With 39 hilarious panels of Blood Culture drawn by my new partner Gerry, I was already writing my resignation letter to my boss. In my head, I was a working cartoonist, with my comic strip running in 2000 newspapers across the world. I had it made. In my head.
To meet my future I reduced on a photocopier 36 of the panels to the standard comic strip size found in most newspapers and physically cut and pasted them onto sheets of paper, which I then photocopied for a cleaner look. I dashed off a quick cover letter (it began snarkily: "To whomever opens the mail") and mailed the first packet in September of 1997.
How convinced was I that Blood Culture was one of the funniest and most original comic strips in history and that relative fame and fortune (we're talking comic strips here) were mine for the asking? I sent out only one submission. I was certain that I would enjoy the same great fortune as Far Side creator Gary Larson, who was picked up by the first syndicate that reviewed his work (see the preface to The PreHistory of the Far Side for the whole story). As I mailed the submission packet I knew my dreams would come true as soon as someone read the panels.
Two things I didn't factor in. One, that someone might not like Blood Culture (I still have a difficult time admitting this); and two, that it takes two to three months to get a response to a submission. Needless to say that that first submission failed to impress the syndicate's editors and it was November before I found out.
Usually rejection gets me down. I have always had the tendency to slink back to my burrow after being rejected, cursing my rejector and playing the wounded animal. I had always been a wuss about things like that. But not this time, not with my baby, my Blood Culture.
Undaunted, I sent out another packet right away. A few months later I received another rejection. So I sent out another packet. A rejection. Another packet. Another rejection. I submitted to five syndicates in all. Had I not been so confident that Blood Culture was freaking awesome I might have sent out simultaneous submissions and gotten all the rejections back before Christmas of 1997. Instead I discovered Blood Culture's complete lack of marketability in December of 1998, when the last syndicate turned me down. More than a year gone.
That's when I had to admit that Blood Culture might not be the instant success I had hoped it would be. Through all the rejections I annoyed Gerry with requests for more panels. Weeks and weeks went by and the panels never came. Months and months went by and the panels never came. Every time I pestered Gerry he apologized for not drawing any more panels and promised to draw some more. During the time between the first rush of panels and the last rejection letter I wrote hundreds and hundreds of lines. I did the only thing I could do: write lines. But for Gerry, something had gotten in the way of his drawing Blood Culture.
His life. His life got in the way. Gerry had a wife and kids and a mortgage and car payments and yard work and hockey practice (he played on a team) and his own painting and a boatload of other responsibilities that I only now can I appreciate and respect. Then I was living with my girlfriend in a rented apartment in Hoboken that was 30 minutes from work, and the only things we cared about was where were we going to eat that night and what we were going to do on that weekend. Now I'm a husband, a father, a homeowner, and a self-appointed jack of all trades. I get it now.
Still, back then I wanted to keep the momentum going, even without new panels coming in. So in 1999 I did two things: I blanketed the independent weekly newspaper world with simultaneous Blood Culture submissions and I registered www.bloodculture.com. And I also got to see Blood Culture published both in print and online.
Next time, part IV.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Origin of Edgar, Pt. II
I had just drawn the strangest thing, a red blood cell named Edgar standing on a beach. I loved the idea immediately and saw in it the realization of a childhood dream: to create a damn funny comic strip. But I possessed the artistic equivalent of two left feet. How was I going to draw this thing?
I needed some help, I knew the person to enlist. So the next day I went to work early and left the drawing on the chair of a coworker, an art director named Gerry. I had known Gerry for a couple of years and we shared the same outlook on life, best characterized as "grim." I knew he'd enjoy Edgar.
I waited for hours for Gerry to call and tell me what I genius I was. The call never came. Was it possible that he didn't liked Edgar at all? It appeared so. But later in the day, I came back to my office after a meeting and found this on my chair, sketched on a piece of cardboard:
Gerry's drawing didn't exactly match my idea of what Edgar should be--the non-cell adversary, for one thing--but I was elated. Gerry had appreciated my idea enough to draw his own version; he even aped my infantile style. (That small gorilla picture near the top left? That was Gerry's mock-up of a banana brand sticker from the Simpsons, Gorilla's Choice.) Gerry was the first person to take one of my ridiculous ideas seriously, and for that I am still grateful.
I ran to his office and we spent the better part of an hour talking about Edgar and laughing at the absurd premise of the strip. We agreed on the general tone and point of view of the strip, that Edgar is a Ziggy-like sad sack who feels put upon and is powerless to correct it, is pessimistic yet wishes for a happier future, and is as self-aware as a drunken frat boy. In short, he was us.
