“You have got to persevere- you have really got to come to terms with rejection as a cartoonist.
“When you become more established you still get rejected on a regular basis. There are so many people producing cartoons for so few slots.”
"I completed this compilation of 200 DICK TRACY characters [in] October 1977 as a tribute to Chester Gould when he reached his 46th anniversary of drawing the strip. The original paste-up hangs in Chet's conference room at home and he tells me he refers to it quite often. His first reaction to it was that he had no idea he had created that many!
"To make this paste-up of 200 characters, I went through every strip in my TRACY collection from Oct. 1931 thru Oct. 1977, approximately 17,000 daily and Sunday strips, and picked out the one panel I thought best represented that character. A reduced stat was then made of each one, and then mounted on a large piece of gray matte board along with each character's name and year each appeared. It was a labor of love.
"Some of Chet's early characters from the 30's are easily recognized as popular movie stars of that era; James Cagney (Jimmy White), Claudette Colbert (Jean Penfield), Marlene Dietrich (Marro), Wallace Beery (Stud Bronzen). In the late 90's, some characters names were invented by spelling words backwards, such as Nuremoh, Kroywen, Natnus, Wolley, and Prof. Emirc.
"In the 1940's, characters were to spill from Gould's prolific imagination an an unparalleled rate. Characters such as the Mole, B-B Eyes, Pruneface, Flattop, Brow, Shaky, Gravel Gertie, B.O. Plenty, Vitamin Flintheart and Mumbles were to be household names and are remembered vividly by all who read DICK TRACY in those years. If a poll were taken, Flattop would probably garner the most votes as the most famous villain. At a time when most villains expired from the strip in 12 weeks, Flattop ran TRACY ragged for 5 months.
"... When I asked Chet Gould where he got the names for some of his characters, he told me he used to ride the train from his home in Woodstock, Illinois to his studio in Chicago and sketch various people he observed on the train. He would exaggerate upon certain features or characteristics. The name would follow, with he one exception being Flattop, whose name came from the popular aircraft carrier of World War II. Imagine an hour train ride with the likes of Itchy, Flyface or B.O. Plenty!
"In 1975, Max Allan Collins, current writer of the DICK TRACY strip, was to become the inspiration for the villain, Bulky, and in 1977, I popped up as Leyden Aigg. In answer to the question, 'Has Chet Gould ever put himself in the strip?' Yes! He IS DICK TRACY."
RICHARD GEHR: What sparked your interest in cartooning?
GAHAN WILSON: When I was eight or nine, I was browsing through the books section of a second-hand store and I saw this set of bound volumes of Punch. I bought one of the volumes for fifteen cents and took it home. After pleading with my father, he very sweetly drove me back to the place and plopped down for the entire set, bless his heart. I can’t say how important that was.
This is a wonderful, career-spanning interview, with one of the great gag cartoonists.
Quitting my day job -- which was years back now -- required a leap of faith. I didn't know a soul in the pro cartoonists "industry" when I started out.
" ... many of the artists in this issue aren't getting paid, but have contributed work for the exposure."
A big hat tip to Don Orehek for this issue of Cartoonist PROfiles!
America has been going to hell in a handbasket since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Above: my approved rough for the Wall Street Journal, along with an editor's note asking for a redraw.
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Hmm. Is freelancing getting harder? I immediately thought of Al Jaffee's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. "No, it's not hard since I've given up eating." This isn't the first time that it's happened to me. I just try to be persistent and nice. "Is there anything else that you need? Can we go over my contact details again? Can you Fed Ex a hand-written check?" And if I get a non-responsive person on the phone, I counter with, "What would you do if you were in my situation?" Well, I won't post a comment on that mag's blog. I won't say what magazine it is. Hopefully, it will work out. Especially if I'm persistent about it. I suppose there's a chance of the editor somehow seeing this blog and -- BOOM! -- no more business from him. Ah well. The darn thing is, it's such a small bit of money to the corporate world. It's a plane ticket. It's lunch for board. It's a car rental. Besides my sweet big cat Roo getting in my way as I draw, this is another time drag; another reason I don't produce more cartoons! Too much time spent in the Mike Lynch Accounts Receivable Department. |
An invoice is, as you all ready know, the bill that the accounting people need at the magazine, ad agency, Web site or wherever you sold your work. For me, it's usually a magazine or Web site.Let me say something about editors here — the good ones don’t say things to be nice. At this level of the game there’s no space for that. I know cartoonists who have sat in Bob’s office and listened to him say things about their work that could be considered unkind. Later on, I myself was told things about my drawing style that I didn’t agree with. But this is the editorial process, and if you’re a professional, you just don’t go home and cry about it. Well, you can, just don’t tell anyone about it.This is the first part of a multi-part series of how to submit to the magazine.
