"Did you really earn a living from that?
Someone once asked me that, and there were many times when I thought someone else might, by the look on their face, ask me the same question again.What the questioners had in common was a look of utter disbelief that I did in fact make a living from drawing cartoons. I made a very good living from my so called skills, especially in the late 70s and 80s.
"Will I have heard of you?" was another regular question and after I'd said "No" they would generally follow up with the name of a well known cartoonist who they considered the best. The fact that this cartoonist wrote brilliant gags but could not really draw desperately well was irrelevant to them. Or they'd mention someone so brilliant that I felt inadequate, and they'd follow it up with the inevitable ' I bet you wish you could draw like him' ( it was nearly always a him until Posy Simmonds came along )
I made my living working in the main for advertising and design companies, they paid better than anyone else, and I was familiar with the way of working with ad agencies because I'd worked for a couple before redundancy sent me on this different direction. After a few years visualising on a freelance basis I was asked by one of my clients if I would redo some cartoons they'd had done that they were not happy with. I agreed to 'have a go' at them and then when they went down well they gave me a steady stream if work. Later I was asked if I'd do a storyboard for someone, and said again that I'd 'have a go', and these too went down well. So I got do do quite a lot of those in the following years.
Through contacts I came into contact with an 'artist's agent'. I'd heard of these sort of people that represented illustrators but thought, wrongly, that they did not necessarily go about looking for work for 'cartoonists'. The agent asked me if they could represent me, telling me that they took 25% of any fee they negotiated. Suited me fine. They got me loads of work. Loads. For a couple of years they published a little book of their artist's work: just a couple of pages at most of each artists recent work shown in a book that they gave away to potential clients. Generated a lot of work.
Up to this point I'd never had anyone sell my work, it just seemed to walk in the door, or more likely through the phone. I'd done ok, I had plenty of work to do and the jobs were getting bigger, and by bigger I mean were gradually for more reputable companies. Then my agent came along and almost overnight I was being asked to do work for bigger ad agencies, with bigger budgets, and bigger clients. They asked for fees for me that I would have never thought or dared to ask for. I was soon earning twice as much as I'd been earning previously for the same amount of work even after they shaved off their 25%. What's more I was allowed to express myself in the drawings and have a bit of fun. All of a sudden I'd become an illustrator, rather than a cartoonist. I even became the Chairman of the Association of Illustrators, my goodness, respectability was starting to ooze through my veins. At this rate a bow tie might have been imminent. Thank God I resisted that.
What's brought on this sudden memory of very good times in a career? ( Illustrators have a career, cartoonists can't help themselves ) I found recently copies of the small promotional books with a couple of pages of my work in each. What my agents were good at, very good at, was 'bigging me up', not in front of me thank goodness. They did this when they 'shmoozed' the clients taking them out for a posh lunch or simply chatting to them about me and their other artists. The page here also illustrates how they 'bigged me up' in print. The very best kudos was to have the name of a large ad agency as the credit to any drawing. I recognise that all these drawings were someone else's imagination, but I'm happy to say that they also imagined me doing the drawing for them. The work was collaborative with my bit being fundamental. It was fun and paid very well too. Generally I worked with very good art directors who trusted me with their precious ideas.
On this page also are the names of the clients, who almost nobody worried too much about, but then the name of the agency and on this particular page are mentioned four very large ad agencies. Interestingly the drawing in the bottom right actually features a representation of an ad agency ( my version of the Saatchi building ) So on just one page my agents had managed to give me and them massive kudos.
So what to do with the next page? Well it's over to the international division of course. Don't all businesses of any note have an international division? In the case of my agents, they did have a legitimate tie in with a very good agent in Amsterdam: Art Box. Art Box are still going today, though sadly my London agent went bust in the 80s and the Dutch agent concentrated on a different kind of artist that generated even larger fees. They had people who could paint a pretty passable Vermeer.
Halls Advertising used to be the most creative agency in Scotland, that's abroad is it not? Top left here was done for them. I'm not sure of the headline now, this and the others are all I have left of this time, I have none of the original artwork. Once it left my hands, and unlike these days it was delivered as a piece of board with the drawing, sometimes sent by train from Gloucestershire where I'd moved to ( Yes , I said train ) I then never saw it again. What's more I never really wanted to see it again.
The man having the bucket of water thrown at him may well have been for what was called a 64 sheet poster. So called because it was made up of 64 separate sheets of print, assembled by the men who used to climb up and glue them to the poster sites. When is the last time you saw that being done? No, me neither. They used a ladder and a bucket of glue!
I'm not sure what the characterised veg were for. Looking at it now they all seem to be related, they have the same sort of face.
At the bottom right I do recall the man in blue overalls was for an oil field safety campaign and was headlined 'Dancing on ice?', a great way to get over a serious issue where they wanted their workers to wear the proper protective clothes, shoes and a helmet.This campaign was only ever seen on oil rigs! Cartoons work well for safety campaigns, I did loads.
Of course putting in international clients was a brilliant way to embellish me, or was it just advertising. My agent issued another book claiming to have branches in other parts of the world. This was stretching the truth really, he even claimed to have a link with people in LA, which was a real stretch of the imagination. He knew someone who owned a small gallery/shop there, but made it sound like they were in downtown LA or at least Venice Beach, whereas they were in a modest part of the vast city. The equivalent to saying your gallery is in Piccadilly rather than downtown Pinner.
I glad I found these copies of the two books he had produced, and it's good to see some of the work I was doing, if you can call it work, which you can.
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