OBJECT OF DESIRE by Stephanie Piro

In just 32 panels, my cartoonist pal Stephanie Piro writes and draws an autobiographical Web comic titled "Object of Desire," a story of passion kindled, then thwarted, and then ....

He's Just Not That Into Your Income

"Sanders, I just sold your soul. You weren't using it were you?"

I get email. Some of them ask for cartoons. Like this one:

I wish to add your cartoon to a Powerpoint presentation.

OK. I write back:

Hey, that's great that you would like to use my cartoon. My fee is $20 per image, per presentation. I accept Paypal and credit cards.

Oops. That's not at all what this person had in mind:

Unfortunately I shall not use your cartoon if it means paying for it. I thought I would just try and do things by the copyright book. Thanks anyway.

And I respond:

No hard feelings. I'm sure neither one of us can afford to give away his/her professional work.

A friend -- a fellow cartoonist friend -- quipped, Yeah, they wanted to ask you for it before they stole it.

Is taking a cartoon stealing?

Yes. A cartoon has value. A cartoon is called "intellectual property."

Composer Tom Green, writing for First Drafts - The Prospect Magazine Blog, writes about the "Music industry in crisis: you gets what you pays for:"

Fans at my gigs offer home-copied CDRs of my albums for me to sign, not real ones, and think nothing of it. MySpace “friends” send me emails praising my music to the skies, and then say that they’ve sent multiple copies of it to all their friends, and then they expect me to thank them for this unsolicited “promotional activity.”

People who like Tom's music are just not that into his wallet concerns.

I was just reading this morning about how so many of those free alt-weekly papers are scrubbing ALL of their comics. At the City Paper, they got rid all of them except one: a cartoon titled Dirtfarm by Ben Claassen. How did it escape the fate of the others?

Dirtfarm survives because Claassen said he’d do it for nothing. “City Paper feels like family to me,” Claassen explains. “I called the publisher and told her that I would rather have it run for free than to not have it run at all.”

Well, it's sweet to have those feelings for a business --but family should not let you starve, Ben.

When fans who like your work, and the companies that buy your work, all ask you to work for free. What do you do?

For more and more people-- it means you produce the work for free, in your spare time. You can no longer afford to do it full-time.

When I get an email telling me "I shall not use your cartoon if it means paying for it," I remind myself that I'm fortunate that, for now, I have corporate clients who do pay. I'm also fortunate that I do not have children, a big house, 2 cars or outstanding medical bills (for now).

My plan: I will continue to persist in finding new markets, and proactively getting my work out there (and not doing business with people who want me to work for exposure).

Consumers will continue to have art and music to consume, but more and more, it will be produced part-time; by people with day jobs.


NOTE: As of this time, the Prospect blog is down. I've sent am email to a Prospect Magazine editor about it. Hopefully, it's getting fixed.


Related: NYCC 2009: Intellectual Property Primer by Dennis McCunney. (Hat tip to Journalista!)

Also related: If you Give Away Your Cartoons for Free, You Won't Make a Living as a Cartoonist.

Back in New York City

Below is a page of impressions as I traveled to the NY Comicon this past weekend. It's a quick (no pencils) page from my sketchbook.


It was nice to be back in New York City, where I lived for a long time. Above are some moments while I was in town. My thanks to my pal Trade Loeffler and the one and only great gag cartoonist Don Orehek for putting me up in Brooklyn and Port Washington, respectively.

Above: Smith Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; my old neighborhood.

Tom Spurgeon has an amazing NYCC round up if you want to see photos, vids & write ups on the convention.

AP Video: Lincoln, Darwin and ... Schulz

The Associated Press' "Today in History" video notes not only the births of Lincoln & Darwin today, but also the death of Charles Schulz, nine years ago today.

Mike Lynch Cartoon Penguin in Love T-shirt & Mug

Perfect for a Valentine's Day gift: the penguin in love with a bowling pin cartoon! Stupid penguin!

Sure, you can spend your money on big corporate stuff from big corporations, but remember that here at Mike Lynch Cartoons, we are a tiny, little company that isn't too big to fail.

Thanks for considering buying.

Oh -- if you order today -- you get a FREE 2-DAY UPGRADE on $35+ orders Use code: LOVEUPGRADES.

NYCC: Chip Kidd Video Tour

Taken from Brian Fies site here.

Designer Chip Kidd offers a good overview of what a big, huge, giant, crazy comic convention is all about these days. It's about dressing up like a Wookie, literary comics, reprint projects, small press, artists alley and smuggling in beer.

And Mr. Kidd is correct: nerdism is recession-proof, with the NY Comicon selling out this year.

