Jack Davis' Unsold Newspaper Strip

The Magic Whistle shows us some of Jack Davis' rejected newspaper strips. After doing the rounds with the syndicates, the civil war-oriented daily was slipped into a November 1963 issue of SICK Magazine.

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.

Roy Delgado: "Rejected Because Style is too 'NEW YORKER '"

My friend and fellow gag cartoonist Roy Delgado writes about getting rejected at his Roy Delgado Blog.

Now, Roy, as you probably know, has submitted something like 20,000 cartoons to The New Yorker magazine since 1992. I am not joking. All of these submissions have, so far, been summarily rejected by The New Yorker. The man KNOWs rejection. I like Roy's work. I own Roy's book.

But The New Yorker, well, so far, he's been a-knockin' and no one's been a-answering.

OK, that's the background. Now that you're filled in, here's this week's adventure in ironic rejection:

He was recently asked, by a former Good Housekeeping editor, to contribute some cartoons to a new publication (unrelated to The New Yorker). It's always nice to be asked.

And then, he was ... rejected.

Rejected for being "too New Yorker."

It's all here, complete letter and all.

The 12 Rejections of Christmas

This is not a Christmas card for everyone. Heck, it's not even a NICE Christmas card. This is for cartoonists. And these are all true things that were said to me in 2007.

Everyone has experienced rejection, but cartoonists experience it regularly.

And it's normal. The important thing is to persist, as gag cartoonist Roy Delgado has in regard to submitting the The New Yorker. (19,000 cartoon submissions, all, as of this date, rejected.)

Every once in a while, the Berndt Toast Gang (the National Cartoonists Society Long Island chapter) would have a "rejection show," where successful professional cartoonists would bring in their rejected comic strip ideas, rejected proposals, rejected illustrations, and so on. There was a lot of gorgeous work. All of it unseen.

"If we ALL brought in ALL of our rejections," the late Joe Edwards (Archie, Li'l Jinx) told me, "the room would be FULL to the rafters." Joe was right. And we were in a pretty large banquet room at the time.

So, keep plugging away. You gotta have the misses to get the hits. And remember, to quote Red Green, I'm pullin for ya. We're all in this together!

Related: Rejection is the Key to Success.

Robert Walker on Getting In at Marvel Comics

The Voice of America 's reporter Paige Kollock interviews comic book artist Robert Walker, who draws O-MEN. The O-MEN is a superhero team book, but the difference here is that each hero is HIV positive.

Stay tuned to the video. At about 2:10, he tells about visiting Marvel Comics every day in search of a gig with the #1 comics company. He was getting nowhere until ... well, watch Robert tell the story:

J.K. Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech

Above: a screen capture of J.K. Rowling from her Harvard commencement speech.

Last month. J.K. Rowling gave a graduation speech at Harvard. Part of that speech was about failing. We all know, thanks to the HARRY POTTER books, the movies, the toys -- that Ms. Rowling is not a failure. She has touched people's lives by persevering and not letting rejection make her stop. As many know, there was a time when she was a single parent, "as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless."

"Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.

"... Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

"So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

"Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies."

Text is copyright Ms. Rowling.

I remember reading somewhere that one of the first criticisms of her HARRY POTTER manuscript was that it was set in a school and kids do not like school, therefore the market dictates that children will not buy a book set in a school.

No Hogwarts? Egads!

There must have been hundreds of moments when it was easier to set her writing aside -- put it in a drawer or in the fire -- and try for a regular, workaday life.

Making a living by your wits isn't easy, and the struggle to achieve it is not a "fairy tale." It's hard work, and there is, as Ms. Rowling puts it, no light at the end of the tunnel; just you and your ideas and your willingness to persist, persist, persist.

A big hat tip to my dear old Dad for the link -- and for standing by me, passing along advice, as I made mistakes, before finally achieving some success in what I wanted to do. Thanks, Dad!

12 Cartoon Rejections

Here at the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog, I try to be positive about cartooning -- particularly magazine cartooning. I've written about how cartooning requires a leap of faith in the beginning (The Cartooning Business); that selling one or two cartoons out of a batch of 10-15 cartoons is a good professional average (Cartoon Sales Batting Average); how to persevere, despite rejection (Mike Lynch College of Gag Cartoon Knowledge -- Rejection, Rejection, Rejection). But, occasionally, the Black Dog, as Churchill calls it, comes and gives you a nip, and you wind up in the doldrums.


Some people get depressed over the holidays. Cartoonists are no exception, seeing as rejection is all part of the profession. At least when we vent about it, it turns into a cartoon.

A number of Christmases ago, I mailed the above card to only a few cartoonist friends. All of these were true things that editors told me -- except for the last one. The last one is true, but it wasn't said by an editor. Here's the breakdown:

1. Standard rejection letter phrase.
2. A famous cartoon editor told me this face to face while looking at my work.
3. An advertising client who thought I'd lost it after loving my first batch of cartoons.
4. Better Homes and Gardens, etc.
5. My mother-in-law. And she has a point. Color cartoons are better.
6. Nothing like an editor who places his finger in your cartoony pie.
7. Esquire Magazine.
8. Rejection letter, Funny Times.
9. See #2
10. The New York Daily News.
11. Several clients. Yes, really. They underestimate their audiences.
12. My wife.

And there we have it! Gosh, whatta bitter person I am!!! I guess I drew back a nub after my encounter with the ol' Black Dog of Depression! You see why most people who want to cartoon professionally quit after an average of 6 months! Ha ha ha!

