The Rejection Book

Looks like that REJECTION BOOK is coming out soon. THE REJECTION COLLECTION: CARTOONS YOU NEVER SAW, AND NEVER WILL SEE, IN THE NEW YORKER, put together by New Yorker cartoonist Matt Diffee, is just that: a collection of rejections. In this case, rejected New Yorker cartoons.

I received a mass e-mail 6 months ago, asking to participate in the project. Since I've been resolutely rejected by the New Yorker for 6 years, I thought I was a shoo in!

But no, I was rejected by THE REJECTION BOOK too!

And so I decided to laugh real funny, and do a wee jig, like Walter Huston in TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Gotta put this outta my mind, and move forward, which is hard to do these days what with Matt having a blog over at the Huffington Post.

Regardless ... onward and upward.

-- Mike Lynch, working class cartoonist

Happy Birthday, Joe Sinnott

Many happy returns, comic book inker Joe Sinnott! 80 years young today.

Above is a page that Joe did with Tom Gill.

Here's Mark Evanier's salute.

Joe's Web site here.

Mark Parisi's OFF THE MARK

My friend Mark Parisi is featured over at the Cartoon Brew blog.

Cartoon Brew usually focuses on animation, but they've picked up on some of Mark's cartoons because a portion of his gags are "cartoons about cartoons."

Left: a Parisi classic -- the Betty Rubble Center for Recovering Cartoons.

Charles Schulz Wall on Permanent Exhibition

Schulz painted a mural for his kids in his home 1951. The wall -- "a unique and early example of Schulz's work" was, as the house changed owners through the years, painted over and almost forgotten.

Almost!

More here from the Charles M. Schulz museum.

Dial "B" for Blog: DC Comics Designer Ira Schnapp

Occasionally, I think that I've heard everything about comics history. But I'm wrong, wrong, wrong. Every time I pick up a copy of Alter Ego, I read stories about the golden age of comic books that I never knew or suspected. Here's one that's online now, about a guy who I never heard of, who set the decided the "look" for DC Comics for many years.


Dial "B" for Blog does an amazing service by letting us all in on Ira Schnapp. Some incredible behind the scenes art and great stories. Go and look at The Life and Times of Super DC Designer Ira Schnapp!


Seeing stuff like the above 1960s DC house designed by Schnapp add just gives me a thrill. "The Man Who Conquered Time!" Wowwee! I don't care if ya think it's campy or hokey -- I wanna read it!!!

Thank you "Robby Reed!"

And a big hat tip to Fred Hembeck for this.

Bill Melendez Podcast

IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN airs Tuesday, October 25. This will be the 40th time it's aired.

PUMPKIN director Bill Melendez has a fun, short audio chat on the Just My Show Web site.

A half dozen clips from the special are at the Peanuts.com Web site here

The American Society for the Conservation of Gravity

I was doing a cartoon that had to have an org chart in it, so like my pal Mark Anderson, I took a cuh-razy ride on Google images. And like he reported in his Andertoons blog, I, too, inadvertantly found something whacky. I found my org chart, but I also found this site, with the above Mort Walker drawing.

Christoph Hitz: New Yorker Cartoon Rejections

Illustrator Christoph Hitz has posted some New Yorker cartoon rejections over at the Drawger site.

Thanks for sharing your pain, Christoph!

The Quill Awards and the Graphic Novel Industry

Yesterday I came up with 10 gags that were good. (This means I thought up at least 15-20 others that were not very good. I find I always have to get the "garbage" out of my system to get get to the good stuff.) I drew up about 4 cartoons. I say "about" since I didn't like the way the first one came out and I might just toss it and redo it.

All in all, not a very interesting day to report about. No way I would win an award for this blog today.

Speaking of awards ....

Aside from entering my gerbil in the Lawrence, KS Deerfield Elementary School pet contest where I was awarded the "Smallest Pet" cup, I have never won anything.

Hmm. Technically, I didn't win anything in that instance really. My gerbil did. But that was 36 years ago, and he's dead and I'm not!

Ha ha ha!

You see? People start talking about awards and they just get all bent outta shape. Doug Marlette in his excellent IN YOUR FACE autobio comments that awards mean nothing and don't get hung up on them.

Yeah, OK, easy for him to say. He's GOT the Pulitzer.

I have been thinking about the Quill Awards, where friend Brian Fies was nominated in one of the categories. That was the reason he was in NYC this week. His graphic novel lost out to NARUTO VOLUME 7, which is telling.

