Freelancing in Publishing, or Why Royalties Don't Make Artists Rich

Why do freelance artists get all those wonderful royalties while other professionals get paid only a flat fee? After all, a plumber doesn't get a royalty for his contract work, and artist's who do freelance work are, like plumbers and construction workers, essentially independent contractors.

But artists for mass media aren't treated the same as other independent contractors because the product they're making hasn't been sold yet, and the people they're making it for don't make a profit until that product is sold. So many of us work for deferred payment. The payment we get initially is an advance. We don't get compensated for the complete value of our work until sales exceed the advance and we begin to accrue a royalty. And there are many many projects that don't sell past the artist's initial advance, or that sell in such small numbers that the royalty amounts to very little. Most of them in fact.

Imagine it this way: I pour the concrete for the foundation to a house and am given an advance that is well below the value of the work done. In exchange, you promise me a percentage of future rentals of the home. How much this will ultimately amount to is based on a number of factors that include fluctuations in the market, the potential that the house will go for long periods unrented, or worse, become abandoned.

 Some artists will sacrifice royalty for a work-for-hire arrangement. They get paid a flat fee for work completed, no royalties or reprint rights beyond the initial contract. The publisher may use their work in any way they wish. The publisher could sell a million copies of a work-for-hire project and the artist will never see a penny more than what they were initially paid. The advantage for the artist is that they do get a guaranteed amount, but it can be llower than what the work may be potentially worth to the publisher.

To extend the metaphor: the contractor doesn't get paid for the true cost of what laying a foundation is worth, but they take the job because it's what is available to them. In this way, artists as independent contractors do no receive anywhere near the equivalent of what other contractors get paid. The average freelance artist does not make the equivalent of what other professionals--like housing contractors--make for their professional work.

So one of the best scenarios for freelancers in the publishing field is the royalty system. Deferred payment. It's a risky way to work, but it's the best option for most of us. We depend on those future potential sales--and they are POTENTIAL sales--nothing guaranteed--to make a reasonable income. 

Yes there are rare occasions when  book is hugely successful and the artist or writer makes royalties that far exceed expectations. Or maybe they become known enough to receive a regular flow of royalties from books that have become steady sellers. Again, this is a small percentage of freelancers and authors, and most of them still aren't getting rich. We can't all be Dr. Seuss or Stephen King. Typical royalties are quite modest. 

But the integrity and quality of the work isn't the same as the success and popularity of the work. You can put the same effort into one project that doesn't receive the same reward as another. This is the same in most professional fields. The best work does not always result in the best pay. Unfortunately, in publishing, the discrepancy can be be much greater. A popular book can outsell a steady seller or modestly successful book by very big numbers. An unsuccessful book can fail at the publisher's expense. And there are far more unsuccessful books than successful ones. It's a risky, unpredictable business all around. 

 Successful publishers are successful for a reason: they know how to stay in that middle range, publish more steady sellers, or at least, more books that make back their initial investment than books that fail, and those rare big sellers help considerably to buoy the rest of their catalog. They base their choices on precedent, professional instinct, magic tricks and blind luck. There's no way to determine for sure just what it was that made that hugely successful book so popular in the first place. 

Getting published by a major publisher is no guarantee of success. You're still at the mercy of a mercurial market, but advances tend to be higher than smaller presses, and your chances are just a little better of getting future royalties. But don't expect a windfall. 

Captain Marvel and Plastic Man, or DC Comics: What the Hell?

There was once a great series back in the 40s called Captain Marvel by Otto Binder and  C.C. Beck Whimsical, funny, and beautifully drawn, it featured characters like Tawny the talking tiger and Captain Marvel Junior. It was  a great series, never condescending to it's audience, great Children's lit.

Then DC Comics acquired the property. For legal reasons--somehow Marvel Comics had gotten the rights to the name--the character was called "Shazam" after the magic word that changed Billy Batson, mild mannered kid reporter, into a superhero. But even with its original artist C.C. Beck, it never quite regained its tone or quality. Not even Beck was satisfied with the scripts he had to illustrate.

Then about a year ago, this happened,

Shazam, Shizazzled

Another favorite character of mine is Plastic Man created by Jack Cole, a series that was genuinely fun and funny and entertaining. With his sidekick Woozie Winks, Plastic Man was a superhero who could stretch into any shape.

 He could disguise himself as anything from a table lamp to a car, but these disguises were always the same color as his costume, red with telltale yellow and black stripes.

DC acquired Plastic Man as well, and after years of sincere but misguided attempts to update the character by a variety of artists, around 2005, Kyle Baker finally got it right:

An all ages comic that was genuinely funny and captured the spirit of the original.

