The 12 Rejections of Christmas

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.

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. (Well over 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 meeting 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 CBC TV's Red Green, I'm pullin for ya. We're all in this together!

Related: Rejection is the Key to Success.