OK, now I get back to drawing ...

Matthew Diffee Interviewed

New Yorker cartoonist, and editor of not just one, but two REJECTION COLLECTION books, Matthew Diffee is interviewed for Print Magazine by Emily Gordon.

Do most New Yorker cartoonists also try to sell elsewhere as well--Playboy, Reader's Digest? Who else buys single-panel cartoons? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? What would a Playboy Rejection Collection look like?

There is Playboy, which is, I understand, the next place to go with your stuff if it happens to be Playboy-type stuff…but they don’t pay as much as The New Yorker and I think they buy all rights while The New Yorker only buys first printing rights, and the copyright goes back to the cartoonist after 90 days. That is, if I understand the legalese of my contract properly. Also, cartoons in The New Yorker have a prominent standing, and respect whereas Playboy cartoons are not what you first think of when you think of the magazine. I’m told they have pictures of naked ladies in there.

As far as other mags, I’m not really sure, there may be people who send their rejects other places and some have probably found comfortable places in second-tier markets. Personally, I’m not organized enough for all that and also I never really wanted to be a cartoonist in the general sense, I just wanted to be a New Yorker cartoonist. Before I die though, it might be nice to get a cartoon or two in Cat Fancy.

H/t Comics Reporter.

UPDATED Mike Lynch Cartoon in November 2007 Harvard Business Review

Above: my cartoon "How the hell am I gong to spin this?" from the November 2007 issue of HBR.

There comes a time when a little cartoon goes forth in the world and gets rejected, rejected, rejected. And every time the above cartoon was rejected, I would pick it up, dust it off and send it back out ... where it would be rejected again.

This was drawn in March 2003. It was mailed out 28 times, to markets in the US and Europe. Rejected 27 times; and then, finally, a sale.

What else was rejected 27 times?



The book THE FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS was rejected 27 times. Harshest rejection: "No one wants to read a book about old men weeping into the telephone." Yikes.



27 rejections for AND TO THINK I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET by Dr. Seuss (according to the National Education Association site).

Not that a gag cartoon has the shelf-life of a book, particularly the above very good books, but you can see what I'm getting at: talent is cheap, notoriety is fleeting, persistence is the only way to succeeding.

From the Nibs newsletter by Kathryn Craft (PDF link here):

10 rejections: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

14 rejections: The Good Earth

15 publishers/30 agents rejected A Time to Kill by John Grisham

18 rejections: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

21 rejections: M*A*S*H

22 rejections: Dubliners

25 rejections: Gone With the Wind

27 rejections: And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

27 rejections: Steps by Jerzy Kosinski — after it won the National Book Award!
Chuck Ross, convinced that unknown writers had little chance of having their novels accepted, tested his theory by retyping the book and submitting it under a pen name to a total of 14 publishers and 13 literary agents. They all rejected it—including Random House, the original publisher.

40 rejections were received by Mary Higgins Clark before she made her first sale.

121 rejections: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

123 rejections: Chicken Soup for the Soul

350 rejections were received by Louis L’Amour before he made his first sale

600 rejection slips were received by Jack London before his first sale

A big tip o' the hat to Pletch, who let me know that my cartoon was in the magazine weeks ago. Thanks, Pletch!


Above: Dead, dead, dead. Like those red shirt guys in STAR TREK, sometimes good cartooons go out and killed in their mission. What to do? What to do?

UPDATE: Some rejection-oriented links from the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog:

Gag Cartoon Rejection and Persistence

Rejected by THE REJECTION BOOK

Mike Lynch College of Gag Cartoon Knowledge -- Rejection, Rejection, Rejection

Corporate Family

"Let me get this straight: you do a blog about rejection? All about rejection? And people read it?"

I'm paraphrasing what a relative said to me a couple of months ago. But he's essentially right. For instance, in the last week, I've been rejected by two leading US magazines, as well as two big London-based mags. But, ya gotta be tough. Keep moving -- like a shark.

"Sorry, Thompson. No temps in the corporate huddle."

I got an offer recently to teach cartooning for a couple weeks. I'd have to be away from my studio, which I didn't like. The potential employer excitedly told me, "We're all family here." Of course, this was all to compensate for the long hours and low pay. In my head, when I hear about how a business is like a family, I always get George Takei's voice in my head: "Red alert! Read alert! This is not a drill!"

Businesses are like businesses. You can talk all you like about how nice a place is, but a job's still a job. There are those who don't do work and get rewarded. Those who do, and get no recognition. There are those who do just enough to get by and don't want any responsibility.

A long time ago, I worked as a temp for a big company. I was treated like a regular employee, except for certain things. If there were company outings, company bonuses -- well, I wasn't IN the company, so I wasn't part of that. This place, a large investment bank, gave out fat bonuses every December to all its employees. A lot of these people were support staff (operators, secretaries, tech -- people who did what I did), and they would tell me how much they got. What a crummy family! What feelings of rejection! Hence, the above cartoon.

So I moved on ... eventually going into business for myself. And now, I try to keep moving; finding new clients, figuring out new ways to make money, and producing marketable work. I try to learn from my rejections, and keep moving forward -- like a shark in search of its corporate hug.

Uh .... or something like that.

Oh, yeah! And I don't have to wear a tie!

PS Speaking of making fun of office life, here's one of my favorite Kids in the Hall sketches: MY PEN!!!!!!!!!

PPS I didn't accept that teaching job.