But more recently, this happened:

Rapey Plastic Man?

These updated versions are meant to appeal to a mostly male audience in their 20s and 30s who prefer their superheroes grim and gritty or, well, like this. This is either because of a complete lack of understanding or respect for what made the original comics great, or because they just don't get it, or don't want to get it. But I'm not telling them how to run their show. If this is what their audience wants, so be it.

But There Is Hope

The original comics still exist in pricy reprint editions, sometimes as much as 50 bucks or more, but these collections are directed at the adult collector's market. DC comics has entirely neglected the potential kid audience for these characters. They don't even have to produce new material. They just need to release the reprints at more reasonable prices and do that thing they've long forgotten how to do, market comic books to kids.

It's not as though kids aren't reading both contemporary and classic comics. Tintin, a popular Belgian character that began in 1929 (please try to forget the movie if you can) is still popular in the U.S. and all over the world, read in his original form by the great artist Herge. Great comics like Tintin, Captain Marvel and Plastic Man hold up surprisingly well. They're both good comics and good children's lit. And frankly DC, your contemporary versions of Captain Marvel and Plastic Man are not only poorly conceived, but just plain weird.

So DC, could you please do us a favor and give us reprints that we can afford and put them on the graphic novel shelf next to Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Tintin? I think there's a very receptive new kid audience out there just waiting to discover these great comics if they only knew they existed.

Why Tracking in Contemporary Children's Lit Makes it Harder For Good Books to See Print

Recently I wrote what I'm confident is a good book. When my agent submitted it I got the most glowing rejections I've ever received. It's not over yet, I'm still waiting to hear from a number of publishers, but it's a frustrating situation made all the more frustrating because of the praise its been receiving.

The principal reason the book was rejected? It didn't fit within their catalog. Too long for an early reader book, too short for a middle grade, they didn't know where to place it. Despite the fact that the format, vocabulary and length is no different than the perennially popular Beatrix Potter books that inspired it, they didn't know what to do with it.

I don't mean to sound bitter. It's not the editor's fault. This is the reality of the marketplace. It's how they sell books, and it's worked well for them. Adults use this system to find age appropriate books for their kids. And in the end, publishers need to sell books that parents want to buy.

These terms, "early reader" and "middle grade" are not arbitrary. They relate specifically to something called The Flesch-Kincade Reading Level Scale. It was a system first developed in 1975 to determine the readability of military technical manuals. The scale rates readability by grade level. It's been used in education for decades, and more recently, in marketing books for young readers. There's even a setting on Microsoft Word for determining a Flesch-Kincade score. It can be a great tool to determine the clarity of your writing if you're communicating to a specific audience.

Dr Seuss and Dick and Jane

Before Flesch-Kincade, Dr. Seuss created a book especially for beginning readers as a response to an article written by John Hersey in Life Magazine in criticism of beginning reader primers like Dick and Jane, a series of books that were notoriously bland. The Cat in the Hat used a vocabulary that involved the same repetition and single syllable words that the Dick and Jane books employed, but was anything but bland. The Cat in the Hat was released in 1957 and was an overwhelming success. It spawned not only a sequel but an entire series of beginning reader books from Random House by different authors overseen by Seuss. It was a groundbreaking idea.

The great P.D. Eastman did a number of them. Here's my favorite non-Seuss beginning reader, Go, Dog, Go!:

At the same time, Harper and Row introduced their I Can Read series with books like Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad are Friends and Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak's Little Bear series. These books were longer, had chapters and had vocabulary that was a little more sophisticated. They were what would now be referred to as early reader chapter books, books designed for young children to read by themselves without an adult.

Both series resulted in a generation of enthusiastic readers.

Tracked Books

More recently publishers have created whole lines with the intention of further honing in on the developmental advantages of books tracked by age group and reading level. Some of them are great books. Some of them aren't. But in all of them, the word count and vocabulary are dictated by a strict set of guidelines established by Flesch-Kincade.

Here are a couple of examples:

There's a good deal of pressure in education to have kids advance from picture books to chapter books as soon as possible. Even older books like Frog and Toad have been given a developmental category.

So this:

Becomes this:

Over the years, many classic books have been abridged or altered or given new formats or new illustrations to appeal to younger readers. Beatrix Potter is no exception. Now even her books are subjected to this method of tracking. So this:

Becomes this:

Altering the text of a classic book like The Tale of Peter Rabbit to fit into a given track category not only compromises the quality of the original prose and the experience of the book as it was meant to be read, it's pointlessly doctrinaire. Since the original text is written in very simple prose the abridgment  for track purposes is about as hairsplitting as it gets. Up to a certain point, these kinds of changes don't amount to anything useful even for educational purposes.

