Jeremy Nguyen–The Cartoon Life Talk

In January, I attended a Comic Artist Workshop meetup featuring Jeremy Nguyen.

From Jeremy's website: I am a New Yorker cartoonist, illustrator, humor writer, and co-producer of a reading series called Panels to the People. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York. 

Here are some things I learned:

• When starting to contribute cartoons to the The New Yorker, it's best to go in person
• Helpful to go in with someone who can vouch for you
• When he first submitted, he came up with 100 ideas (10 ideas submitted over 10 weeks)
• When starting, send as many as possible. The magazine wants regulars, wants readers to establish a relationship with regularly appearing cartoonists.
• If no magazine purchases the cartoons he submits, he uploads them to Instagram
• He didn't sell any from his first batch
• He sold his first after three weeks
• You don't know when your purchased cartoon is going to be printed
• The New Yorker buys about 20 cartoons per week. They have hundreds available that they've bought.
• He draws each cartoon in  an hour
• His goal is to sell one cartoon per month
• He also get some royalties from Cartoon Bank
• In order to become a New Yorker magazine staff cartoonist, you need to sell 25 cartoons per year
• He spends two days per week exclusively on New Yorker cartoons. He does 5-6 in that period. He writes all day for one day then spends the next day editing.
• The New Yorker accepts collaborations
• He feels that the new cartoon editor likes surrealism, surprise, and subjects that are topical or are about New York City
• Lots of the cartoonists aren't artist, they're comedians
• Many people struggle with creating single panel cartoons
• Illustrating for board games pay well. It's a significant industry. Board games make up the majority of Kickstarter campaigns.
• Draw all the time, even if the drawings are bad. Constantly make observations.
• The New Yorker wants to buy a voice, a different perspective.
• Think about what you're angry about to inspire your cartoons
• The New Yorker has first printing rights for 90 days for a purchased cartoon, then you can sell your cartoon elsewhere

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Designing a Logo–Step 9: Tweaking the Final Designs

Now it's smooth sailing!

The first step of designing a logo was research.

The second step was word associations to brainstorm ideas.

The third step was thumbnail sketches.

The fourth step was designs in black and white.

The fifth step was designs in black and white feedback and revisions.

The sixth step was designs in black and white feedback and revisions part 2.

The seventh step was a disagreement in direction.

The eighth step was a breakthrough.

Now we were back on track!

The client liked both designs with a preference for the stone version. They requested some minor tweaks of the labyrinth openings and the placement of the bricks to accentuate the labyrinth openings. The client also chose a typeface for the tagline.

These were the tweaks:

First attempt tweaks.

Second attempt tweaks.

The differences between the first and second attempt tweaks are visually minor but they were important to the client. That's all that matters, pleasing the client.

The final tweaks were approved and the choice was made to go with the brick version.

Next we talked about how the logo would be applied across multiple areas (letterhead, business cards, website, clothing, etc.) and we talked about color. We all agreed that earth tones would be best and the client wanted to be sure that the color choices would not become dated.

In the next installment, I'll show you the logo's first color choices and how the colors were applied.

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1 Mastered Skill vs. 3 Average Skills

Robert Herjavec, Dilbert and Scott Adams

In my continuing quest to reach my potential, be productive and live my best life, I'm constantly absorbing self-improvement books, videos, blogs and podcasts. 

One of my favorite self-improvement leaders is Robin Sharma. I've been following his advice for years and even paid for some of his material.

So it was interesting when the YouTube algorithm brought my attention to a motivational video of Robert Herjavec. I don't watch Shark Tank so I'd never heard of him before. The title of the video was "It Will Make You Rich" so of course I watched it.



My ears perked up when Herjavec said, "Nobody makes you wealthy because you're OK at something. The world does not reward mediocrity nor does it reward average. It only rewards exceptional. So you got to find that one thing that you're good at and you've got to become great at it."

