Not a day after I wrote about how important it is to have a legible signature, I get an email from MacMillan's textbook division asking for permission to use a cartoon in a textbook. They go on to say that this is an urgent matter and I need to respond with a hi res version of my cartoon as soon as possible.
Attached to the email, they say, is a copy of the cartoon.
Only it's not my cartoon. Doesn't even look like anything I would draw. It's signed with an almost illegilble "Mike" in the bottom, right-hand corner. I don't know who this is.
(I try to avoid signing my name in the bottom right hand corner. Back in high school I used to do that, and the high school newspaper layout guy would sometimes snip it off for space considerations. But I digress ....)
MacMillan hires people to do rights clearance. They are paid to find the people who hold the copyright for all material. Looks like whoever did this just searched for "Mike Cartoons" and found me.
Maybe they don't know that there's image recognition software that may be able to help. I mentioned this in my report on the MICE show.
(I know this makes my pal Mark Anderson happy:)
(My cat Dropcloth really was rubbing up against my pen when I drew the above sketch, just like he is rubbing against my typing fingers while I type this.)
I hope MacMillan finds the right Mike!
Maybe there was a scattershot approach to this and some of the other cartoonist Mikes got the same email!
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