A testament to the fact that quality lit can exist in this system is that the classic Frog and Toad Are Friends fits into this structure without abridgment. I'm sure there are many well written and illustrated contemporary originals that fit well within this track system. I'm not saying that the track system prevents any good books from being published, but it can, in many ways, tie an author's hands. Authors are forced to contrive their stories to fit within these standards if they want their books to see print.

This tracking method and vocabulary standard has permeated the entire industry. In children's lit, the Flesch-Kincade standard reigns all the way up to middle grade books like Amelia Bedelia and beyond, though less so the further you move up the food chain. Young adult books are immune, but there are still vocabulary lists on the lower end of the middle grade spectrum.

Tracking Doesn't Work

The principal flaw in the track system is that vocabulary and sentence length do not dictate quality or depth. You can fill a book with compound sentences and advanced vocabulary but this does not guarantee that the book will be more intellectually complex than a book with a simpler vocabulary and sentence structure. The focus is on reading level alone. To some degree  this makes sense, since you can't objectively measure the quality or complexity of story, but you can't make kids better readers by advancing them from one reading level to the next in the same way you would advance them from multiplication tables to fractions. Literature just doesn't work that way. If kids are discouraged from choosing books that are considered to be at a lower reading level than their tracked reading level they could potentially miss out on a lot of great books. 

But this is now the contemporary thinking. Now kids aren't only discouraged but shamed for wanting to read books that don't have the right number on them. If the number isn't high enough, it makes them feel as though they're not achieving. But just because your kindergartener has the vocabulary and reading comprehension of a third grader does not mean you should discourage them from reading great picture books. 

 The best way for kids to become great readers is to allow them to choose their own books based on what interests them. The number of compound sentences or multi-syllabilic words has nothing to do with what makes a book great. Great literature, whether intended for children or adults, will always remain great literature.

Genre, Forms and Marketing Terms in the YA and Children's Markets

I frequently hear people refer to picture books, graphic novels and YA fiction as genres. So to clear this up once and for all, here's a cheat sheet:

A Form

A form refers to what the thing is, not what it's about. Not its content, but how that content is delivered. Its format.

Examples: Novels, short stories, comics, picture books, poems.


A Genre

Genre is a way to categorize stories by content usually based on the tropes and conventions that distinguish them.

Examples: Science Fiction, Mystery, Romance.

Fiction that doesn't fit in a particular genre is by default referred to as "literary fiction" but this doesn't necessarily make genre fiction any less literary. In the past if you wanted to write literature with a capital "L" it couldn't contain genre tropes, but this is changing.

Non fiction genres would include history, biography, autobiography or anything in the realm of the arts and sciences that you could put a general category around.

Genre can also be discussed in terms of form, but in a story sense rather than in a format sense. This has  more to do with structure than category.

Picture Books vs. Storybooks

The true picture book is equally dependent on words and pictures. Take out the pictures and it wouldn't make any sense. Some picture books work just fine without any words at all. Picture books like comics fall within the general area of sequential art--stories told with pictures set in sequence.

 Storybooks, and there are fewer and fewer of them these days, are illustrated prose, but with lots and lots of pictures. Storybooks fall into a looser formal category because some of them can just as easily fall in the realm of novels or illustrated short stories.

Great Picture Books Are Great Literature!

Nothing to add here. I just thought it needed to be said.

A Marketing Term

This is how you categorize books in order the sell them. The difference between a genre and a marketing term is that marketing terms don't necessarily dictate content. Note: I said, "not necessarily." Sometimes genre in itself can serve as a marketing term. But what I'm referring to here specifically is terms like "Young Adult."

Young Adult Fiction is any fiction that contains characters in their teens as protagonists. This does not necessarily refer to the sophistication of the writing, and does not refer to genre. It can refer to reading level--young adult tends to be written at a higher level than middle grade or early reader--but not necessarily.

Middle Grade Fiction is a marketing term for books written for ages 8 to 12.

Early Reader and Early Reader Chapter Books are books written for ages 5 to 7. These are the earliest books for young readers that have chapters in them.

And here's the kicker: Graphic Novels are actually, believe it or not, comic books. There's no real page limitation, it's just a self-contained comic book with a beginning, middle and end. In fact, even that might be stretching it. This is simply a term used by booksellers to sell any comic book that is not in periodical form. And just as comic books aren't necessarily comic, or books, graphic novels aren't necessarily novels, and just what a novel in comics form might be is a contentious debate that I don't even want to touch here.