We started writing gags immediately, and once we did the ideas came by the dozens. I was writing constantly. Every conversation I had, every interaction I witnessed, was inspiration for another panel. We traded our best lines during lunch and challenged each other to write the most ludicrous scene imaginable. Within a month we had hundreds of present-tense lines written down. During that time I came up with the name of the strip: Blood Culture.
We pared down the ever-growing list to a few gems and Gerry set out to draw them. In a few weeks he came up with thirty-nine panels, and I thought every one was perfect. Even the ones that didn't exactly work--we were still gaining our footing--were expertly drawn and I loved them. I was excited enough to put together submission packets to the big comic strip syndicates. I believed that Blood Culture was destined to appear in thousands of newspapers worldwide and that within months we'd be trading in our advertising jobs for writing and drawing Blood Culture full-time.
That was not to be. And not just because the syndicates weren't interested. It was also because it would be another four years before the fortieth Blood Culture was drawn, and by then Gerry and I had parted ways and David had come aboard.
I needed some help, I knew the person to enlist. So the next day I went to work early and left the drawing on the chair of a coworker, an art director named Gerry. I had known Gerry for a couple of years and we shared the same outlook on life, best characterized as "grim." I knew he'd enjoy Edgar.
I waited for hours for Gerry to call and tell me what I genius I was. The call never came. Was it possible that he didn't liked Edgar at all? It appeared so. But later in the day, I came back to my office after a meeting and found this on my chair, sketched on a piece of cardboard:
Gerry's drawing didn't exactly match my idea of what Edgar should be--the non-cell adversary, for one thing--but I was elated. Gerry had appreciated my idea enough to draw his own version; he even aped my infantile style. (That small gorilla picture near the top left? That was Gerry's mock-up of a banana brand sticker from the Simpsons, Gorilla's Choice.) Gerry was the first person to take one of my ridiculous ideas seriously, and for that I am still grateful.
I ran to his office and we spent the better part of an hour talking about Edgar and laughing at the absurd premise of the strip. We agreed on the general tone and point of view of the strip, that Edgar is a Ziggy-like sad sack who feels put upon and is powerless to correct it, is pessimistic yet wishes for a happier future, and is as self-aware as a drunken frat boy. In short, he was us.
We started writing gags immediately, and once we did the ideas came by the dozens. I was writing constantly. Every conversation I had, every interaction I witnessed, was inspiration for another panel. We traded our best lines during lunch and challenged each other to write the most ludicrous scene imaginable. Within a month we had hundreds of present-tense lines written down. During that time I came up with the name of the strip: Blood Culture.
We pared down the ever-growing list to a few gems and Gerry set out to draw them. In a few weeks he came up with thirty-nine panels, and I thought every one was perfect. Even the ones that didn't exactly work--we were still gaining our footing--were expertly drawn and I loved them. I was excited enough to put together submission packets to the big comic strip syndicates. I believed that Blood Culture was destined to appear in thousands of newspapers worldwide and that within months we'd be trading in our advertising jobs for writing and drawing Blood Culture full-time.
That was not to be. And not just because the syndicates weren't interested. It was also because it would be another four years before the fortieth Blood Culture was drawn, and by then Gerry and I had parted ways and David had come aboard.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Origin of Edgar, Pt. I
I've always been a doodler. In high school I doodled on the desks. In college, the margins of second-hand textbooks. At home, whatever scrap of paper is handy. I usually doodle some kind of pattern: wavy lines, shapes, dots. Sometimes I draw my face, which became the basis for my other comic strip, the Unnamed Road.
Eleven years ago, I was absently doodling a circle within a circle. I drew another circle within a circle, then another, and another. Soon I had circles within circles clumped together. I drew two lines, one above the clump and one below. Under it I wrote "blood clot."
I looked at the doodle for a while, turning it sideways and upside down. I grabbed a nearby pad and drew a large circle within a circle and added arms bent at the elbows that terminated in my approximation of Mickey Mouse gloves and legs with club feet. I tossed in a beach umbrella, a bucket, a soda can, two clouds, and a kindergarten sun. The soda can and the bucket were drawn so crudely that labeled them "soda" and "bucket and added little arrows pointing to the item so there would be no mistake what it was. I decided to label the other things in the frame, too--"the sun," "clouds," "umbrella." Then, for some reason, I labeled the circle man "Edgar." I finished off the drawing with a caption: Edgar the red blood cell goes to the beach.
Here that drawing. Click on it to see it in its full glory.
The more I looked at the scene the more questions I had. Why would a red blood cell go to the beach? It's not like going to get any redder. Then: what the hell was a red blood cell doing walking around at all? What kind of life would this creature have? Was this scene inside a body or did it take place in a world peopled by red blood cells? How did he eat without a mouth? What kind of name is Edgar?
