Cartoons That Came Close

Here are some cartoons that have come close to selling. All of these cartoons were held by an editor for purchase for a major publication, but were later returned, unsold, after the final buying meeting.



The Sisterhood of the Elastic Top Pants. I liked the conceit that if those traveling pants movies get successful, and there is sequel after sequel, then this would be the Golden Girl-style eventuality. Apparently, I was alone in that conceit. *Sniff!*

"The minutes of Monday's meeting:
'It needs more R&D," said Mr. Jackson testily.
'We have the budget line,' Ms. Jones said richly.
"Don't blame me if this fails,' said Mr. Simpson unaccountably.'"

This cartoon is based on Tom Swifties, "a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed."

"Survival is the first order of business -- that is, after we assign blame for the ship sinking."

I've had bosses that thought like the above.

"Here comes Anderson, back from the future with the stock market reports!"

There is an old cartoon by Don Rosa of Captain Kirk bursting out of the Guardian of Forever time travel vortex with an armful of Action #1 comics and a gleeful look on his face. It appeared in the 1970s fanzine Rocket's Blast Comic Collector and the gag came to mind when I came up with the above.

An above wordless cartoon that maybe is too 1970s in its outlook.

"These are the chains I outsourced in life!"

I like a good CHRISTMAS CAROL gag.

"I love the excited look on the board member's faces when they get their quarterly airing out."

Note the one guy beelining toward the hydrant.

"I'm okay. Just picking up the pieces after a traumatic investment."

"A show of hands -- all those in favor of stocking the break room with performance-enhancing drugs?"

Mentioning drugs in the workplace: always dicey.

There are a couple of meeting oriented cartoons here. Maybe meetings aren't funny anymore.

"All those in favor of working lots of overtime til the kids are back in school?"

So, there you have it -- a couple of "close but no sale" cartoons.