 So there you have it. Not a genre, and not exactly a form, since a graphic novel could be just as easily the equivalent of a short story as a novel. Maybe even a poem. The term makes all of this all the more confusing to the new initiate, and has caused a lot of eye rolling from a lot of frustrated cartoonists who have long been ambivalent about the term.

How the Marketplace has Changed How We Read

There's been a recent push towards getting kids to graduate more quickly from picture books to chapter books. The storybook, the natural intermediary has gone out of vogue. There's more of a concentration on getting kids to progress developmentally than to have them simply read good books. Books with chapters and more words somehow equal a greater level of sophistication, when this isn't necessarily the case at all. Some of the best picture books have very advanced vocabulary, especially those that were written before the last decade. Picture books can be some of the greatest literature there is.

More recently word counts for picture books have diminished. 500 to 700 words has become the standard. Chapter books and Middle Grade books follow a similarly rigid format. These formats are so specific that books like Winnie the Pooh or anything at all written by Beatrice Potter are hard to market strictly on the basis of format in the current environment. It's telling that there are so many modern versions of these stories abridged to match the current industry standards. Look up Peter Rabbit and you'll find anything from board books for toddlers to picture books that contain simple variations on Potter's text, sometimes replacing Potter's illustrations with illustrations that look more contemporary. The Potter originals are thought to be a hard sell not because of how well they might hold up to a contemporary audience but because they don't fit in with a publishers Early Reader list. They're not the right word count. They can't put a "for ages 5 to 7" sticker on the front

Beatrix who?

On the plus side, the quality and sophistication of content of the young adult book has expanded dramatically, particularly in the fantasy genre due in large part to the success of Harry Potter, technically a middle grade book. When I was a kid there were few books around for the YA fantasy market as sophisticated and progressive as A Wrinkle In Time. Now I could name dozens. The appeal of these books has widened and they've even garnered a considerable adult audience. now YA, or at least YA fantasy is one of the few growing markets in fiction.

So kids, especially teens are reading, and reading more. There's a whole new generation of enthusiastic young readers. But the market place, at the same time, has become more conservative, and readers expectations have become more specific. We'll see what happens.

My Hand Bound Book!

My first hand bound book! Hand sewn with linen covers and glossy dust covers. Stephanie Pulford did the majority of the sewing, though I'm proud to say, I did the first six! Chris Beer cut out the cardboard for the covers and trimmed the dust covers, but even with lots of help, it was still one of the hardest things I've ever done (and still is, I've got about nine more to go). 

 These things are really turning out to look like actual manufactured books.  Since I ran out of endpapers, the last few will have endpapers with handmade paper purchased from the art supply store, so that might make them look a little more unique. Each book is 4x8 inches. 

I'm sending a number of these with my agent Abigail Samoun so she can give them to editors and art directors in Boston and New York in early January. These are strictly self-promotional and are not intended for traditional publication. If all goes well and I don't screw them up, I'm making 18 and 18 only. The story is only 18 pages long and wordless (24 if you include the title page, dedication and so forth), a pirate adventure with my favorite model, Ella (some of the pages can be seen on my website in the children's section). I'll probably put the whole story on the site eventually.

I had hoped to get these things finished last month but the digital printer kept screwing up my pages. The whole process of getting the things printed properly took months for a number of reasons I'm too exhausted to go into. 

so here they are with dust covers and all: 

This one has end papers made of handmade paper bought from the art supply store:

Here's one of the spreads: 

Another spread:

 The linen bound cover:

And my messy workspace that is currently taken over our dining room and part of our living room:

I really didn't know quite what I was getting into. I'd never done anything like it. 

There's a good deal of satisfaction in making books that look like actual books from the ground up. I've loved books all my life, and they've been such a part of my life that the experience of making one from scratch feels miraculous, like manufacturing a lightbulb or a door knob on your kitchen table. I've always been fascinated by making objects in multiples assembly line style by hand, like Gepetto's workshop or Santa's elves. 

And last of all, bookmarks:

I had them printed, and then Stef's plus one, Morgan Jenkins put in the ribbons. I found this special hole punch at Michael's that makes these two little parallel wedge-shapes, that the ribbons fit snugly inside. 

I've thought of putting out a cheaper, digitally printed version, but I'd have to charge at least 10 bucks a book, softbound, which seems like a lot for a tiny paperback. I'm thinking I'd want to add some kind of incentive to make it worthwhile, maybe a little sketch or something.  If you're interested in something like that, give me a holla!

Why I Don't Illustrate Other People's Self-Published Books, or Work on Spec

About once a month I get a request by an individual to illustrate their self-published or print-on-demand book. They're very passionate about their project, but they don't tend to  know very much about publishing or the publishing industry, and don't have much knowledge about what goes into publishing and promoting a book. But this isn't the only reason.

