Archive for May, 2007:
A Note…
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I’ve begun adding a list of other blogs and/or websites that may be of interest to cartoonophiles. It appears at the end of the blog, or the beginning, depending on how you look at it, since the most recent entries show up here at the top, a situation I’m still trying to remedy since I’d rather it was the other way around. Anyway, you can check the list there for the time being.
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The Day after Wednesday
Some of you want to know who might have been sitting at that lunch table I mentioned on those long-ago Wednesdays. (There was also a Tuesday group composed of some of the older artists, as I recall. For some reason they came into the magazine a day earlier than our group. Maybe one of the cartoonists reading this has a better recollection of that situation).
Our Leader on Wednesdays was Jack Ziegler, who most of us would follow anywhere. Roz Chast was usually in attendance, as were Bob Mankoff, myself, and Bill Woodman. Other guests included Michael Maslin and Liza Donnelly, before they got married to one another, Sam Gross, Peter Steiner, and other drop-ins, including a few memorable visits by George Booth. (I know I’m leaving out a bunch of people, so if any of them are reading this, feel free to fire back outraged comments. My apologies in advance).
The restaurants would change from time to time at a whim or, in some cases because they went out of business. We were a little boistrous and in some places got disapproving looks from nearby diners and staff. (I recall one day when a pat of butter was launched across the table by one of our number, either by design or accident, and landed on the lens of another guest’s glasses. Not something likely seen among the wits at the famous New Yorker Round Table of yore). When a favorite restaurant went under, I often wondered if we had in any way contributed to it’s demise.
They Call it Wednesday
Not at all like those Wednesdays I spoke of back when I used to hang out with the cartoonists in NYC. Much less exciting now that I’m not going in to the magazine every week. I used to get all worked up, anticipating events at the magazine and the lunch we often had afterward. Usually a bunch of us would descend on a midtown restaurant and get a big table. We’d trade stories and sometimes show our batches to one another to get some feedback. I was amazed by some of my hero’s weekly roughs. Unbelievably to me at the time, not all of their drawings were outrageously funny, though I couldn’t help but notice how good the good ones were. It was an honor and a treat to see their work, bad or good, and a kind of nervous pleasure to show mine. I got a laugh or two sometimes, and also good advice: “Change that nun into a penguin”, or something, which would transform the cartoon, changing it from a dud to a winner.
The Morning After
OK, so I didn’t get lucky yesterday. I CAN HANDLE IT! I’m fine, really.
Rejection is a big subject among magazine cartoonists. All those stories about getting so many rejection slips you can use them to wallpaper your studio, etc.
One of the older guys told me when I first came to New York about his early experiences with rejection. There were several magazines then that used cartoons, and the guys (They were almost all guys, then) made the rounds one day a week on “Look Day”, dragging their weekly efforts around in big, black portfolios or stuffed into manilla envelopes, from one cartoon editor to the next. The guy told me he went up to the New Yorker offices and was allowed to go in to see the cartoon editor, maybe for the first time. He sat there when his turn came, sweating it out in the editor’s office in a chair in front of the the man’s desk. (An arrangement still practiced for in-person looks with Bob). The editor then was a crusty old guy with no pity in his heart. He glanced at the guy’s work and gave it all back to him. My friend said he went out of the office, down the elevator, and outside the building, then promptly threw up all over 42nd Street.
When I got to New York the arrangement was still the same at the magazine, but it was just about the only magazine left in town that used cartoons, which had been designed out of other publications by art directors who didn’t want our nasty little black and white drawings interrupting the visual flow of their new, slick layouts. The deal was, you went up to the offices on Wednesdays at around 11 am. When you stepped off the elevator, you found yourself in a small, ugly room with florescent lighting and a couch. At the business end of the room was a glass window with a slot at the bottom and a hole in the center to speak through, like an old movie theater ticket-booth. Inside sat a stern-looking woman with a telephone and a typewriter. Beside her window was a door. If you were like me, a non-contract artist, the procedure was to slide your manilla envelope of roughs through the slot. The woman would wordlessly take the envelope and slide your last week’s envelope back out. Inside were usually your roughs from the previous week and a rejection-slip, though occasionally some of us would get notification of a sale, which took the form of a small penciled circle in the upper right-hand corner of the drawing which had gotten the OK. Contract artists and other regular contributers were acknowledged and allowed through the door into the Inner Offices, a process accompanied by a loud buzz and a pronounced click.
