My First Sale

Before finding my little corner of overnight success in Japan with this odd "42 Plain street" family (shown here on a Christmas card) there had been a number of other attempts made for securing a regular cartoon deal that did NOT end in the glossy pages of publication.

The steady job of a daily 4 panel comic strip distributed by one of the many North American syndicates was always the dream, and while I may have been close at one stage with King Features - passing their initial sample test (no, not DNA) and speaking by phone with the editor in New York - I would have to finally settle for the hit and miss marketplace of magazine freelancing in order to sell my very first cartoon. However, the good news was... I sold my very second cartoon on the same day. To the same magazine.


Of the five drawings I'd submitted to 'BC Runner' magazine back in 1981, two were chosen to run (get it?) in their Summer issue. One was placed on the main index page next to the featured articles (good exposure) and the other was used to break up the monotony of (seemingly) endless marathon race results near the back. (Not quite so good exposure.)

While the gags are fine, I'm a little disappointed in the execution. My drawings look unfinished. They need some contrasting solid black. I'm especially disappointed in the fact that I neglected to use a simple elementary school RULER to measure out a proper rectangle to house the index page cartoons. I'm surprised they accepted it in the shape it's in - or that they placed it where they did, which only tends to amplify my lack of precise structure.

Oh well, it's just cartoons we're talking about here. As I recall, I actually preferred one of the three other gags that they decided to pass on. Something about a guy running a marathon with a TV tray strapped to his chest - on which there is a nice snack of sandwiches, cookies and coffee - with pie for dessert. C'mon, it was a long race and he was getting hungry.

Okay, second thought, maybe they made the right decision to dump that one. Meanwhile, a trivia note: The year before this mag's issue date, I had run in the same marathon that they were documenting here. The main cartoon runner ("Is this your first marathon?") is wearing the same race number (#346) that I'd worn while crossing the finish line twelve months earlier. An unbelievable coincidence!