Dirk Deppey writes:

The graphic novel has arrived, the American public is reading it, and its author is Japanese. Welcome to the 21st century.

I feel bad for my friend, and feel that MOM'S CANCER (as well as Alison Bechdel's FUN HOME, which was also nominated) is a more important book than NARUTO VOLUME 7. But these awards are not presided over by sage souls in an ivory tower, looking at metaphor and context, they are decided by mouse clicks over at The Quills Web site. And manga readers are good clickers!

And it helps that NARUTO is also on TV in a regular anime show.

Mr. Deppey:

The greater problem, however, is that there’s no center in the Direct Market. It’s too heavily skewed toward superheroes on the one side, and literary comics on the other.

One day, graphic novels might be like, well, like other books. You got funny ones and adventure ones and so on. But for now, with maybe a couple of exceptions like the LITTLE LULU reprints (which are GREAT!), there's either NARUTO or BATMAN in the Graphic Novel aisle.

Thanks to Mr. Deppey, I found out about Shaenon K. Garrity's LiveJournal site where she lists all-time favorite manga. I better catch up.

Rina Piccolo and Brendan Burford at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art

(Rina Piccolo, Brendan Burford, Mike Lynch at the 2006 Reubens)


Whatcha doin' Monday night? Wanna go hear talented husband and wife Brendan Burford and Rina Piccolo talk about all their cartoon work at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art at 7pm?

Brendan does Syncopated Comics, and Rina has a couple syndicated features: Six Chix and Tina's Groove.



Monday's also the meeting of the Graphic Artists Guild, spearheaded by the welcoming diva of GAG's Cartoonist Alliance, Denise Ozker. They're all getting together for Brendan and Rina's talk. So, come on over if you want to hear Brendan and Rina -- regardless of whether you're in GAG.

MoCCA's site, which has the how to get there info. and so on, is here.

Below is Denise Ozker's descip.

_______________________________________________________

Squib -- the Newsletter of the Cartoonist Alliance/Roundtable

October 11, 2006
No.10, Vol.V


NEXT MEETING

Monday, Octover 16, 2006
7:00pm
(Set up 6:45pm)

at MoCCA
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401, NYC
Between Houston and Prince St.

Rina Piccolo and Brendan Buford!!!

Husband/wife duo of Brendan Burford (editor at King
Features Syndicate/creator of tha anthology magazine Syncopated Comics),
and Rina Piccolo (one of the Six Chix and creator of the strip Tina's
Groove). A Power Couple of Comics!).
(Organized by Chari Per, our Student co-Chair)

_________________________________________________________

Jupiter's Little Red Spot Growing Stronger

Great. Something new to worry about. Just great!

"No one has ever seen a storm on Jupiter grow stronger and turn red before," said Amy Simon-Miller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center ....

The Art of Mike Trim

Hey, when Brian Fies and I were in Forbidden Planet on Tuesday, we saw this cool new book THE ART OF MIKE TRIM.

Mike Trim designed for a lot of those Gerry & Sylvia Anderson shows: THUNDERBIRDS, UFO, SPACE:1999. There is a promo for his new book, which has tons of sketches and photos, on YouTube.

The music on that promo is from the UFO TV series, and was written by Barry Grey. Great stuff.

And just for fun, here are a couple more links at YouTube: the theme from the UFO TV show, complete with titles and all of the ships and explosions is here -- and someone's edited together a revised STAR TREK TOS title sequence to the Barry Grey music and it works quite well.

Happy Belated Birthday, Orlando Busino

I want to wish a happy belated birthday to award winning cartoonist, and a heckuva nice guy, Orlando Busino, born October 10.

I've been a fan of his since my Dad got me a subscription to Boy's Life (1970 or so), where, for 30 years, he's drawn a cartoon about a big dog titled "Gus."

"I don't know how that translates into dog years, but it's been a long time," Mr. Busino said in Who's Who in Ridgefield, CT.

I didn't get to meet him until this past August, thanks to an invite to a Connecticut cartoonists' get together by Frank McLaughlin. (Thanks again, Frank!)

More from Who's Who:

Aside from his wry sense of humor and his drawing ability, Mr. Busino is well known in the field for his skill at lettering. In recent years, he has done all the lettering on one of the world's most popular serial strips, Gil Thorp.

"I've never had a real job," he once joked with an interviewer. "Once in a while I daydream I might want to direct a movie. But that only lasts for a minute."

However, in another, more serious interview, he said: "I've enjoyed it all the way. Cartooning is not something you go into unless you enjoy it."