What struck me about that opinion is that it's similar to Sharma who talks a lot about becoming "world-class."

But what also struck me about it is that it's in contradiction to the opinion of Dilbert creator Scott Adams. In his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Adams explains his success formula: Good + Good > Excellent. Adams explains that each skill you acquire doubles your odds of success and that with a few exceptions (like athletes and entertainers, for example). He presents himself as an example of "the power of leveraging multiple mediocre skills." 

And the essential aspect of Adams's belief is that by you simply believing that each new skill will double your odds of success, you trick your brain to be more proactive about acquiring the new skills.

My opinion is that both approaches are valuable depending on the person. The master approach works for those people who have a gift that they can then improve upon: Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, Quentin Tarantino, etc. 

The skills combination approach, however, I think is better for us mere mortals. For example, I have moderate drawing skills, moderate graphic design skills and moderate storytelling skills. It makes sense for my success to combine those skills to create something of value instead of trying to be the next Glen Keane.

For those of us whose goals include creating animated films and comics, consider taking several of your average skills and see how you can combine them to create excellence.

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Moebius's "Arzach" Animated—Page 2, Panel 3

Original panel three, page two of "Arzach."

I started this project by animating the Arzach splash page.

Then I animated the first panel on the second page.

Then the second panel on the second page.

Then things got a little tricky. Doing the top row of panels was straightforward:

Top panels, page two of "Arzach."

But continuing with the individual-panel-reveal approach with which I had started meant removing the top panels from the camera frame while revealing only the bottom panels:

Bottom panels, page two of "Arzach."

Once this was determined, I made a new Composition in my After Effects file. The current Composition had the animation from the page one splash page and the first two panels from page two. There were many layers and a lot happening. Putting the next panels in a new Composition would be helpful in preventing confusion.

In Photoshop, I made a layer of the panel frame, separated Arzach from the background rocks, recreated the hatching in the rocks, separated the guy at the top of the rocks and the sky.

In After Effects, the panel frame, Arzach and his cape, the guy and the sky were animated:

This came out as I had hoped, mirroring the placement on the page of the actual book. 

Next, panels four and five to complete the page.

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Gamal Hennessy—The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing Pt. 2

In October, 2019, I attended a Comic Artist Workshop meetup featuring Gamal Hennessy.

This is the first part of what I learned from his talk. Below is the second part:

• "How will readers get the comic"?
• choose idea
• set goals
• own the idea
• get money
• build team
• find market
• determine distribution
• "How will you produce the comic"?
• What form will it take?
• web. 1 panel-20 pages
• single issue. 20-24 pages
• trade paperback. Collection of 4-8 comics
• graphic novel. 96-192 pages
• anthology
• When will you publish?
• Define production schedule
• Never deliver a book late.
• Ensure there are redundancies for team communication
• "How will you inform the market about the comic"?
• communicating only with your audience
• for advertising—
• cover art
• pedigree (of the creator[s])
• hook
• description
• purchasing information
• find the biggest voices for target market (influencers) to use for advertising
• press releases to comic book press and comics adjacent press
• can use social media paid advertising once exhausted free social media
• get the word out in the right channels at the right time
• "How will you sell the comic?"
• revenue with selling books
• monetization
• sponsors
• affiliates
• now is the time to crowdfund
• will use sales funnel
• social media → web → mailing list → free content → digital issues →  digital graphic novel → print graphic novel → merchandise
• "How will you divide the revenue?"
• outstanding liabilities
• division of profits
• recoupment
• royalties
• taxes
• "What happens after you publish the book?"
• merger
• sale
• IPO
• continue indie publishing
• freelance
• creator-owned
• media outside comics
• will need to determine what happens to the comic and company after you're gone

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Watercolor Painting for Presidents' Day

Now that I look at it, the shadow looks more like blood. As though I'm suggesting the country is bleeding…

One of my reasons for doing this quick-ish paintings is that I tend to overthink…EVERYTHING!

