. Internet advertising rates are very small relative to the ad rates still quoted in the print version. The comics we do as syndicated cartoonists are run in most of these Internet versions, but for no extra pay. It's another situation where the newspaper is squeezing the syndicate, and us! More payback? Yep. I'm getting squeezed like a Florida orange.
Ready for the good news? Not quite yet, my young, disillusioned friend. Let me get into the negative consequences of computers in art, first. C'mon. Put the gun down. Step away from the noose. It'll all have a happy ending. Remember, I write children's books. Now, back to the technological trials�. On the creative sides of computers, we now have to deal with another waking nightmare... People who don't know how to draw very well can take their badly conceived art and put it into programs designed for artists who know what they're doing! They can AIRBRUSH bad drawings! They can ANIMATE bad drawings! They can misspell words! They can take crudely drawn and rudely written comics and put them on Web sites and e-mail inboxes!! The cyberworld and the computer in my living room can be filled with garbage that, before computers, would never have even been published by your junior high newspaper!
Yeah. I know. "Power to the people." Right. Go tell it to Yoko. I ain't buying it. I'm old-fashioned. I think you should know how to write and draw before putting out a comic strip. Yeah. Just call me "Dream-smasher." Now, that having been said, there is only one way I know to get better at creating a comic strip and that is to DO IT. You will be applauded in public for what you practice in private. If you are committed to becoming the best cartoonist and writer you can be, and you work hard to improve computers can be incredibly helpful. I realize I've spent the first part of this column ripping the latest technology.
Now, let me give the computer its due credit! The programs designed for the artist are absolutely amazing! In the hands of a skilled cartoonist, these programs can save some time and money, helping you create awesome artwork. "Flash" and the other animation programs allow anyone with the ability to create animation, the opportunity to do so. In the old days, animation was so expensive, the artist with an idea for a cartoon series had to literally sell his or her idea to an entertainment company just to get the thing test-animated. A few of my own animation projects were dealt death-blows either by a production company only wishing to negotiate for film rights on my properties after they owned everything, or lack of funds to do a proper test reel. These problems have been minimized with the relatively inexpensive cost of computer animation programs. All you need now is talent, a little money and the time and desire to create a sample piece of "film."
Many of the cartoons that have become blockbusters lately have started out as "basement projects." No longer is the cartoonist so much at the mercy of the big entertainment companies! If you have a great story, with great art, you have what you need to be seen, and taken seriously. Yes. You still need to get them to buy in but you can develop your ideas much further with computers. The same goes for comic strips. Now, with the Web, if you have an idea that is well conceived and worked out, you can go about finding and building your own audience.
Cartoonists are not as much at the mercy of the syndicates. He or she can build a Web site with his or her own web-comic, or put their web-comic on a web-comic showcase site that features their comic and other comics. Some of these comic strip or graphic story creators strictly work for the Internet audience. A very few of them have even found some "commercial" success, in that they are selling paperback collections and/or t-shirts, posters and other cartoon merchandise based on their creations. Are any of these cartoonists making the big "Peanuts" or "Blondie" money or even the "Nancy" money? Not yet. But, in time, somebody will.
For a lot of years, newspapers and comic syndicates tried to ignore the 800-pound gorilla that was the Internet. The gorilla just got bigger. Syndicates have started to adapt by selling subscriptions (at very low rates) to their cartoons. My folks at United Feature send you "Nancy" and anything else you want to read daily right to your email inbox. They post our comics on comics.com. This is a huge plus for readership of my strip. In the old days, if the Newark Star-Ledger didn't run "Nancy," I'd have no readership in Newark. Now, people from anywhere can read "Nancy!" They can buy Nancy merchandise online. They can visit my Web site and see all the projects I have to offer. Newspapers are online with our strips. Magazines are online with our strips. Working on a Web-comic is a great way to learn how to do a daily comic.
I remember back in 1999, having a discussion with Jeff MacNelly, the late, great political cartoonist, and creator of the comic strip "Shoe." Jeff loved working on a Wacom pad. He had taught himself to do it and had eliminated pen, brush and ink paper originals. I fought hard on the side of Strathmore Bristol! I love the tactile feel of paper beneath me. I love the give and take of brush and pen on paper! Jeff loved the Wacom! So, we disagreed on that one aspect of computer art. Jeff and I found common ground on the subject of comics on the Web, however. Jeff felt, as I do, that the Internet was a great way to develop a comic strip and the characters and story arc that would sustain it. When he and I first started out, there was, of course, no Internet.
