COMICS, PART 2: SYNDICATION

Here’s the rest of my comic making story (continued from PART 1).

It’s not really a funny story, so I injected some random comics into the mix: serious paragraph — light comic — self-pity paragraph — goofy comic — boring paragraph — dumb comic — dire warning — etc…

Enjoy…

As I approached graduation, I got a deal with Universal Press Syndicate to distribute Feet of Clay in grown-up newspapers around the world. This was something I had always wanted to do, but never dreamed I would actually get the chance.

But drawing comics pays less than delivering newspapers, and I had a truckload of student debt. So I needed a regular job too. Luckily, at the same time I scored a position at a very large greeting card corporation as a writer and illustrator. I was just happy to avoid working in advertising.

During the course of one year, I graduated from college, started a syndication deal, moved to a new city, started my job at the very large greeting card corporation, and went through a severely traumatic personal ordeal involving a girl, many tears, a judge, and custody of a sofa. With all this chaos, I managed to carve out for myself the exact opposite set of circumstances one would desire for producing a lighthearted daily comic strip. My personal life was in complete chaos when I started.

Being young, inexperienced, dangerously depressed, and extremely busy with my day job, I was not able to put the energy into the strip it required. I failed to define, or fight for, my own creative vision, and became extremely dissatisfied with the work I was producing. I lost my way, and was listening too much to other peoples’ opinions. My editor (a kind, patient man) tried really hard to help, but there’s nothing anyone can do in these situations. A comic strip can’t be done by collaboration.

My routine was: Wake up and walk to work. Write/draw greeting cards all day. Walk home and take a nap. Wake up again around 9 PM and work on comics until about 3 AM. Repeat.

Every Thursday I would meet my editor for lunch and bring him 7 inked strips from last week, and about 10 or 11 roughs for the next week, from which he would choose 7 for me to ink. (The syndicate often does that with young cartoonists– have them write 12 strips, and maybe 7 of them will be printable).

Since I never did really figure out my strip’s focus, after about a year of this I became as burnt out as I have ever been in my life. I was going to have to quit one job or the other. The strip was only in about 35 papers at this point– not enough income to make a living.

I remember one horrible night just hitting a wall. It might sound overly dramatic, but if you put a gun to my head, I could not draw one more comic. I had nothing more to say. I was done. The next day I arranged with the syndicate to end the strip, and they were very gracious about it. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, and it felt like a huge failure. Twenty three years old, and already washed up.

But immediately after quitting, I felt great! I felt more free than I’ve ever felt in my life. I started getting enough sleep, exercising every day. I was physically and mentally healthy. For six years I had been endlessly trolling my daily life for comic ideas. At last I had time to spend with my friends and family without being preoccupied. It was an amazing experience, but I was glad it was over.

A few years later, I started messing around with animation. For almost nine years, I have not had one single idea for a comic strip and have never regretted the decision to walk away for a single second. I don’t know why it just turned off like that, but it just did. In retrospect, I was probably too immature to tackle something like this.

So that’s how that went down back in those days, yo. I’m not sure why anyone would care to read all this, but maybe it will be interesting to some young person who’s making comic strips.

For you kids, here are the lessons of a burnt out cartoonist:

1. Practice every day and try to publish somewhere so you have deadline pressure and public scrutiny.

2. Don’t listen to anybody. Especially me. Keep your head down and do your work, so you’ll know what you want. When the time is right, maybe you’ll get a syndication deal, including the standard, boilerplate million dollar signing bonus. Or, try building an audience on the internet. I hear that’s big these days.

3. Until that time comes, try not to work in a job that uses up all your mojo. If you put all your time and effort into trying to please your art directors and half-witted clients, you won’t have anything interesting to write about, or the energy to draw it.

4. With a daily deadline, you will inevitably find yourself in the position of having to say something when you don’t have anything to say. Be prepared for that. Try to think and read and live a lot, so there will always be material you can pull out of your ass during the hard times. (comic strip ideas are stored in the rectum, not the brain)

Good luck, kids!