This is not a Christmas card for everyone. Heck, it's not even a NICE Christmas card. This is for cartoonists. And these are all true things that were said to me in 2007.
Everyone has experienced rejection, but cartoonists experience it regularly.
And it's normal. The important thing is to persist, as gag cartoonist Roy Delgado has in regard to submitting the The New Yorker. (19,000 cartoon submissions, all, as of this date, rejected.)
Every once in a while, the Berndt Toast Gang (the National Cartoonists Society Long Island chapter) would have a "rejection show," where successful professional cartoonists would bring in their rejected comic strip ideas, rejected proposals, rejected illustrations, and so on. There was a lot of gorgeous work. All of it unseen.
"If we ALL brought in ALL of our rejections," the late Joe Edwards (Archie, Li'l Jinx) told me, "the room would be FULL to the rafters." Joe was right. And we were in a pretty large banquet room at the time.
So, keep plugging away. You gotta have the misses to get the hits. And remember, to quote Red Green, I'm pullin for ya. We're all in this together!
Related: Rejection is the Key to Success.
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6 comments:
I love love LOVE this card!
HaHaHaaa!!! I laughed. I cried. Then I cried some more. Too funny! Especially "We laughed, but not hard enough". Hadn't heard that one yet.
Anyway, Mike... Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Barry
At least you get a response.
Mike, use that card to make it EASY for the editors. All they have to do is mark their rejection.
Rejection may be "the key to success." However, it's also the key to failure. It can be very hard to tell them apart. Some people succeed because they have the talent and drive, and deserve it; some people succeed even if they don't. Some fail despite great talent and drive; some fail because they stink and deserve to. I think figuring out where you fall on that chart can be a lifetime effort. Meanwhile, you might as well keep doing your best work and putting it out into the universe.
Brian, I'm imagining a multi-dimensional plotting of cartoonists... One axis is TALENT, one axis is DRIVE, and one axis is DESERVE TO. Each cartoonist would represent a point on that space, and her/his career would be the trajectory of that point through time...
Mike, I tried singing your card to the traditional 12 DAYS OF XMAS melody, but I just kept cracking up everytime I had to sing,
~~ "This carTOON would be FUNnier if you DREW-IT-IN-COLOOOOOORRRRR!" ~~
(in the place of "FIVE GOLden RINNNNGSSS!")
You guys are great. Thanks for your thoughtful, and silly, comments.
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