Freelance Cartooning
(Page 3 of 6)
January/February 1970
By the Mother Earth News editors
Merchants can always use good eye-catching cartoons in their newspaper ads, posters, store windows, hand bills and all the stuff they give away free such as blotters, mailing pieces, etc. You just have to be enough of a go-getter to sell them on using your stuff.
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Do you know the comic strip, TUMBLEWEEDS? It's drawn by a fellow named Tom Ryan. Tom lives in Muncie, Indiana and I've known him a long time. When he was a beginning cartoonist (and that was just a few years ago) he sold one newspaper in Muncie the idea of using a little cartoon character, BENNY BEANS. This little guy was featured in the paper all the time: When the United Fund was having a drive, BENNY BEANS would be shown holding a poster or a collection can. During the yearly Paint Up-Fix Up-Clean Up campaign, BENNY BEANS would be seen sweeping the streets with a broom . . . and on and on and on.
Tom was too clever to stop with that. He sold a local hardware store the idea of having another cartoon character, JIFFY JACKSON, in all their ads. And, eventually, Tom landed a syndicate for TUMBLEWEEDS and graduated into the Big Time . . .but his local cartoon work helped keep his family eating until he finally Made It.
You might think that Tom had the cartoon business around Muncie all sewed up when he was doing the local work. Not so! A number of sign painters were doing the usual cartoons on trucks, billboards, buildings, etc.; another cartoonist occasionally contributed an editorial drawing for a second paper in town; I did some cartoons for WLBC-TV in Muncie; and a housewife successfully launched herself into a seasonal business decorating store windows with water color cartoons of Santa Claus and other Christmas scenes. I understand she still has a long list of regular customers for this service and she earns several hundred dollars every December this way.
We'll go into the working methods of this idea in more detail in a later issue if anyone is interested, but about all it involves is chalking the basic layout on the outside of the plate glass windows of a store . . . and then going inside and doing the finish art work in show card colors. This is a little tricky because you're working backward . . . but, if you do the finish art on the outside of the window, rain and small boys will soon mess it up.
One of the best ways to sell your work in the beginning is to offer to take your pay out in trade from the merchants you do work for. They like the idea and will often use your stuff this way when they won't pay for it in cash.
George Hartman, publisher of CARTOON WORLD, says he always had 1,000 cans in his pantry throughout the depression just because he took goods in trade in return for printing a small town "shopper"on a mimeograph machine. We'll give you a more complete report on that idea later, too.
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