When you began to create a comic strip (before the Web), you created that strip in a vacuum. In your own private world. Speaking just for me, here's how I would do it. I would come up with an idea, and start creating the characters and the jokes. I would then do a week's worth of strips, followed by another, and another. Over the course of the first two, three, and four weeks, I would begin to change my strip. My character's appearance would change as I fleshed them out and got better at drawing them. My "star" might even change. A new "star" might emerge. I might find that my original main character was not as strong as another character I had in my "supporting cast." The more strips I drew, the more I came to realize what the true essence of my strip was to be. I also found out if my idea was even going to work.
I can't tell you how many times I would come up with an idea, and draw two or three weeks worth of it, and come to the conclusion it wasn't going to work out. Remember, the comic strip is the "marathon" of all art. It's the story that never ends. At least you HOPE not! When a comic syndicate looks at the strips being submitted to them, they have to try and gauge if this idea before them is strong enough to last 10, 20, 30 years. Sometimes they're right, and they buy a strip that is classic. Something that has "legs." Sometimes, they're fooled, too. A cartoonist sends in a strong submission and they buy it. Under the intense pressure of the daily deadline, the cartoonist begins to crack and weaken. He or she cannot sustain strong writing or strong art on an everyday basis. After a year, the feature folds.
Jeff MacNelly thought that if a cartoonist first put their strongest ideas for a comic strip up on the web, it would be beneficial to him or her in many ways. The cartoonist could try writing every day and not missing a deadline on the Web and see if he could do it. If they could do a strip for six months on the web and not miss a deadline, then they had a much better chance at being successful as a daily newspaper cartoonist. I agree. I would add though, that one should first do three or four weeks of material so you have an idea where the strip is going. It will also help to have a small backlog of material. I also think that having a discussion board or an e-mail link is a good idea. It gives the creator a chance to find out what the audience thinks of what he or she is doing. The cartoonist is no longer creating in a vacuum. The audience might have a favorite character or a favorite story arc. This feedback can be very beneficial.
There are many comics on the web that were not and never WILL BE created as "auditions" for newspapers and the syndicates, as I've mentioned before. But if your goal is to someday be a syndicated cartoonist, the Web can be a great place to start. Two of my features, the old daily "Mudpie" comic and the weekly "Your Angels Speak" feature were developed online and then sold to the syndicates. I know that several syndicates watched both strips for quite a while, to see if they would work out for the long haul. After appearing for a couple years on my website, as well as other web-comics showcase sites and on search engine comics pages, I sold them both to established syndicates.
You can make it, too. The technological terrain may shift, but the qualities one needs to succeed never change. Whether you're working for newspapers, magazines, comic books, the game industry, movies or TV, a good cartoonist is a good cartoonist. If you practice in private, you will be applauded (and rewarded) in public. Being good requires talent, determination, a never-quit attitude, and a habit for doing your homework. There are hundreds of stories of failure for every story of success. That's because success is difficult� and ultimately� beautiful. As beautiful as that purple pteranadon flying above my cave studio.
- - Guy Gilchrist Artist of "Nancy," "Mudpie," "Your Angels Speak," "Jim Henson's Muppets"
Drawn to Success #9
“That Leap of Faith from Part-Time to Full-Time Cartoonist”
"Or, "Don't tell Marianne and Ginger, but I Just Told Gilligan to Burn the Boat"”
"Established Quitter Wanted: Must be able to make excuses at a moment's notice. Inquires and resumes should be sent to: Ihavenochoice@theworldconspiresagainstmeonadailybasis.com."
Yeah. That ad will work. How many e-mails would that thing get? Every cartoonist who ever made it has faced adversity. Every one of them faced it a different way but overcame it. How are you doing with it? What's YOUR problem? What's YOUR excuse for shutting it down?
The way I overcame adversity, and continue to, is by leaving myself absolutely no choice to but to succeed. No parachute. No reverse gear. No boat to jump back in and paddle away from the Island of Rejection Slips."
There was a military leader from centuries ago I once heard about who commanded his troops to burn the boats! The deal was this: Once his troops had landed on a foreign shore in their boats--soon to engage another army in battle for possession of the prize--he would order the troops to BURN ALL THE BOATS! That way, his army had no choice but to fight to the death to win! They had NO OUT. No boats to escape in if they lost. THEY HAD TO WIN.