Even if they're willing to pay, I typically won't take the job. Not from a family member, family friend or good acquaintance.

The reason is that most people don't know the process. They don't know how picture books are structured. They don't know how to work with an illustrator in a professional way. For the illustrator, this only results in grief, and the grief often outweighs the reward.

Typically, professional book publishers who match writers and artists for picture books do not encourage the collaborators to discuss the book with one another beforehand. Often notes from the author that suggest illustrations are eliminated from the manuscript. Editors work with writers,then work with art directors who work with illustrators. This hierarchy is in place for a reason. It works.

Illustration has its own vocabulary, and good art directors know how to speak an illustrator's language. They understand design, they understand how illustration serves a story. They know how illustration relates to story structure. Good art directors know their stuff.

People who don't have this experience, even some of the best authors of children's books, (with rare exceptions) don't tend to share this knowledge. It's a discipline of it's own. Many authors tend to have very specific images in their heads--and I sympathize, as an author, this is difficult to avoid--and the illustrator's vision is inevitably different.This is the nature of picture books. It's a true collaboration between author and illustrator. The illustrator does not simply execute the author's vision, but adds their own personality in equal measure to the book. The pictures tell half of the story.

 Working with a non-professional is an unpredictable proposition. You don't know how involved the writer wants to be in the process of creating the images, how little or how much they know about the process. You don't know what the ultimate design of the book is going to look like, whether it's going to be properly typeset, whether the printer they've chosen is going to do a professional job. And since the writer is new at this, the quality of the prose is often not as good as they think it is.

I take pride in the work I do, and I don't want to make a bad book. I don't want to endlessly negotiate with the writer about how they want the images to look when they don't know the mechanics of what makes an illustration work.

What if I've got this great project to pitch to a publisher. I can't pay, or pay much, but I'll give you half of the profits.

This is called "working on spec." "Spec" stands for speculation, the idea that maybe the project will be taken up and in that event the artist gets paid. This seldom works out.

First off: artists don't typically submit finished illustrated books to publishers.They submit what's called a "dummy" a mock-up of the book that generally includes two finished Illustrations and a cover, the rest roughed out, giving room for art direction and editing. But this is only if a writer/illustrator is submitting. For the reasons stated above, writer/illustrator teams are rarely considered.

Secondly: illustration takes a long time to do. It's work. Though there is some satisfaction and pleasure in the work, we don't do it because it's "fun." Many people enjoy their work, but that doesn't mean they want to do it for free.You don't ask your plumber to work on spec. You don't ask a retailer to give you their wares to see if their product is going to work out for you. Why would you ask an illustrator to do the same?

If you would like to learn more about how professional books are produced, I recommend joining The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and attending one of their seminars. The SCBWI is how I got my start. It's how I met my agent. You don't need to attend one of the big expensive national conferences. A local one will do just fine.

But I'd like to return to the subject of self-publishing, because I don't think it's a completely untenable option. Not everyone is interested in huge book sales. Some of us just want to make books for family and friends. I've had the same notion, and am considering doing a small number of self-published books myself. Not all books are commercial. Most of us aren't going to get rich.

If having a professional publication published is your goal, its the wrong goal. You should concentrate first on being a good writer. Unfortunately commercial success tends to be the focus of the SCBWI, but I don't think that was the intention or original design. It does the best it can to serve its members, and its members want to be commercially published. I just think that's not the best goal for most of them.

Which Doesn't Mean You Shouldn't Self Publish

I think self-publishing, especially now that it's so easy and at such a low cost, is a fantastic option for writers, and a great way to share your book. But first, make a good book, the best book you can, a book that you're proud of. If you want to commission professional illustration for your book and you're not an artist yourself, the key word is "professional." Being an illustrator is a profession, and professionals get paid for their work. If you're not going to seriously pursue a professional writing career and do the proper research, even if you intend to self-publish,  then realize that it's hard for a professional artist to consider you seriously as a professional writer.

 If you're serious about being a commercial self-publisher you you need to act like a real publisher.You need to do what commercial  publishers do. You need to actively promote your book, with purpose, and, preferably, with honesty.

 When someone's promoting their book, the first thing I look for as a consumer and professional is whether they care enough to acquire good design, both for the book and their website. Usually a generic photo cover means a print-on-demand hack job, unless it's really really well presented. And if it's a picture book, the quality of the illustration is a given--if it's amateur, it's obvious. If you've found an illustrator who feels the same way as you do about the book and does professional work--this will go leaps and bounds towards selling the book. But as I mentioned, this isn't any easier than promoting the book in the first place. If someones willing to illustrate your published book, you've got to pay, and pay well for good illustration.

