January 5, 2005
edward gorey
My wee exchange with Rose yesterday got me thinking.
There’s a common perception in the West that the only way to become a financially successful cartoonist is to get the newspaper syndicates to pick you up. And as we all know, the latter are EXTREMELY conservative.
These people have obviously never heard of Edward Gorey, one of my all-time favorite cartoonists.
The thing about Gorey is, his work shifts a TON of product. But he’s still relatively “beneath the radar”. Everybody thinks they’re the only one who’s heard of him. But you go into any decent bookshop and all the prime retail space is AWASH with Gorey product.
Marketing a cartoon brand is like marketing anything else. You can use a shotgun, or you can use a sniper’s rifle. The choice is yours. Gorey chose the latter. He completely bypassed Big Media, and it worked.
His example has always been a great inspiration to me, both in terms of art and commerce. It was while reading him that I first really, really clicked with the importance of “Creative Sovereignty”.
This is something the syndicates would know utterly nothing about, hence why so much of their product is sub-mediocre, lame-ass froth that nobody really cares about, including, I supspect, the poor guys under contract to draw it.
Food for thought, methinks.
Another person to consider (and some would say along the same vein (but not me)) is Charles Adams. Where as he didn’t move much product, he did get a lot of attention, yet never did he compromise what he wanted to do. I’m sure he had his fair share of letters telling him he was bent and was going to go to hell, but he knew that for the most part people wanted something different, and on the inside we all find Family Circus even more bent.
Basically… you may have potty mouth, but it’s not bathroom humor.
There are others, too, who may or may not have been syndicated who fell far outside of what people are constantly told they want: “The readers want talking animals… go make it cuter… the readers don’t want the word ‘penis’ in their funnies.” Really, though, it just comes from publishers being scared to death of doing something that might offend a tiny portion of their customer base… dear god… they might lose a few of them!
The internet is finally starting to live up to what I have always seen as it’s potential, and by that I mean that it is becoming more and more of a platform of expression. Syndicates, record contracts, publishing deals… they’ll all eventually become irrelevant. They are already starting to lose their most powerful paradigm in the public’s minds, which is that in order to be professional; in order to be validated; even in order to make any money, you must be excepted by them. They are missing out on the new paradigms, the new models… and the best of the new conversations.
Anyway…
I think that, yes, your language is a bit like a sailor sometimes, but very rarely do I think your cartoons are truly base. More often, I think they’re fairly biting… especially when they’re using the “naughty” language
Also… as for Rose’s comment about “The locker room with a bunch of guys,” it implies that your stuff is misogynist, and I haven’t felt that (and believe me, I hate any media that is).
Well… I’m sure you didn’t need my encouragement, but still… I wanted to let you know that you have a new fan (which is really bizarre considering how much I hate the ad industry). Keep up the good work.
gapingvoid: edward gorey
Here’s the latest entry from Hugh at Gaping Void. Thanks for posting this, Hugh. Every cartoonist should read it and think about it.
gapingvoid: edward gorey
Thanks so much so much for posting about Gorey, Hugh.
There have been recent uproars about the comic PvP, drawn by my friend Scott Kurtz, he offers his comics to newspapers for free. Guess who got upset about that and told him it would never work? Syndicated cartoonists. PvP gets millions of readers a week. Literally. And all these syndicated folks could do was belittle his work, calling him a t-shirt salesman. Scott makes a living with his cartooning.
Here’s a recent interview with Scott and he touches on the subject. http://www.bigfanboy.com/pages/creators/kurtz2004/kurtz2004.html
I can be the first to tell you that it wasnt pretty behind closed doors. It got downright ugly and name-calling abounded. Wiley Miller of Non-Sequitar even took a stab at Scott in his daily comic.
There are always those who want to rain on your parade.
Gorey is a great example of thinking outside the cartoon box, Hugh. I love his work. And there are many other cartoonists who took a similar path, like Ronald Searle and Gerald Scarfe. The Brits do have a great talent for creating biting, caustic, brilliant cartoon art.