It’s the reason that I can’t sleep. It’s the reason why I’m still learning how to draw at age 50. It’s the reason I’ve produced so little work. I suffer from analysis paralysis. And perfectionism.

By telling myself that I’m going to design and execute a painted piece for a specific day forces me to toss the perfectionism and lack of complete knowledge away and to just make the damn thing.

To that end, I made the above piece for Presidents' Day.

BUT…it's not what I originally wanted to do. Here's the sketch of what I really wanted to do:

Original idea for watercolor cartoon for Presidents' Day, dated 2/2/20

It covered several of the creation bases that I want to cover: cartoon drawing, single panel idea creation and painting.

This idea was unusual. It came fully formed late on the night of February 2nd and the biggest question was which President I was going to use for "Good." I settled on Jimmy Carter.

But I quickly ran into some obstacles. I've never been good at caricature. It takes a lot of sketches for me to get to a likeness. I didn't spend enough time on the sketches, searching for the best likeness.

I started my sketches of Carter. They began poorly and improved but at the rate it was taking me to find the likeness, I wouldn't get it done in time for the holiday. Not only did I need to draw this whole thing but paint it, too.

First attempts at Jimmy Carter caricatures

Second attempts at Jimmy Carter caricatures

Third attempts at Jimmy Carter caricatures

So I needed a new, much easier idea.

A Google search of "Presidents' Day" provided all of the cliché images. But that's what I needed, something I could do easily that communicated the subject clearly.

I settled on the hat at top.

Just getting paint onto paper in the right place is a challenge. As I said in the painting's caption, the shadow is looking more like blood which wasn't my intention. I'll have to get better with doing shadows. I'm just satisfied that I did something.

There will be more watercolor paintings and a how-to coming soon.

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Watercolor Painting for Valentine's Day

I'm trying to do more work with color and painting. Due to time constraints, I have to ease into it. I thought the best way to do that is to make paintings for the holidays and special occasions throughout the year. I missed New Year's Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day but I was ready for Valentine's Day! 

Over the years, I've purchased EVERY type of water-soluble paint in existence… 


So many paints!

…watercolor tubes, watercolor pans, watercolor pencils, watercolor liquids, gouache, acrylics and poster colors. Phew! 


And I have used almost NONE of them. 😬 Oopsie! 

But that's ALL changing in 2020! I've got my jars and brushes ready to start painting! I'm starting with watercolor and will eventually tackle the other media. I'm especially curious about the poster colors since that's the paint used in those gorgeous anime background painting.

I had several of these large watercolor pads originally to paint the backgrounds for my Universe of Trouble project:

Watercolor pad

These practice paintings were done on the paper above:

Practice painting

Then I used these blank, watercolor paper greeting cards to do the final (these were on backorder so I guess they're popular):

I had tried cutting and folding the pad paper to make cards but the fold was never clean. So it made sense to get paper that was already made to be folding cards.

This card's design was modest due to, again, time but it's also a first start. I'm happy with the results and so was my valentine!❤️

The next post will be a watercolor painting for Presidents Day. 

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Gamal Hennessy—The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing Pt. 1

In October, 2019, I attended a Comic Artist Workshop meetup featuring Gamal Hennessy.

From his Creative Contract Consulting website: "I am an experienced entertainment transactions attorney with an expertise in comic book publishing and comic IP licensing. During my career, I’ve represented major corporate clients including AfterShock, Amazon, Mad Cave Studios, and Marvel, as well as independent entertainment professionals and independent publishers."

Hennessy is currently working on a book titled "The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing" and this meetup touched on many of the topics he will detail in his book.

