Tag: greeting cards

Recycled Paper Greetings Responds

andertoons4 Comments

I got this comment from Recycled Paper Greetings’ Steve Gruhn today. (You might want to read the original post to get up to speed…)

Hey Mark,

I’m the author of that rejection letter. You failed to mention that you have been sending our company your cartoons for years. I’ve sent you many previous letters asking you not send anymore designs in a “nice way”. I said that I didn’t think your cards were a good fit for our company. It seemed as though nothing was getting through. I actually figured we were on a distribution list of yours and they were always going to keep coming. Sorry that it had to be so harsh.

-Steve

Hey Steve,

You got me.

I’m a persistent guy. I sent Recycled stuff for a long time, even after a lot of rejection and “you’re not a good fit” notes, because that’s what good cartoonists do.

95% of the material a cartoonist sends out get rejected, and that’s if you’re good.

Here’s the thing – if you’re going to accept submissions, accept them. Sure it’s annoying, but I’m sure you’ve discovered some profitable talent that way.

If the incoming slew of cartoons has significantly gummed the machinery, stop accepting submissions. To my knowledge neither Hallmark nor American Greetings accept submissions, and I’ve never sent them any.

In any case, you don’t have to worry about any more submissions from me.

Mark

P.S. – For the record, I’ve been submitting to greeting cards for about two years. So “years” is technically correct, but just barely. Also, I don’t recall any “nice” stop submitting letters outside your normal rejection form letters, but even now I get rejected an awful lot, so I’ll have to take your word for it.

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Rejection Is Still Hard Sometimes

andertoons16 Comments

I have cultivated an extremely thick skin for rejection after years in sales and cartooning, but I got a rejection letter today that, for some reason, really cut me to the quick.

Recycled1

Here’s the bad part:

Recycled2

I’m OK with the standard form letter, but the fact that they took the time to beg me in handwriting to please stop sending them my submissions hurt more than I’m used to.

Greeting cards have been a good extra stream of revenue for me in the past year or so, and I thought Recycled might be a good fit.

Guess not…

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Andertoons At Tower Records

andertoons1 Comment

I was renting my tux for the Reubens the other day, and browsed around a Tower Records in the same strip mall for a bit.

Not to sound arrogant, but by this point I’m pretty used to seeing my cartoons in magazines and newspapers, but greeting cards are still pretty new for me, so seeing some of my cards in a rack for the first time warranted some cell phone pics.

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I gotta wonder what the surly goth teen stocking the nearby magazines was thinking while I snapped these.

Anyway, always cool to see your cartoons in a new venue.

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Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!

andertoons

Part of being a cartoonist is drawing holiday cartoons during the Spring and/or Summer months.

Generally magazines, greeting cards and such are working at least 6 months ahead if not more, so I get to ponder jokes about Santa Claus while I’m getting the grill ready to go for the season.

It’s weird, but you get used to it.

Recently I’ve been selling more and more greeting cards, and unlike most of my gag markets, they require color. I normally re-ink the cartoon from scratch rather than trying to remove my gray shading in Photoshop. I find it comes out a lot cleaner.

Anyway, a card company bought some of my older Thanksgiving stuff and I ran into sort of a weird little problem. Here’s the original art as I submitted it:

1803Old

(You can go here for the gag…)

This one is from much earlier in my cartooning career before my current style had set in.

Note the lack of noses on some characters, and the awkward nose experimentation on the others. The whole thing is kinda on a goofy angle too. And why I chose to cut the door on the left at that conspicuous angle I don’t quite know.

Anyway, here’s the problem: The greeting card company liked the cartoon and bought it, but I don’t draw that way anymore. Do I redraw it in my current style, or redo what I’d done before, even though I’m not happy with the art?

In the end I decided to keep the same angles and basic composition, but updated the characters and line to my current style. Here’s the line art:

1803New

And here it is in color:

1803Color

Not bad in the end, but it does make you rethink sending out older art. Sure it’s salable, but do I want the hassle?

I know some cartoonists go back and redo older cartoons in their current styles, but, honestly, once I’m done with a cartoon I don’t even like revisiting it to color it for a paying client.

Anyway, here’s hoping they like the final product…

See some thanksgiving cartoons at Andertoons…

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Color Comparisons

andertoons2 Comments

I recently sold a cartoon for greeting card usage that has been published previously in Reader’s Digest.

Of course the card will be in color, but the size I usually work in for the Digest is much smaller than the final greeting card, so I had to do the color again from scratch.

Just for fun, I made sure I didn’t look at the original Digest color (finished 11/14/04 according to the file info), just to see how different the greeting card version (finished today) might be.

Turns out I’m just not that creative when it comes to color (click to enlarge)…

Eastertoon

Digest on the left, card on the right.

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