And thank you to Brian posting this.

Video: Gary Baseman's Influences

"White Canvas + Gary Baseman" profiles the cartoonist and illustrator Gary Baseman, with lots of footage of his sketches, as well as finished paintings. Gary himself, talks about why he draws what he draws. It runs under 6 minutes.



I think of him as more artist than a cartoonist. I admire him being able to be guided by his id in his work; drawing from that deep, dark part of the brain, and being able to then articulate that he's trying to find the bittersweet truth of the human condition.

The video is from Whitecanvas.com.

Dave Coverly Interview

My friend SPEEDBUMP creator Dave Coverly is interviewed about his work habits and his sense of humor in Saturday's Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY).

“Sometimes, I get three ideas in an hour,” Coverly said. “Sometimes, it takes me all day to get one, or zero. You definitely hit dry patches.”

The devil is in the details. “The hardest thing is not the joke, because that’s kind of easy,” Coverly said. “The hardest thing is coming up with stuff. Everything seems like it’s been done.”

The piece by Gazette reporter Jeff Wilkin is good, but I wish that instead Mr. Wilkin writing detailed descriptions of a good half dozen SPEEDBUMP cartoons, that the Gazette just ran the actual cartoons.

SPEEDBUMP at Comics.com.

Hat tip to Journalista!

Video: Pat Oliphant

Above: a screen capture fro "Sketching History," a 13:50 video report by Australian telejournalist David Brill for the Special Broadcasting Service's program DATELINE hosted by George Negus.

Here is some video (and a transcript of same) of Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, with lots of good close ups of him drawing with a dip pen, as well as sketching onstage with P.J. O'Rourke at the University of Virginia, where there is an exhibition of Oliphant's work, as well as Daumier's, through March 8, 2009.

I couldn't get the video to work on that SBS page above, but this link played it automatically.

REPORTER: So there's the completed cartoon for today of the end of Bush's... End of eight years in the White House.

PAT OLIPHANT: Yeah, and, of course, I have mixed emotions about it. It's a dichotomous thing because he's given me a great 8-year ride with a match-up of just the perfect villains. And cartoonists, as you know, depend on villains. And so I'm losing probably the best cast that I've ever had and one thing I just have to remember is that politicians will never eventually let you down. They're going to come through with something. Bye Bush.

Another big hat tip to Comics Reporter!

Tom Wilson ZIGGY Autobio Book

Did you know that Tom Wilson wrote an autobiographical book out about him and his Dad, who created ZIGGY? I didn't. It came out last month.

ZIG-ZAGGING: LOVING MADLY, LOSING BADLY – HOW ZIGGY SAVED MY LIFE is a 212 page inspirational autobiography of Tom Wilson, sprinkled with ZIGGY cartoons.

Here's an excerpt from the Universal Press site:

In his new memoir, ZIG-ZAGGING: LOVING MADLY, LOSING BADLY – HOW ZIGGY SAVED MY LIFE, Tom Wilson describes the game he would play as a boy with his father, Ziggy creator Tom Wilson Sr.

"This game of ours always began the same. Dad would draw a picture of Ziggy happily strolling along, unaware of some horrible misfortune about to befall him. Ziggy might be zooming off a cliff, walking unknowingly into an open manhole, or oblivious to a meteor plummeting head-on his way. After Ziggy had been drawn into one of these dire circumstances, Dad would flip the placemat around, hand me his pen, and say, "Tommy, it's time for you to SAVE ZIGGY!"

By the mid 1980s, with his father in failing health, Tom really would step in to save the character his father created, which he has been writing and illustrating for over 20 years.

But years later, the younger Wilson was hit with a series of struggles: his leg was crushed in a car accident, his wife died at age 44 of breast cancer, and he was left with their two sons and his seriously ill father. Wilson’s faith was overtaken by depression.

With his trademark humor and self-effacing wisdom, Tom invites you into his intimate life as he searches for hope and strength to overcome his own life detours. In an ironic twist of art imitating life, Tom reveals how Ziggy's own weekly syndicated quest for answers was the unforeseen catalyst that enabled him to say yes to life again and face his greatest challenges.

Below: Tom Wilson's hand draws a 35th anniversary sketch of ZIGGY for a 2006 MSNBC report. Another cartoonist who uses a Pigma Micron!


Big hat tip to Tom Spurgeon!

NYCC: Bus Critic

Here's a freehand true-life story from my NY Comicon sketchbook. (Which is why the panels are all wonky.)

The first thing I have to do, to get to the NY Comicon, is get a bus to take me from the New Hampshire mountains to the megalopolis that is Boston. Like Jean Shepherd's "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss," most of the fun of getting somewhere is the journey.

