Here's a cartoon I did yesterday...the ups and downs of trying to get a completed book project out and accepted by a major publisher is that I am often hearing: nothing. Silence. So I fill in the blanks, thinking either:
a. They hate it , they're using it to make paper airplanes
b. It got soaked in the rain by the mailman, now it looks like a puddle of ink, why didn't I put the package in rain-proof packaging!?
c. the person I sent it to no longer works there. Got hit by a truck or fired right after I sent the query or email or sample.
d. It's so great that they're showing it to all their friends, seeing who "gets it."
e. none or all of the above.
I finally got around to this book by Seth, and it's really amazing to me. Probably the most impressive aspect is that while this was serialized by him and done over so many years, the artwork looks really cohesive. I didn't buy all of the originals so I can't go back and compare. But it brings to mind the problem of putting a collection of work together and how to combine the earlier style with the later style.
The art is really lovely, better than the story, but I suspect that is intended. Some sections are only Seth or Seth and Chet walking through a long expanse of city scenery and talking. The effect is that I read through the text in the word balloons on a page and went back up and re-read it visually. The storytelling is strong, though, there's something to be learned from this book.
I love this little book. It was by happenstance that I found it (it was published in 2002) in the library, right as I was taking a break from a frustrating morning of writing and looking at the illustrations for the book and crumbling papers into balls and tossing them into the trash can...
It's a delight to read and look at, and serves as a reminder that we're in a community of solitary souls plugging away at typewriters, laptops, legal pads, and sketchbooks...I recommend checking it out if you want a little Schulz irony and neat writerly advice from lots of authors who loved themselves some Snoopy too.
Oh, and here's a recent snip from the language section of the book.
Well, I'm happy to report that Aaron MacGruder has given up the pretense of calling himself a syndicated cartoonist for (sigh of relief) the time being. You'll remember that I've previously railed on about his comic strip being included in the funny pages when he hasn't drawn it since not long after he began, he literally phoned in (to another artist who drew and designed the strip) all the ideas and often reran the same pic with different text, and because in general, he rehashed the same ideas over and over again.
Here's the clip in the Washington Post (AP).