And don't pretend that you're anything else but an individual who is passionate about their personal project. If I see that someone is trying to fool me into thinking that they're published by a commercial publisher, if they've invented an imprint and their not upfront about the fact that they're self-publishing, it's an instant no-confidence. It suggests to me that they feel like they have to hide that they're a self publisher, which to me means that they're ashamed of the fact. Don't try to hide it. Embrace it. This reflects your passion and pride in your product. If you want people to take you seriously as a writer and self-publisher, act like you mean it. If you're describing on your website a book you've published yourself and are doing a follow up, describe it as "My self-published book."

Back cover quotes, especially on a self published book are risky. Some people are just being nice, and in the case that they are, it's a little embarrassing, especially when the quality isn't there to back it up. Maybe if a well known author believes in your project enough to write a real introduction it would make sense, but I'd be careful about soliciting back cover quotes.And NEVER quote without permission from a private e-mail or snail mail. The purpose of a private correspondence is NOT to promote your book, and you could easily get on the bad side of the person you're using to endorse it, which is neither a good personal or professional move.

But more than anything else, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Professional self-publishing is a business. If you don't consider it one, then it doesn't have to be, but if you're in it to sell as many books as you can, you've got to act like one.

Sometimes, you just want a book you can hold in your hands, something you wrote, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's an accomplishment to write a book, and pride in that accomplishment is justified. But try to be conscious of what your real intentions are and act accordingly. If you' don't you're going to be disappointed, or worse, spend money that you can't afford to spend. Be sensible. Be clear about your goals, and if its important to you, strive for excellence.

Why you haven't been seeing much of me

I have a chronic illness that is being effectively treated with drugs. At present I'm making a drug transition. This means withdrawing from one drug and going onto another, assessing whether the new drug is effective, and if the new drug doesn't work out (which seems to be the case) trying another drug combination and starting the business allover again. It's an exhausting and prolonged process, but it's not one I haven't gone through before, and it will ultimately works itself out. In the meantime, the unfortunate result is flu-like symptoms, with limited periods of lucidity.

So the situation has largely put me out of action, and my productivity is at a real low point. This post, for example,  was written in fits and starts over the course of two days.This has not been fun, but there is an end in sight. So no need for condolences, I'm OK, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't been lazy, just ill. I spend most of the day watching bad TV on Netflix, since I don't have the cognitive or physical stamina to do much else. I will say that The Vampire Diaries isn't actually that bad, but then, maybe when this is all over I might think differently. It's hard to say. It's about as much as I can handle at the moment.

Slow Down, Take a Deep Breath and Calm Down About Giles Coren's Article About Comics in The Spectator

I just read this article by Giles Coren for the Spectator. It's caused a lot of people to freak out who need to calm down. I will concede that I might be giving him too much credit, and I don't think it's the greatest article, but it's an intriguing, if poorly targeted (and pompous) attempt at a jab at the comics establishment on both ends of the spectrum. This was my response:

Slow down, take a deep breath and look at this article with less of a chip on your shoulder.

I'm pretty certain this is satire, a jab at the pompousness of literary prizes in general, a jab at the way comics have been accepted over the years by critics, and how literary critics generally tend not to be very savvy about the medium. One jab at this is how he presents Maus, how Maus was singularly heralded as literature by critics in the 80s when comparable if not better works were being produced at the same time.

He points out the handful of comics that are essentially mainstream genre comics mentioned by the mainstream press as "worthy," intended to demonstrate their larger ignorance of the medium as touted by the insiders who tend to be critical of the whole "graphic novel" phenomenon, and the US centric nature of this group, who tend to focus primarily on American comics.

Then he takes a jab at the pretensions of this small press critical establishment in the US, the rejection of the term "graphic novel" by many of them--myself included--as a desperate and unnecessary grab at legitimacy, a way to present the medium to the mainstream as not comics, which, it basically is, something all of us who are into comics have had to embrace whether reluctantly or otherwise since it's here to stay.

He further takes a jab at comics as it is often mistaken for a "genre" and by the context, clearly understands the difference, even though it might sound like he doesn't.

The absurd pronunciation of the word "comics" as "karmcbwerks" is a bit mean spirited, a jab at the New York comics critical establishment that lionizes Spiegelman, something it sounds like the author resents. It's an exaggerated satirical take on the prejudice, very much on the borderline of the real thing, but I don't believe its intended as such.

His references to the history of comics as touted as a legitimate medium from their inception is also a crack at this group, and the whole I dressed as Superman and read nothing but comics as a kid thing is a satire on the sometimes over vehement expressions of enthusiasm for the medium and insiderness of this same group.

