Great advice! This book is packed with great advice from all walks of the comic strip business. It gives you perspectives from professional cartoonists, editors and syndicates, as well as basic how-tos. Since this book was written in 1995, many of the mailing addresses and contacts are incorrect, so just be sure to look them up on-line and call.
Great Book Lots of good info & insight. Hard to find this quality of knowledge around. Buy it if you have any interest in the market
Simply Outstanding!!! If you're serious about cartooning, stop reading this and buy this book right now!!! A must have for every serious cartoonist's library!!! Entertaining, informative... WOW!
Provides insite in the world of Comics This is a pretty good book. It has the author's own view of the comic syndication process and backs it up with many interviews by current comic strip artists, editors and syndicates. There are a few places where a little editing to remove some of the interviews would be favorable. Some topics are very agreed on by all of the people interviewed. They say "exactly the same thing." After the first few people repeat the idea or concern, any interview after that is redundant. The multiple interviews on each subject do show that everyone seems to have the same or similar issues with the business. This really drives it home, but it also slows down the reading. I guess you could read the first few interviews on each subject and skip to the next section, but I didn't. I kept hoping that the next interview had a little extra in it the others didn't. I rarely found this to be the case. Almost every one was very similar. It was interesting that the views and complaints of each syndicate was similar to the other syndicates. The same could be said for the editors or the cartoonist. Usually, each group (ie. syndicates vs. cartoonist vs. editors) commented about the same thing, but from opposite views. This point was very well brought out by this book. Overall, it is a pretty good book. I would have given it a five out of five, but as described the interviews became too repetatitive. It is still worth reading if you are interested in the subject.
Info, truth and a reality check I'm a syndicated cartoonist who has worked on a panel and a strip. If you want a realistic view on the world of cartooning, this is the book. Sure it provides useful insights into the creative and business processes. But best of all, it provides a serious reality check. It serves its readers best by honestly conveying the difficulty of cartooning; the relentless task of meeting dealines and quality standards; and the often surprising lack of huge monetary rewards. About the only thing missing (though you can't fault the author since the book published in 1995) is the growing use of the computer to create, send and disseminate cartoons. If you are serious about cartooning, read this book. If you're still serious after that, go be a cartoonist.
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