Everything that Blood Culture is today has its roots in that single drawing. The seemingly banal scene, the matter-of-fact present tense caption, the labels, even Edgar's hair. (Take a look at my drawing again. See that dark line at the crown of Edgar's head? That's his 'do.) It's all still there today, eleven years later.
I knew I had something good. But what was I going to do with it? Recognizing my artistic limitations, I knew I needed help discovering more about this character. I also knew the most likely candidate: an art director coworker named Gerry.
Next time, part II.
Eleven years ago, I was absently doodling a circle within a circle. I drew another circle within a circle, then another, and another. Soon I had circles within circles clumped together. I drew two lines, one above the clump and one below. Under it I wrote "blood clot."
I looked at the doodle for a while, turning it sideways and upside down. I grabbed a nearby pad and drew a large circle within a circle and added arms bent at the elbows that terminated in my approximation of Mickey Mouse gloves and legs with club feet. I tossed in a beach umbrella, a bucket, a soda can, two clouds, and a kindergarten sun. The soda can and the bucket were drawn so crudely that labeled them "soda" and "bucket and added little arrows pointing to the item so there would be no mistake what it was. I decided to label the other things in the frame, too--"the sun," "clouds," "umbrella." Then, for some reason, I labeled the circle man "Edgar." I finished off the drawing with a caption: Edgar the red blood cell goes to the beach.
Here that drawing. Click on it to see it in its full glory.
The more I looked at the scene the more questions I had. Why would a red blood cell go to the beach? It's not like going to get any redder. Then: what the hell was a red blood cell doing walking around at all? What kind of life would this creature have? Was this scene inside a body or did it take place in a world peopled by red blood cells? How did he eat without a mouth? What kind of name is Edgar?
Everything that Blood Culture is today has its roots in that single drawing. The seemingly banal scene, the matter-of-fact present tense caption, the labels, even Edgar's hair. (Take a look at my drawing again. See that dark line at the crown of Edgar's head? That's his 'do.) It's all still there today, eleven years later.
I knew I had something good. But what was I going to do with it? Recognizing my artistic limitations, I knew I needed help discovering more about this character. I also knew the most likely candidate: an art director coworker named Gerry.
Next time, part II.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Blood Culture Takes a Break From Touring
After seven years, more than 350 panels, and thousands of undrawn ideas, it's time for David and me to take a break from Blood Culture.
I would love to keep the old beast that is Blood Culture chugging along, adding oil only when the panic lights tell me to, but it needs a rest. We need a rest. I've lived with Edgar the Red Blood Cell for 11 years, and David for 7. In that time, Blood Culture has won the hearts of only a few people. I find it shocking, but it's true.
I say with certainty that Blood Culture is an absolutely hilarious comic strip. Hell, I think it's brilliant. Just brilliant.
And maybe that's the problem. Like a parent who sees only genius in his obviously dimwitted child, perhaps I haven't been critical enough of my creation. Blood Culture has faults, but I'm simply too close to the strip to see them. Maybe a few months away from Edgar will give me that perspective.
But Blood Culture isn’t going away entirely. This is a hiatus, not an ending. Blood Culture will still appear three times a week on Comics Sherpa and I'll be posting much older Blood Culture's that haven't been seen in almost 10 years, as well as commentary on the genesis of our favorite panels.
So until later in the week, when I'll post the first Blood Culture ever drawn, thanks for visiting, and I'll see you in the funny papers.
Not exactly, but you know what I mean.
I would love to keep the old beast that is Blood Culture chugging along, adding oil only when the panic lights tell me to, but it needs a rest. We need a rest. I've lived with Edgar the Red Blood Cell for 11 years, and David for 7. In that time, Blood Culture has won the hearts of only a few people. I find it shocking, but it's true.
I say with certainty that Blood Culture is an absolutely hilarious comic strip. Hell, I think it's brilliant. Just brilliant.
And maybe that's the problem. Like a parent who sees only genius in his obviously dimwitted child, perhaps I haven't been critical enough of my creation. Blood Culture has faults, but I'm simply too close to the strip to see them. Maybe a few months away from Edgar will give me that perspective.
But Blood Culture isn’t going away entirely. This is a hiatus, not an ending. Blood Culture will still appear three times a week on Comics Sherpa and I'll be posting much older Blood Culture's that haven't been seen in almost 10 years, as well as commentary on the genesis of our favorite panels.
So until later in the week, when I'll post the first Blood Culture ever drawn, thanks for visiting, and I'll see you in the funny papers.
Not exactly, but you know what I mean.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
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