I think part of Rose’s problem is that she is only thinking of cartoons (and business) in one way, that is, the standard syndicated cartoonist that has to be concerned about not offending people who read the funnies. With the advent of the internet and blogs and more independent publishing and the implosion of Graphic Novels, we no longer have to adhere to a strict ‘clean code’ of material if we don’t want to. Even I have ventured into the more ‘adult themed’ cartoon humour. I certainly would never consider trying to market this product to the syndicates. Either they wouldn’t take it, or the editors would have to change it drastically, which totally negates what I was trying to create.
http://members.rogers.com/pstormz/Tart1.html
It’s obvious that Rose would not be one of your potential clients. I would add, however, that not all syndicated comic strips in the papers are dull and conservative; some are quite edgy, which is quite a difficult thing to do, considering some of the editorial restraints they have. It takes a certain kind of talent to work within such limited boundaries. Consider the strips Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Tina’s Groove, Monty and Non Sequitor for starters.
Gorey was undeniably a genius, and nothing makes me happier than seeing calanders of his work on sale at Borders and B&N. But the fact that he is gaining in recognition progressively is due to the diligence of his fans. WE’RE the ones making him popular. Niche market bringing him into the masses by sheer weight of growth.
And really, genius will always breed success if there is a market for it.
But that beggars the question of whether the current marketplace allows for genius. Are we too saturated with mediocre, conservative corporate-created works? Is it possible to succeed without their backing? Can the small fish compete with the sharks?
Those are important questions with ever-evolving answers, I think.
I think another good example would be Neil Gaiman. He started out on the fringes of comic books, and has grown into an icon… mainly by the sheer diligence of his fans. And marketing is all about finding those potential fans!
Cheers.
I agree, Gabe. And with the internet and blogs, word of mouth can make a ‘small fish’ creation a huge success. Large publishers know this, too, and even approach lit bloggers to read and recommend their forthcoming books (I’ve been approached myself). It’s an exciting new world for creative people, and for marketing in general.
Getting back to Rose, the more I think of it, the more I realize that she is just trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Hugh’s approach may not appeal to her, but there a large population of people that are interested in what he has to offer.
If you’re a cartoonist and the only way you can think to make a living is syndication, maybe you need to think outside the panel. When it works and the product is good, syndication is great — but it’s not for everyone. I’ve tried a couple of strips and panels and never had an ouce of success, nonetheless my cartoons appear in major publications on a regular basis and I put food on the table. For me it comes down to this — do work you think is good and find people who agree with you.
“Do work you think is good and find people who agree with you.”
Andertoons, yeah, I think that’s a realy good policy.
I once worked in a bookstore that had a lot of rare Gorey editions, one of which was (I believe) “Pages from a Mislaid Album.” The owner of the bookstore took me away from the register one day to clean a first edition of “Pages” and I became entranced in the story: a girl goes to visit an uncle overseas and he lets her sit in his garden and tells her art is the only thing worth living for. Before she leaves, the fur coat clad uncle gives his neice an album of beautiful scraps of paper. She takes it unceremoniously, crosses an ocean to go home, and grows up. The album is forgotten. Later, as a grown woman she hears that the uncle has died. The last page is of the scraps of paper blowing away in the wind.
I was staring at this last illustration, done in black, white and delicate blue ink when the owner caught me reading.
“That doesn’t look like cleaning.”
“Sorry, I know,” I said. “It’s just such a sad story.”
The owner was very familiar with Gorey’s work but asked me, “What’s so sad about it?”
“The uncle, he dies in the end.”
“Well, he was an old man,” said the bookstore owner, himself an old man.
And I, a young girl with a bound book of beautiful scraps of paper in my hands, didn’t have an answer for that.
Edward Gorey, yay ! One of my faves too.
Hey and don’t forget Robert Crumb … altho’ i think he’d much rather have thought of himself thinking “in the box” as opposed outside of it .. the pulchritudinous penseur that he was
Let Him into Your Cliche
Beware the cliche: via Gaping Void