Just 15 minutes into my 7 hour trip, I overheard this story, told by the bus driver, about a colleague. It reminded me that creative people are not the only ones who are criticized.

How Do You Come Up with All Those Cartoon Ideas?

One of the questions I get asked is about cartoon ideas; how do you get 'em? Where do they come from? I don't have a good, blanket answer. But I can offer up three examples below from a blog entry I wrote on March 2, 2006:

How Do You Come Up with All Those Cartoon Ideas?

"Let me ask you something. Where do you get your material?"

"I hear a voice."

"What kind of voice?"

"A man's voice, but he speaks in German so I have to get a translator."

OK, that's the way that Seinfeld said it. That's entertaining, but not helpful.

A lot of it is habit, so says fellow cartoonist Randy Glasbergen. Things happen. You start to "think funny." And I don't just mean putting baloney slices in your shoes.*



I was lost in JFK. I couldn't find an information booth for the longest time. It seemed like I was in an uninhabited sector of the airport. I finally find this little counter. The sign said INFORMATION, but no one was there. I looked around. There was only one person I could see: a woman, a passenger I guess, reading People magazine. So, the only information near the information booth about JLo. The cartoon appeared in Punch magazine, back when it was around.



I had to come up with some law cartoons. I had no ideas. I started to think of the most tried and true cartoon cliches in magazine cartooning. You know: the two guys on shackled on the dungeon wall, caveman inventing the wheel, talking dogs, etc. And then I drew a desert island, and then doodled people on it. And then I thought, who are these people? Well, it was pretty easy to draw a dozen and call them "the most sequestered jury." The fact that they're part of some silly tour came a little later. This was sold to the second market I sent it to.



One day I was reading the NY Times Book Review. I don't remember where I was, but maybe it was in the bathroom. The writer was fond of using the above kinda phrases. Putting the words in the kids mouth made it all look pretentious and silly. An editor did too, so that one sold. Mrs. Berg, by the way, was the name of my first grade teacher.

A lot of my time is spent doodling or looking at the wall. I don't know where ideas come from, but they can be teased out. And you can make money from them.


*Steve Martin

My First Blog Entry: Meet a Cartoonist February 7, 2006

Below is my first blog post from three years ago; February 7, 2006.



This cartoon of mine appeared in Punch Magazine, before it folded. thought it was an appropriate thought to start this, my first blog entry.

I'm a full-time freelance cartoonist living in NYC. Mostly, I draw what are called single panel or gag cartoons for magazines. I've got a couple of cartoons to draw for Wall Street Journal. WSJ approved a couple of roughs and now I have to draw finishes. I don't like drawing finishes since they never look as good as the roughs. So, I was putting it off, reading blogs, and I read Jim Salicrup's blog. I like Jim and his blog was really interesting --even just the lists of stuff he bought at the comic store. And then I thought, what the heck, I'll defer drawing for even longer and start my own blog!

I better go draw now. After all, it's 3 weeks till rent's due! More cartoon talk another time ....

Award Winning Cartoons?

I'm away right now, but here's a rerun from my old MySpace blog on February 10, 2006. It's weird to think that now I'm now the National Cartoonists Society Awards Coordinator. I never though that would happen to me! As such, I do not enter the NCS Division Awards contest at this time.

Award Winning Cartoons?
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

I sent out the requisite 6 cartoons today for National Cartoonists Society Gag Cartoon Division Award consideration. The rules are to send a half dozen cartoons that were published between December 1, 2004 to December 31, 2005. I've been entering since 2000.

Choosing 6 was hard to do. But I narrowed it down to these.

This was in the Chronicle of Higher Education:



And this is from Worthwhile Magazine:



Wall Street Journal:



Wall Street Journal:



Brandweek Magazine:



Reader's Digest:




Every year I enter and every year I try to forget about it as soon as I enter. If I get nominated, that's nice. But I try not to think about it too much. The gag cartoon field is full of some terrific cartoonists, so competition can be fierce!

A Typical Cartoonist's Day

I'm out of town right now, but here's a slice of NYC cartooning life from 3 years ago, when I would go up to The New Yorker in the big, fancy Conde Nast building in Time Square every Tuesday for "look day."