Basically it's a series of very inside jokes that someone only with a very very intimate knowledge of comics would get, but I can see how someone who was just as familiar with comics might immediately misunderstand and react negatively. Essentially I think the guy has missed his audience by a broad margin here. It's something you might see in a English comics fanzine and it's very odd to see it in the Spectator. But believe it or not, he's not actually a prick, he just sounds like one, though this too is an arguable point.

The whole thing seems to be written out of anger and with a complete lack of regard for how it will inevitably be received, which to me demonstrates a certain, precious embrace of the author's own feeling of outsiderness, the infantile romance of being misunderstood, or maybe just an impressive bout of trolling.

So unless you believe these prizes are sacred, and that the whole screwed up history of the way mainstream academics have attempted to contextualize the whole mess out of half ignorance and the one-sided battle between mainstream critics and the small press comics critical establishment in the US (a conflict that academia also largely remains ignorant of), then I wouldn't waste your time defending comics, but criticizing these opinions as presented, in an elaborate tongue and cheek way by the author.

Sturgeon in Drybrush

A sturgeon drybrush painting for my wife's birthday. Selenium toxicity in sturgeons were the subject of my wife's PHD thesis. It's a really ancient fish, practically a dinosaur, and they can get really huge.  It's both one of the homliest and most difficult animals I've ever drawn, but homely in a kind of fascinating way.

 The hardest thing to draw were those ridges on its side. I just couldn't get them to look right. This was my fifth attempt, and that's a conservative estimate. They're done rather quickly, but to maintain the freshness of the piece, it's better to start new again rather than work it to death. I wanted it to be a scientifically accurate as I could make it, but I'm sure it's still a little off.

Next time I'm drawing our dog. Dogs I can handle. 

A Belated Birthday Celebration of the Great Steve Ditko!

Unfortunately some kind of political thing on TV overshadowed what would have otherwise been a significant milestone, November 2nd, the 85th birthday of Steve Ditko!

But you would probably know him (if you know him at all) better for stuff like this: 

Steve Ditko could draw. Before I go on let me post a few more Spider-Man pages just so you can drink them in:

I think there's a difference between good drawing and good draftsmanship, and the best draftsman aren't always the best artists. I consider draftsmanship an ability to record two-dimensionally that which you observe in the traditional European manner. If this were my standard for great art, it would rule out some of the most talented artists in the world, and some of our great cartoonists like Ditko.

Great cartooning, to me, is first and foremost about storytelling, and a good cartoonist has such a recognizable vocabulary of lines and symbols that it becomes their own unique alphabet. This is the kind of cartoonist Ditko was--every drawing unmistakably and immediately recognizable not only as Ditko, but evocative of his unique perspective. The dynamism of his figures, the wonderful feeling of movement, his incredibly inventive sense of pacing and storytelling, this is what makes a great cartoonist. Not simply an ability to draw accurate human anatomy.

 Frazetta and Wally Wood were some of the most amazing draftsman in American comics, but their sequential storytelling ability, while admirable, doesn't come close to Ditko's. The first thing you see when you look at a Frazetta comics page is the beautiful draftsmanship. The first thing you see when you look at Ditko is a story that makes you want to turn the page.

Ditko at the height of his Mr. A, Objectivism period.

 First an foremost when you looked at a Ditko cover you wanted to know what was going on inside those pages, and unlike many great comics covers, the interiors did not disappoint. When I saw a Ditko comic, there was never any shortage of pay-off, especially in one of his greatest creations, Doctor Strange. Ditko could transport you to another world with the simplest but most idiosyncratic drawings I've ever seen.

When I hear people argue that Ditko wasn't skilled, or couldn't draw, it's an irrelevant argument to me. It's like saying the same thing about Miro, or DeKooning. They're simply missing the point. If they don't get it, they don't get it, and I'm sorry they can't see what I see.

And yes, Ditko is in fact, still alive and still drawing! You can get some of his current work, here, though his objectivist rants dominate in the newer work, so it's not exactly my favorite stuff. Lets just say Ditko wouldn't be happy with either candidate. 

OK, I will admit that I'm happy about the way that political thing o TV worked out. I voted. I did my civic duty! Congratulations President Obama! Now for one last Ditko image:

And for those of you who are dissatisfied with the election results:

Little Red Landscape

Landscape for Little Red Man project that's not quite going to work out. His house is too close to the highway(or at least the road to the city)  and I'd like it to be more rural. Having fun with doing something without conventional perspective. It's going to be a combination of my cartooning style and something a little more in the range of a Little Golden Book.