I had sold one cartoon to the magazine before moving to New York from the West Coast. One Wednesday when I was stepping off the elevator with my manilla envelope, I encountered the cartoonist I mentioned above, the one who had told me the story about throwing up on 42nd Street. He said, “You’ve sold a cartoon to the magazine, right? You have the right to go in”. He then disappeared into the elevator, leaving me there alone in the ugly room, clutching my envelope and trying to decide whether to take the chance. I approached the window and started to slide my envelope through the slot, then stopped. I spoke before I knew it, asking the woman if I could be buzzed in, please. Without looking up from her work or appearing to even move, she pushed a button and I heard the buzzer go off next to me, sounding stern and impatient. Now was the time! I went through and the door clicked shut behind me.
I found myself in a yellowish, dimly-lighted hallway. People came and went, most carrying folders and manuscripts. I thought I recognized some of them, who I imagined to be famous writers and editors. There were framed cartoons on the walls and as I recall, some Thurber drawings which had been sketched directly onto one. At the end of the hall was an open door, from which I swear I saw an unearthly, greenish glow emanating. As I approached it, I heard laughter and conversation. Suddenly I was there at the doorway. Inside I saw about a dozen famous cartoonists sitting on couches and chairs, chatting and gesturing. They stopped briefly when they saw me, then continued. I knew some of them and sat down with Jack Ziegler and Roz Chast, a couple of the newer artists at the time. I think Bob Mankoff was there that day, too, at the time just another struggling cartoonist trying to sell his wares. Everyone was full of nervous energy and jokes, but I was pretty much frozen with terror. One by one each artist was called into the adjacent office to show their work to Lee Lorenz, the then cartoon editor. When everyone but me had been in and had left or were leaving, Lee stepped into the room and looked around. His gaze landed on me, who he didn’t recognize. “Have I seen you?” he said, probably thinking “Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?” I replied “No.” He motioned me inside and I sat in The Chair across from him as he went through my stuff. He recognized my work, if not me. He held a few of my roughs and handed the rest back to me, then very politely said, “We’re very busy here on Wednesdays. Please check with the receptionist from now on.” We shook hands (Easy for me, since mine was shaking already) and I left. I went back down the hall, through the door into the ugly room, and down the elevator. I managed not to lose my breakfast on 42nd street, but it took about an hour or so of circling the block before I could untie the knot in my stomach.
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(A comment here from Julia Suits, which didn’t get submitted directly to the blog and came via email instead:)
“Right out of the gate your posts are 100% engrossing. I will enjoy this! You made my day, opening this door.
-Julia “
Thankyou, Julia!
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Also a response from Charles Barsotti, who tells me the heartless editor I described in this post was actually not a bad guy at all. In his experience, Mr. Geraghty was “very supportive and warm”. I stand corrected!
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Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday
The Rough…
Hopefully, those of you interested will see the final result soon in the magazine.
Exciting, isn’t it?
And now I really must return to the dizzying weekly cycle of cartoon activity, starting by searching my mental in-box for ideas.
I can see why those old guys used ideas from elsewhere. It came as a surprise to me back in the day, when I first started submitting to the magazine, that a lot of the the giants of the profession were furnished ideas, either by the magazine itself or from gag-writers. The magazine actually bought a few of my initial attempts at cartoons as ideas only, wisely rejecting my bad drawing and purchasing only the idea part (For a pittance) which they then assigned to one of their contract artists. In my case, I sold about a dozen of those, most of which ended up as Charles Addams cartoons. I had to admit the results were a million times better than my initial attempts, but I was very disappointed that they had rejected my drawings. (Of course, they eventually made that up to me).
Monday, Monday…
Welcome!
It’s Monday. I’m looking at my current batch of ten “rough roughs” this morning, which with luck by the end of the day will be full-fledged rough drawings which I’ll then send off to The Magazine (The New Yorker) for their consideration. The mysterious process of selection there starts with Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor, and goes God knows where after that. It all ends in David Remnick’s office, according to legend, where the final selections are made each week by David and Bob. I get the news regarding OKs (Sales) via email these days, usually on Thursdays. If I haven’t sold, I don’t get an email at all, which makes me a little harder to get along with for a day or so. If I do get an OK (or more than one, in some cases) I do up a finished drawiing in ink and wash and FedEx it to the magazine. Either way, I start working on the next week’s batch of rough roughs by Tuesday, unless I’m procrastinating or writing in my blog or practicing the saxophone.
This is the weekly routine, which has gone along pretty much the same way over a period of many years.
In my blog I plan to share with those interested a bit of NYer cartooning history and some of my own, including an occasional cartoon.
Right now, I really should be drawing.