I've burned a lot of boats. I've won a lot of battles. I've even won some pretty long wars. But I've lost some beauties, baby. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I wasn't General Grant�I was Gomer Pyle, USMC! No one wins every battle. Sometimes just when it looks like you've won the war, you lose a battle. You have to retreat behind the trees and figure out another way to approach the editor... I mean, enemy. If you had a boat to get out of there with... say, a really well-paying noncartooning job (that you hate doing, of course), you'd be tempted to quit trying, and paddle your torn-up behind out of there! Instead of just losing the battle, you'd quit the war. Just on the verge of winning the prize, you'd quit. Heck, YOU didn't know that if you'd just hung in there for ONE more battle, you'd win, Totally rule, man. Totally rule.
Here's what happened to me... At the age of twenty, I got married. My wife and I were already expecting a child. She had some secretarial skills and made mediocre money at jobs she wasn't thrilled with. Soon, she would have to, at the very least, take maternity leave and I would be the sole provider, for a while, anyway. I was working as a cook, bartender, and bouncer at a couple pubs while taking my lunch hours and days off to pursue my ultimate dream--the same one you might have: "World-Famous Cartoonist." That's the title I wanted following my name in the newspapers.
I was picking up a decent bit of freelance cartooning work. They were all small-time, local jobs. My lunch hours and one day off each week were not enough for me to take the time to go to New York City from Connecticut very often to get to the Big Kahunas. It was also extremely difficult to even get to see the art directors at the local Hartford and New Haven area's corporations since my day off HAD to coincide with a break in THEIR schedule to see me.
It was pretty tough. I knew that I had set up this roadblock. I only had that one day a week to go after my dream of steady work. So, baby on the way, and everything else, I chose to stick to my plan I had mapped out for myself three years earlier. Three years before, as a poor high school kid who didn't have the money to go on to art school, I had told myself I would not ever give an excuse for not becoming a cartoonist. Everyday my junior and senior years, I would work the night away while others were playing and dating, to first LEARN how to draw, and then to build a portfolio with decent work to get small jobs that would eventually lead to bigger jobs. I had also taken on every single art job I could at school to be printed. I was art editor, then editor in chief, of the high school "Literary Art Magazine,� the editorial cartoonist for the school paper, and the artist for the school yearbook.
Through these high school jobs, I became acquainted with the local businesses that bought ads in the paper, and the yearbook. They paid me to illustrate and composite their ads. These businesses and that ad work became the foundation for my commercial portfolio. Three years later� I had told myself that if I could ever make the same amount of money in cartooning that I was making in my day job for three months in a row, I would quit my day job. I knew that as long as I had that day job, I had created a parachute against prosperity! A "One Day A Week Looking For Work Wall" that held me back. It happened. I made the then (1976) princely sum of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS a month for three months. So, wife, baby on the way, I QUIT MY DAY JOB.
If I didn't succeed quickly, I would not only appear the idiot. We'd all probably be homeless, my wife's father would beat me to a pulp, my baby would have nothing...and it would be my fault. Tie the noose. I deserve it. Goodbye, cruel world. I've always been a proud, family-oriented man...even as a 20-year-old bozo. So, off I went in pursuit of a steady-paying dream that would feed a young family. It was springtime, and the jobs were plenty. Seemed like I had started running down the road to success at exactly the right time! Nope. Wrong again, Lone Ranger. Summertime came and the small commercial jobs dried up in the hot July sun. Folks in key positions took vacations. Folks got more laid back about giving this young hillbilly some work. Looked like I had just burned my boat in time to lose the battle. And my young family would be perishing with me.
Looking back now, almost thirty years later, I almost can't believe I didn't walk back into that bar and beg for my old job back. But I didn't. I went out and begged for any cartooning, lettering, writing, paste-up, drawing or inking job I could find instead. For any pay. And I did them when I found them. Some days I would sleep in my '65 Dodge van in a park by the side of the road because I had sworn I wouldn't go home until I had gotten a job that day... and I didn't have a job yet. As I looked under every rock that summer...sometimes so desperate for that pay that I would travel to 10 or 15 appointments per day if I could get them... I met people. People who knew other people. People who liked my willingness to work, my ability to produce good work on deadlines (much of the work I got that first summer was work with such impossible deadlines that no other artist would take the job). July, August...I was only making about a hundred dollars a week most weeks, not the thousand I had to have per month just to make what I had left behind in the bar. My wife was supposed to leave her job in September. I needed to pick up HER paycheck as well by then. My time was almost up.