Disney Price List For The Rest of Your Childhood Memories

After buying Marvel Comics™ and Lucasfilm Ltd.™, there are no longer any iconic commercial properties left for The Walt Disney Company™ to purchase, so instead, they have decided to go directly to the source.

The Walt Disney Company™ Price List for Childhood Memories

2 Million Each

First snow, losing first tooth, Santa Claus debunked

3 Million Each

Birthdays (to age 8 only)

3 Million Each

Favorite childhood toy

5 Million Each

Beloved childhood pets

10 Million

Favorite childhood book (if not already owned by The Walt Disney Company™)

10 Million Each

Best friends, first loves, (outside of parents, siblings)

Little Red Man Character Study

Study for side project, The Little Red Man. 

October Figure

I haven't drawn from the live model in a while, so I'm a bit rusty. This was a 20 minute pose.

Little Man in Little Car

For a side project in progress...

My Dinner with Jim Woodring

This last weekend at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco I had the privilege of having dinner with one of my favorite cartoonists, Jim Woodring.

Top row from left to right: My fetching wife Reggie, Ken Pontac, Me and Jim. Bottom row: Keith Dunlop, Susan Linton and Angelique Benicio.

 In fact he may well be my favorite to come along in the last couple of decades. Among others to come along in recent years who also rank high in my esteem include Cathy Malkasian, Renee French, Dave Cooper, Daniel Clowes, and Nicolas De Crecy, and it turned out Jim shares similar tastes.

I first discovered Jim's work in college in my very early 20s. I grew to especially love his wordless strip, Frank, and the unique world that Frank inhabits. Frank's world is so fleshed out and consistent, it's as if Jim's documenting the strip from some unconscious source than inventing it from scratch. Sometimes I even get his name mixed up with Frank's (apparently a not uncommon situation for Jim), because he had two serialized magazines, one called "Jim" and one called "Frank." Jim had a variety of strips including semi-autobiographical and dream-based strips, and even all-ages strips, but Frank was dedicated exclusively to his eponymous character. For a while I leaned more towards his self-titled book, but eventually grew to prefer Frank.

Frank himself

Later, as Jim's work grew more of a following, there was a series of vinyl toys based on his work. My favorite was Mr. Bumper:

 I have a number of other Jim toys of which I am almost equally fond, but Bumper always wins out.

Eventually he moved away from comics and  began to focus exclusively on gallery work:

Though I missed his comics, his paintings and charcoal drawings more than made up for it. But I still missed Frank. Now, in recent years Jim has returned to comics with some of his best work in the medium with books like Weathercraft and Congress of Animals: 

So last Sunday, Jim was to appear at The Alternative Press Expo, and my good friend Angelique invited me to join she and her fiance Kieth, her friend Ken Pontac, his wife Susan and Ken's friend Jim for dinner. Ken collaborated with Jim as a writer on animation projects that resulted in disastrous failures by no fault of either Ken or Jim, and had been good friends with Jim ever since. I met Ken through Angelique. 

Full disclosure: this wasn't my first interaction with Jim. For years we'd dialoged  through my friend, the talented cartoonist Mark Martin's blog, and then, eventually Facebook. But this would be my first meeting with Jim in person. 

My first fear was that I would embarrass myself. I'm not too terribly good at this sort of thing. I've always been lousy at social stuff, especially with people I admire.

 Sure enough, in the beginning I think I was a bit overeager, anxious for his approval. I wanted him to like me. I wanted to impress him. It wasn't until we got to the restaurant and I said, "I don't mean to embarrass you Jim, but I've been following your work for a long time and you're one of my heroes,"  that I began to relax. I don't know why this admission made me feel more comfortable, but it did. Jim of course, graciously said he wasn't embarrassed at all, but I was still a little tentative. 

Once the discussion began, Jim and I connected on a number of subjects. Since we agreed more often than not, I soon felt comfortable enough to speak up when we didn't see eye to eye without worrying about his disapproval. I stopped worrying about impressing him. A big danger zone for me is talking about my work, so it was a subject I steered clear of. The conversation flowed nicely, with Jim and Ken telling stories about their past, Jim and I talking comics and about our relationship and political clashes with Mark Martin, (Mark is a conservative, a fantastic cartoonist, and probably one of the warmest guys you'd ever want to meet, though I have yet to meet him in the flesh). 

The dinner ended well. Jim and I hit it off, and Jim said that I should keep in touch. It really couldn't have gone any better. 

After the dinner, we had a brief dialog on Facebook:

Me:

 It was nice to meet you, I really enjoyed talking to you, and you have a very nice head of hair.

(which he does as you can see--an area where I'm a bit more challenged)

Jim: 

I enjoyed meeting you too, Jed, finally, after all this time.