Please wander over to Arnold Wagner's excellent blog "Cartoonology" for some more art and details about Orlando Busino. (I just found out Orlando went to the same university that my Dad studied at! Arnold knows everything!)

Happy Birthday, Orlando! Many happy returns!

Chad Vader -- Day Shift Manager: Episode 4

Fresh from Blame Society Films comes the latest CHAD VADER installment. Fun stuff, as always, and the guy doing Vader's voice is spot-on.

Brian Fies in Adds His Cartoons to the Overlook Wall

Tuesday. A busy day! I dropped off cartoons at the New Yorker, said hi to George Booth and Sam Gross and Jonny Cohen and Sid Harris, met a reporter who is doing a story and/or a film about cartoonists, went to the post office, deposited some checks at the bank, and then, I met Brian Fies at the Overlook.

Brian was going to add some of his iconic characters from MOM'S CANCER to the cartoon wall at the Overlook Lounge.

This is the "before" wall. Brian, who took a red eye flight and just landed at JFK hours ago, is going to draw in the upper right hand corner. His cartoonist neighbors: Gerry Mooney (Sister Mary Dracula), Al Scaduto ("They'll Do It Every time"), Jules Feiffer, Hoest & Reiner, Irwin Hasen, and Patrick Merrell. Not to mention Henrik Rehr and Joe Edwards.

Brian's finished his Overlook burger, and he's fortified now. Ready, set, DRAW! He's standing on a seat (out of view) to reach the upper corner.

He uses a light grey conte crayon to do a very rough outline. I like how that SOUP 2 NUTZ kid looks like he's saying, "Say it. Don't spray it." to Brian's backside.

Brian's getting a real good line from a Sharpy. Better than I ever could.

Like me, Brian's near-sighted, and, also like me, he takes off his glasses when he draws.

And here's the result!

Thanks, Brian, for adding your work to the Overlook Cartoon Wall!

And then we took the subway to Union Square, poked around Forbidden Planet, and the Brian went to Abrams to say hi to his editor and I went home.

Brian was up for the Quill Award Tuesday night. I regret to announce that the Manga title NARUTO won. Ah well!

BTW, the Overlook is across the street from a TV studio where the Rachael Ray Show is filmed. There was a long line of people waiting to get in for a taping as we walked out of the pub. I made fun of Rachael Ray and degraded her success. I was very mean about Rachael Ray and laughed derisively and loudly and pointed at her line of silly fans.

And Rachael Ray won a Quill Award last night.

I need to get with the program.

STAR TREK Fan Film OF GODS AND MEN Report

Anthony Pascale writes in the TrekMovie.com blog about the principal photography for the fan film OF GODS AND MEN:


The first thing you notice when pulling up to the location is that this does not look like the proverbial ‘bunch of fans in a barn’ scenario. The scene looked like a typical L.A. filming location complete with honey wagons, equipment trucks, trailers ....

Read on!

The trailer is here, with a chant-filled, Carmina Buranaish soundtrack.

Charles Addams — A Cartoonist’s Life

A new book titled Charles Addams — A Cartoonist’s Life is out. There's a review from a Nashville paper here. It's short. Actually, the Amazon site has a better descrip.

This is the first bio of Addams, one of the most important New Yorker cartoonists. He certaily had a major impact on a lot of other cartoonists. The book has unpublished photos and drawings. I haven't seen it in the bookstores yet, but it sure looks like fun.

Hat tip to Comics Reporter.

Gag Cartoon Markets

I was away, doing some yard work with my Dad in Pittsburgh this past week.

(From left: me, a trestle that was once full of wisteria (called "hysteria," since it had overtaken the trestle), and the lovely puss of Misha the dog. "Pat me! Pat me!" he's saying. Awww. How can one resist?)

(My dad's routine for relaxing Nellie the dog.)

It was great to see family and it was also pretty great that I got a couple of checks in the mail at home while I was away. That's always nice, especially since last week I was doing more pruning and cutting and putting in window wells and raking and hedge-trimming than cartooning.

"I wish I got checks in the mail," commented Dad.

Don't we all!

OK, let's segue to cartoons ....

When I first started cartooning seriously (i.e., I had quit my regular job and I NEEDED MONEY!!!!), I read those Artists Guides books and they were of little help. They did not have all of the markets in them, and sometimes their information was just plain wrong. And some of the markets paid in copies of the magazine. Yikes!

