If I timed it right, this post should take me into four figures! Woo hoo! post and tell me you love me!
Now for the vital topic: I have an idea for a comic strip that I think would be not only salable, but very popular. Mrs. Chef is a good cartoonist, and I’m not only a professional writer, but also a phenomenally funny guy. (ask anyone. Except my high school social studies teacher.) I really want to go for it and try to get this strip syndicated. Mrs. Chef SAYS she does, too…but it’s been ]six years since I first thought of the concept, and she’s barely done anything in the way of character design, etc. If I weren’t married to her, I’d have fired her long ago and found someone else to do the drawing. I’ve told her that she can back out if she wants to, but she insists she wants to do it.
It’s frustrating for me, because I know that every day we don’t do it is another day someone else might think of the idea and beat me to the punch. (I’m amazed no one has thought of it before. And no, I’m not going to tell you the idea - no offense.) But it’s not like cleaning toilets; I can’t yank her over to the drafting table and say, “Do it NOW!” Even if I were the kind of person who would order people around like that, creative endeavors don’t work that way.
I think the main source of her reluctance is a conviction that she’s bound to fail if she tries. As long as she doesn’t ever actually do the strip, no one can reject it. I’m not being unrealistic about our chances – I’ve heard that the chance of a syndicate offering a development deal to a prospective strip is about one in 3,000 – but that’s way better than any state lottery, and it’s not completely arbitrary, which affects the odds if you’re talented (which we are).
So what do I do next to encourage her? Are there any professional cartoonists among us that might offer support and/or advice?
If she has a couple of finished strips, see if you can post them on a web site with an e-mail link for feedback. (If you want, you could only show her the positive messages. :D)
I’m always up to see a new funny comic strip. With 4 pages in the Washington Post, it’s amazing how many of them are lame.
I’ve considered the Web angle. If we are going to make a run at this, of course the first step would be to make up a package of sample strips - say, 30 days’ worth - and get some unbiased criticism of them so we can fine-tune the concept before we approach the syndicates. The problem is, I can’t get her that far. I need to nail down the cast of characters and get them firmly in mind before I start writing strips; we’ve talked out the cast’s composition and major character traits, but it’s still kind of up in the air until she establishes them on paper.
Hey Cheffie! I was just going to ask about you in the missing dopers thread. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but I haven’t seen you in a while. And since you asked so nicely…
{{{I love you, Chef}}} (Even if I never did get the love letter I requested here )
I can’t offer any advice on the cartoon thing, but I can offer encouragement. If no one has to quit their day job to draw a few pictures and submit them, what harm can come of trying? If it’s just her ego she’s worried about, all I can say to that is, get over it. Even Babe Ruth didn’t bat 1000! Go for it, and Good Luck!!
I love you Chefie…from the bottom…oh ah. Wrong forum. Anyway congrats on your 1000. Another reason that Ms. Chefie might not want to do it, the time that it would take. Just whisper in her ear one night, please do my strip or someone else will. That should either give her the start she needs, or her lawyer will contact you the next day.
It seems to me that you’re going about it backwards, or at least in circles. You say theat you are the writer and the funny guy, but her reluctance to produce the strip is holding you back. A comic strip is nothing more than an illustrated story. It is up to you to produce the 30 days of story line, and suggested illustrated panels, perhaps in collaboration with her, perhaps not, then coax her into drawing the strips that have already been written. You seem to be as paralyzed as her.
LBJay, much as I’d love to say you’re wrong, I have to concede that you have a point. I have jotted down some strip ideas, but perhaps I haven’t attacked the project with the commitment it deserves.
I’ve been telling myself (and I still think it’s a valid point) that I don’t want to get embroiled in story arcs and continuing plots until the cast of characters is defined, since I might be wasting time writing for a character that gets cut (or neglecting a character that is added). Maybe I do need to lead by example.
Your remark does not, however, address the problem of getting her to start. I can assure you all that if she came to me with a slate of characters, I’d be writing strips that night.