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day in Midtown Category: Jobs, Work, Careers Double knotted the snow boots and trundled off to the subway. Took the F train to 42nd Street. Stopped at the ATM, then to the Conde Nast building. My ID didn't work, but security called Stanley, the 20th floor manager, and I got cleared to take the elevator up to the New Yorker offices. The elevators have those little TVs in them that flash news and headlines. They're from a company called captivate.com. I don't look at them because I don't like them. A cartoonist colleague of mine tried to sell them his cartoons. Captivate was interested in his work. It got so far as them talking about money, and they laughed, saying they do not pay for content. Jerks. So, I silently avert my eyes and grit my teeth. When I got off the elevator, I was in an institutional hallway. This was weird, since normally -- for years at least -- there is a wonderful art gallery on the 20th floor that Stanley runs. One time there were paintings by cartoonist Sid Harris. Another time Stan had framed originals of Ed Koren. Wonderful stuff. Stan told me that the gallery is closed. The Big Boys (He didn't give me any names) will bolt some framed NYer cover prints on the wall permanently and that's that. A sad day, said Stan. Dropped off a batch at the New Yorker. I've been going to Cartoon Look Day for a couple of years now. Decades ago, all magazines had one day of the week when cartoonists would do the rounds in person. NYer is the only place to keep that tradition. I mailed cartoons in for a couple of years, and have been coming in person since 2002. I have yet to make a sale. Cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's assistant renewed my ID, and I left. Sometimes I stay and see Bob and then go to lunch with some of the cartoonists. But I don't feel I have the time this week. Walked to the post office, where I was going to use one of those automatic kiosks that weighs your packages automaticallly so you don't have to stand in line. It was broken. Stood in line. When I got to a real postal employee, she weighed the envelopes and then put on three 83 cent stamps, and then searched and found three 4 cent stamps, and put them on. Why she didn't have one of those machines that spit out the exact postage on a sticky I don't know. Heck, I got a drawer full of stamps. I could have done this at home. Well, OK then. 3 more batches to 3 other magazines mailed out. Hope springs eternal!

Larson Not Laughing

I wrote the below piece on January 3, 2007, and it's become one of the most clicked-on single entries at the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog. I wrote about fair use and creators' rights. Here it is:



Blogger/Motivational Speaker Graeme Codrington (bio here) has a problem with Gary Larson. Gary Larson has asked him to not post Far Side cartoons on his (Codrington's) Web site. Graem responded online:

"Now, Gary Larson, in a nice enough way, has asked us to remove the page. What I don’t get is his logic. His argument is all about his emotional attachment to his cartoons, his desire to exercise control over their usage and the fact that they are 'his children.' Sure. But what about the 20 Larson books I have in my library? Why isn’t he concerned about them? I’ll be honest and say I don’t think I’ve dusted them in over a year, and one or two may have torn pages. Does that make him sad?

"Why can’t he just be honest and say, 'Hey punk, if you didn’t pay for the pictures, you can’t use them.' I did actually pay for them - the pics on the site were all scanned from legal copies of his books that I own."

Link here.

There are some comments from readers on his blog. Some are on Graeme's side. And, although the blog entry is from October 2006, I only recently saw it, and I wanted to talk about getting cartoons for free on the Web, and the rights of cartoonists.

Graeme feels he's entitled to take the work from Larson becuase he's bought a lot of Far Side merchandise over the years, and "contributed to what I assume is a fairly wealthy man’s fortune." And he assumes that having bought the book entitles him to using the man's work to his own ends.

OK, a lot of people clip out a cartoon and put it up in their office or school locker.

Taking cartoons is one thing. Taking them for profit is another.

Here's Graeme again:

"A website I own hosts a number of talks that can be used in youth groups. ... One of the talks was about how to use Gary Larson’s cartoons to teach young people about God. It was a fun talk, and it included some examples of his cartoons."

And Graeme has stumbled on the whole key: fair use.

At the Carnegie Museum, in one of the back rooms, there's a cartoon of mine (the one above) that someone taped to the door. My dad's a docent there, and when I saw it, I thanked him. He told me that he didn't put it there.

Someone else -- someone not related to me -- saw it in WSJ and liked it enough to bother to clip it and tape it up to cheer up the messy Museum break room.

Now, if someone was, for instance, using the cartoon to sell something -- that would not be OK with me.

This person would be using my cartoon as a tool to help them personally profit.

"As an author and presenter myself, I accept that people use my work," Graeme writes. " ... I don’t pursue the copyright I own and am entitled to. Is that just me? I’d like your opinion."

Well, that's his business. But as far as cartoonists are concerned ....

A cartoonist giving away his or her cartoons is a hot topic and has lit up some pro and/or amateur cartooning boards. But some do offer their cartoons for free to Web sites. How do you make a living giving away your cartoons?

One side of this debate says EXPOSURE IS GOOD and the other says YOU KNOW, PEOPLE CAN DIE FROM EXPOSURE.