So I went to the book stores and libraries, and I looked for anything that had cartoons. I then mailed cartoons to the Art Director at these magazines. Some of my early markets that I mailed to:

The New Yorker

Wall Street Journal

Barron's

USA Weekend

Now, I started doing this a while ago. I would mail out a batch (10-15 cartoons) with a SASE every 4 weeks. The New Yorker I mailed to every week.

This is how long it took to get published:

The New Yorker (Rejected since 2000 -- but I'm still trying)

Wall Street Journal (Took 6 months to make my first sale)

Barron's (Two years to make my first sale)

USA Weekend (No longer publishing freelance cartoonists)

Yeah, obviously there are more markets than this! I'm not mentioning all the family magazines and other business publications. I persisted, and began selling. Within a couple years, I was mailing cartoons to places that did not use cartoons.

(Above: a cartoon for BBC Music Magazine)

I mailed off a batch or 2 to BBC Music Magazine, and I was surprised when I got an e-mail from the AD. They wanted to buy my cartoons regularly. For about 3 years, BBC was a steady client, until there was an ownership change in the magazine.

And then I sent some cartoons to some glossy poetry and prose magazines. The one above appeared in one. Now they're a regular client.

I won't tell you the name of the client. But, heck, you can go to the newsstand and see some of these markets I'm talking about. And I noticed I had a lot of cartoons: dog cartoons for dog magazines, women in business cartoons for business women magazines, etc. So I started to craft my batches for these new markets. And I persisted.

Now I'm in the above book, and I also have cartoons in magazines and at Web sites and I'm in calendars and text books.

If you do good work, other people will respond to it. And the quality of your work may inspire an editor to take the leap and add your cartoons to their content. Most editors will not feel your work is right, but there is a certain number of markets that will become new revenue streams.

And then you can go and visit your family for a couple of days, safe in the knowledge that your cartoons are in dozens of magazines' editorial offices while you rake some leaves and poke around (in my case) Pittsburgh. And maybe you'll be getting a check while you're away.

True Story Swear to God!

Tom Beland and lovely wife Lily. I am watching this vid with little context. I know they're in a comic book store and I know that his TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD series is now with Image -- but -- uh -- they're joking (!?) around about how they broke up (?!) and are now back together.

News to me. I met them at last year's MoCCA Fest and they were, as usual, peas in a pod.

Anyway, TSSTG has been a labor of love for Tom for many years and it's great to see his work get better distribution via Image.

TREK Fan Films

STAR TREK: OF GODS & MEN is a talked-about fan film. A fan film is what it sounds like: a bunch of fans pooling their time and money to produce an amateur movie. In this case, a new STAR TREK original series episode.

Months and months can go by before these TREK fans post a new film on the Web. One of my favorite sites (Yes, there are several groups doing TREK fan films) is STARSHIP EXETER, where they have taken months and months to post a new 10 minute act of the show. To their credit, they poke fun at themselves for taking so long here.

I can imagine it takes a lot of time and planning to do these, so delays are just part of the process when you're doing it got no pay. And Paramount says that these TREK copies are OK, as long as they're distributed free and no one makes money. Yeah, for real. Hard to believe, but there it is.



Anyway, OF GODS AND MEN is one fan film that's been announced with Walter Koenig (above) in it. There will be a second one with Mr. Koenig titled TO SERVE ALL MY DAYS, written by TOS writer D.C. Fontana (who used to be Roddenberry's secretary during TREK until she turned to writing for the show). There is a small teaser here, and larger one here. The official site is at STAR TREK NEW VOYAGES.

Both of these fan films are fun to peek at, but it's weird to see the actors in what are ... well ... amateur movies, with amateur actors.

TO SERVE ALL MY DAYS was going to be finished this summer, but it was delayed. Regardless of when these projects are finished and on the web, I'll watch 'em. If nothing else, the effects are AMAZING. Nothing compared to the old show (below):

It looks like an art project made with styrofoam cups and pipe cleaners and silver paint. (It's from the infamous SPOCK'S BRAIN episode.)

But hey ... I don't mean to pick on these fan films. They got HEART, baby. Miles and miles of heart.

Here are a few of the sites:

STARSHIP EXETER shows another starship & crew during the TOS period.

STAR TREK THE NEW VOYAGES continues the original show into the 4th Season.

STAR TREK HIDDEN FRONTIER is set in STTNG/DS9 universe.

(I'm only into the first 2 of 'em, since I'm a TOS guy.)

And the NY Times had a nice story on Sunday about minor cast members of the original series who are still popular TREK convention guests.