Ok, one of my best friends is an illustrator and syndicated cartoonist, so here’s a few nuts ‘n’ bolts. In order to get syndicated, you have to have your strip running in at least ten papers already—local papers, “alternative,” etc. THEN and only then will a syndication service even LOOK at your work.
It’s almost impossible to make real money at a comic strip, unless you’re one of the lucky few to hit on a Dilbert or a Family Circus (I expect yours would be JUST like Family Circus, right, Chef?). My friend has to earn his rent-money doing magazine illustrations, menus, etc., and his strip only brings in pin money . . .
That having been said, you’ll never know till ya try.
I still say it’s a writing problem rather than a conceptual one. It doesn’t matter if a character gets cut or added as the strip progresses. That’s how strips are developed. They don’t arrive neatly in a box in your mind. Characters come and go as there relevance or usefulness to the strip demands. That’s the way “Peanuts” worked. If you are worrying about doing extra work, then you don’t really want to work hard enough to make it. On one hand you sound like you want to be a successful co-author of a comic strip, on the other you just want to be a joke writer for someone else’s project. You’re the one who asked for advice. I say stop blaming her. Write some strips, then you will be able to get her off her duff to draw them, and then you will have the first step in your thousand mile journey behind you, not in front of you blocking your way.
Oooh, I get to plug a friend for a change—It’s Joe Rocco’s “Enquiring Minds,” which runs in alternative and local papers throughout the U.S. Very mean, dark and funny. Joe also illustrated a children’s book, “Snow Inside the House,” and works like a dog doing illustrations for major magazines and newspapers. It’s a hard-knock life . . .
uh, you may have missed this but I’m not disagreeing with you (see above message).
Although if there was ever an undead zombie strip that is even more unkillable than Jason from the “Friday the 13th” movies, it’s Peanuts. I wish the syndicate would stop making its rotting corpse dance for the kiddies now that Sparky Schulz Has Laid Down His Pen.
also, if I can pull out one bit of your remarks:
I’m not sure what you meant by this. Just because I do the writing and not the drawing, how does that make it any less of my project? The original idea was mine, after all. Anyway, I could do this without her help - I’m a fair cartoonist, although not nearly as good as her, and let’s face it: one glance at the comics page will show that one doesn’t have to be a particularly talented artist to have a successful strip. Look at “the Quigmans”…that guy must draw with his feet.
I see in your profile that you’re an artist yourself, which might explain why you seem to rate the writing as secondary to the cartooning. And I admit that as a writer, my viewpoint may be similarly distorted in the other direction.
To sum up, I concede that you have a point. I will go ahead and start scripting the strips and hope that she will get to work too. You can stop doing your Dr. Laura impression now.
Congrats on the thousandth post Cheffy now come over and let me Smurf you in my 1000th post thread.
The comic idea sounds good. I used to draw comic books albeit very poorly. They never failed to make people laugh. Recently, since South Park came out, my comic is starting to seem less shocking than it was originally. Too bad I never tried to publish it before becuase it would have seemed original then. (FTR, it was about a retard superhero and his animate invention…no other details will be given.)
If this is actually the reason, the answer is to try to explain to her that editors don’t ever reject people. They just reject pieces of paper with markings on them.
In other words, rejection of your writing is nothing to fear, but rather something to embrace. Try to get as many rejections as you can. The more, the better. Each rejection puts you one step closer to your first sale.
John Campbell once said, “The main reason why editors don’t buy most stories is simple: editors never buy stories that are sitting on your closet shelf at home.” This applies to any writing or art.
And if you fail totally, what have you lost? A little bit of your time. No one’s going to come by and slap you silly, or point fingers and laugh at you (well, not to your face ). You’re not standing up on national TV; if you want, your wife doesn’t even have to mention she did the stuff. As long as she has fun doing it, why not give it a shot?
Failure is not a crime. And, who knows, maybe – just maybe – you might strike gold. People plunk down money on lottery tickets with a lot less chance of success (not that success in writing is a matter of pure chance, of course).
)
). You’re not standing up on national TV; if you want, your wife doesn’t even have to mention she did the stuff. As long as she has fun doing it, why not give it a shot?