And then there's the YOU'RE RUINING THE MARKET BY GIVING AWAY YOUR CARTOONS!

If someone's taping up a cartoon of mine in their school locker or their MySpace page, then that's fine with me. That's personal use. But if someone is using another person's creation without permission for business purposes, then that's wrong.

I don't think it's wrong to a cartoonist give away their cartoons. It's their business. And most of the gag cartoonists who do give away their work are only giving away a portion of their output. (I can't speak for Web cartoonists who tend to put 100% of their product out there for free.) A lot of businesses give away stuff (free t-shirts, pens, 2-for1 coupons). It's a way to drum up business and remind people you're out there. But I also believe that it's up to the creator to choose which way to go on this issue.

But it's flat out wrong to use cartoons for a commercial purpose without making an agreement with the cartoonist.

Christoph Neimann: I LEGO N.Y. and Mark Anderson's Steampunk Cylon

Simple: From today's NY Times Abstract NY series.

More advanced: Mark Anderson's Steampunk Cylon, now featured at The Brothers Brick.

Video: Charles Schulz (1963)

When you draw a comic strip, if you're going to wait for inspiration, you'll never make it.

Here's 4 1/2 minutes of a 1963 documentary on Charles Schulz, with some good advice about getting ideas:



His advice — about becoming professional enough to sit down, and deliberately come up with ideas at will — is true.

When people who are not cartoonists find out that I am a cartoonist, they will often say how wonderful it must be to be creative all the time. Sometimes I nod and agree, but really, the truth is that it isn't wonderful.

It's a job.

It's a job I love, but it's real work.

To produce regular, consistent, commercial work requires discipline. Even if don't feel funny that day, or you don't feel "inspired," the work has to be done, you have to market it, you have to pursue the sale.

Lots of Walt Kelly at ASIFA

The ASIFA blog has a glorious display of many Walt Kelly pieces.

Big hat tip to Comics Reporter.

Magazine Market News UPDATED

In the past couple of years, several magazine markets have stopped using cartoons; Better Homes & Gardens, The National Enquirer. Other markets for gag cartoons, like King Features' The New Breed and Cortlandt Forum, are dim memories!

Below are some recent magazine gag cartoon market demises and changes, just to get you informed if you don't know already:

First for Women - no cartoons in its latest issue. They usually run at least 2 cartoons. This is a concern; see Woman's World.

Good Housekeeping - In 2008, GH replaced its original cartoon content with The New Yorker's Cartoonbank cartoons, and then, apparently, cut cartoons altogether. The last time I saw gag cartoons in the magazine was this past fall.

Time Magazine - which ran a page full of a half dozen gag cartoons beginning a couple of months ago, has suspended the feature until further notice. Titled Time's Drawing Room, the page showcased new work for Time Magazine by New Yorker cartoonists.

Woman's World - (like First, owned by Bauer Publications) reduced its rate from $125 per cartoon to $100 due to the "economic conditions."

If any pro has anything to add/correct, let me know.

Playboy, one of the premier cartoon markets, is undergoing a management shift. (CBS Sunday Morning had a profile of Hugh Hefner and outgoing Playboy Enterprises CEO Christie Hefner yesterday. Video below.) So far, I haven't heard anything regarding its gag cartoons. Heck, Gahan Wilson has 2 in the new issue, and there are wonderful cartoons by regulars like Nick Downes, Don Orehek, and many of the usual gang.



UPDATE

Forbes - The magazine's weekly print cartoon has been cut, but they will buy cartoon content for their official Forbes blog --however, at a reduced rate of payment. The only silver lining I can find here: This is better than some magazine blogs -- mags that pay cartoonists for their printed publication -- that have solicited me for free blog content.

The Nation had a small (about a quarter page) feature that quietly started up last summer. I believe it was titled "ComixNation," and it featured a revolving group of cartoonists including Steve Brodner. No announcement was made, but I haven't seen it since December 2008.

The Village Voice has cut ALL of its cartoons. No Tom Tomorrow, no Life in Hell, etc. And the Voice owns a lot of alt weeklies and ALL of them (Dallas Observer, New Times Ft. Lauderdale, Houston Press, LA Weekly, Minneapolis City Pages, Nashville Scene, OC Weekly, Pitch Weekly, Denver Westword, Seattle Weekly) are getting rid of their cartoons. Tom Tomorrow has more here, and his blog has reactions and comments from fans and colleagues. Thanks to Comics Reporter for the info.

Reader's Digest Association let go some of its employees last week according to Advertising Age (Reader's Digest Association Adopts 'Recession Plan'). No news yet regarding impact on cartoonist freelancers.