Then--at the eleventh hour--it happened. One of the ad agency guys I had produced for sent my name and number to another guy in Middletown, Conn., to Xerox Education Publications, where they produced books and comic books and promotional brochures for the Weekly Reader. Weekly Reader was a newspaper outfit that did educational publishing of newspapers, magazines, and children's books for schools all across the nation. They had a comic book they wanted written and drawn to "test" to see if they could sell it on a monthly subscription basis to kids 7-14. The 7-14 age range was their weakest-selling demographic, and consequently they were willing to try out a young cartoonist for the job. It was no big deal to them. It was a real big deal to me. I got an audition for the job. I got it.
The book sold 25,000 copies in the test. When, after six or so issues, the subscription base went up to 100,000 kids. They offered me a five-year contract. The comic was called "SUPERKERNEL COMICS." It was about a cartoon superhero who encouraged kids to read by defeating villains who were illiterate and thus prone to losing out. It eventually had 350,000 readers every month. My art and writing in this comic caught the attention of many publishers, ad execs...and even a few of my cartoon heroes! One of them was Mort Walker of Beetle Bailey and HI AND LOIS fame, who passed my name onto Bill Yates, the Head of King Features Syndicate in New York.
Eventually, King Features gave me an audition to become the cartoonist for the brand new Jim Henson's Muppets comic strip they were launching worldwide in September of 1981. Yep. Got the gig. Never looked back. There wasn't a boat there anyway. SO, what's holding you back? WHO's holding you back? It just might be YOU. It was for me. The Wall Of The One Day A Week Interviews For Work was something I built myself. So I got rid of it. I am not going to tell anyone to just up and quit everything and jump off the cliff like I did. That would be irresponsible.
I don't know YOUR situation. Only YOU know YOU and your own personal battles within your own war. What I will tell you is to look long and hard and with absolute truth at yourself and your dreams and then ask yourself: "WHAT AM I WILLING TO DO?" "HOW BADLY DO I WANT IT?" Look inside yourself. Keep a journal with your your goals and write in it everyday. (I mention this journal in an earlier column; read it below.) Try to move toward those goals a little more every day. I believe that God opens doors.
I believe that God wouldn't put that burning desire in a soul if it wasn't there for a reason. It ain't easy. There are no guarantees. Okay. I just lied. There is one guarantee If you don't give yourself every chance to succeed, you WILL fail. I hope this story of my own life has given you some things to think about in your own. I wish you every blessing on your own road to cartooning stardom. I hope you too are "Drawn To Success."
--Guy Gilchrist Artist, "Nancy," "Mudpie," "Your Angels Speak," "Jim Henson's Muppets"
Drawn to Success #10
“How to Create Your Own Personal Goals”
"or "Honey, Why Don't You Come Over Here And Ink This Cartoon In For Me?"”
A cartoonist walks into King Features and says, "Here's my strip. Put it in 1,000 newspapers. Oh, and I want one of those supermodels/male models waiting for me back home in Paramus, okay?"
OOOOOKAY... Somebody call Security.
Sound ridiculous? You bet. But still I get letters all the time from folks trying to make it as a cartoonist who tell me they can't understand why they haven't made it yet. After all, they've been at it a month or two already! They ask me WHO they have to know to get anywhere in this business! WHO do you have to know?
Start with knowing YOURSELF. Your dreams. Your specific goals. I have written in previous chapters about the importance of having a definite goal in your mind and your heart. I want to elaborate on that in this chapter. You must, MUST, MUST have a specific set of goals in mind that you are working toward every day. You have to have a specific destination. If you don't, you're just wandering around HOPING you get where you want to go. That supermodel might be waiting for you back in Paramus, but you won't stop at the filling station to buy a map.
"I guess I want to be a rich and famous cartoonist." THAT won't really work as a goal. It's much too vague. It's like a rough, light pencil sketch drawn on gray paper with a gray pencil, and then colored in gray wash. DREAMS DIE WHEN THEY'RE WRITTEN IN GRAY. Think of your dreams, your GOALS like a piece of artwork you're creating. A good piece of art has a specific idea in as a finished piece of creative work.
You work it all out in pencil first in a thumbnail, or several thumbnails, until you find the composition that is strongest. Then you begin to draw, lightly at first, and continue drawing tighter and tighter until you have just the image you visualized. Then, you go to inks on it. You work on it until it is a perfectly composed piece of black-and-white art that can be reproduced for the public. Then, and only then, have you achieved what you set out to do. Then, and only then, can the world see what you first visualized.