Here's the first part of what I learned from his talk:

• The system for publishing comic books is pre-production, production and post-production. These steps are not necessarily linear, they often overlap.
• Independent comic book publishing is not the same as freelance or creator-owned 
• Ask yourself, "Why do you want to publish comics?"
• Ask, "What's the best media for my story?"
• Comics are more viral than other forms of media; can branch out into other media
• Answering these will help overcome challenges
• Ask, "What is my ultimate success and where do I want to go with it?"
• "Do I have time?" It's a lifestyle choice.
• "What is my comic about?
• Comics ideas fall under these 3 areas: original, licensed (legal right given to the creator) and public domain
• Who owns the idea?
• collaborators
• employers
• third parties
• Make sure any idea (intellectual property) you have is wholly yours
• Only make the idea that you love, you will be spending a lot of time on it. Need a connection for the process.
• "How will I be able to pay for publishing?"
• Investment comes before revenue
• Investment is a risk
• Comics are a luxury investment
• Don't use money that don't have
• Costs:
• initial costs
• operating
• creative
• marketing
• printing
• distribution
• advertising
• Investors only care about the value of the comic
• Crowdfunding not part of the indie process at this stage since only have a copyright but no product
• "How will I protect my idea and investment? What professionals are needed?
• Accountant to protect investment
• Editor to protect idea
• Lawyer to protect you
• Need to form a legal entity?
• liability protection
• tax advantages
• "Who is going to publish the comic?"
• In addition to creative roles, the following need to be addressed—
• distribution
• legal
• accounting
• advertising
• marketing
• printing
• publishing
• sales
• Always make a contract with everyone who works on the project
• collaboration agreement (collaborators own in part the product) or work for hire
• "Who is going to read my comic?"
• 5-20% of time and effort should be spent connecting with target market.
• Must market!
• Understand who is and isn't target market
• not for everyone, all comic readers or all superhero comic book readers
• Define ideal reader
• use demographics and psychographics
• determine the genre
• Determine generation appealing to
• iGen: born 1996-mid 2000's
• Millenials: 1981-1996
• GenX: 1965-1980
• Boomers: 1946-1964
• Silent: 1928-1945
• Determine the competition
• ideal reader comparison
• SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• How to expand target market?
• Barriers to entry
• other media competition
• relative price
• isolated distribution
• perception stigmas
• established patterns
• the story has to be strong enough to surmount these challenges
• How to build a relationship with my target market? 
• give them what they want
• use hooks to create true fans
• the connection between the story and what people want
• Off-line marketing is brand marketing
• comic shops 
• conventions
• potential market locations
• word of mouth
• go where the market is

The rest of Hennessy's talk will be in a second post.

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Designing a Logo–Step 8: Breakdown…Breakthrough

The first step of designing a logo was research.

The second step was word associations to brainstorm ideas.

The third step was thumbnail sketches.

The fourth step was designs in black and white.

The fifth step was designs in black and white feedback and revisions.

The sixth step was designs in black and white feedback and revisions part 2.

The seventh step was a disagreement in direction.

The good news is that my response to the client's desire to go in a different and potentially disastrous direction was taken extremely well.

I knew things were going to be OK when I saw that the subject of the response email was "There is no one like you!!!!!"

Phew, this may turn out all right!

The client agreed with me that the tagline should not be the logo. But what really helped the project move forward is that the client came up with a solution for combining the preferred labyrinth logo idea with the addition of the tagline. They provided helpful and specific sketches of what they were looking for. It was also decided that a conference call with all parties would help to ensure that we were all of the same mindset.

This set of revisions was the first to take longer than I expected. It was decided that to make the labyrinth look less like a target by replacing the clean edges with rougher ones. This made sense since the church itself has a labyrinth on its property and the bumpy edges feel more organic. To further distinguish the logo from Target's, a version of the logo with individual bricks was made.

For this version, we talked color for the first time! The client wanted some kind of green, in a variety of shades. And although I presented the tagline with my personal preference of typeface, I also included a variety of alternative options.

After combining all of that input from the client, I presented these revised designs:

In the next installment, we get closer to settling on a final design.

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