What’s black and white (with shades of grey) and read all over?
Posted by: ladytooner on: December 3, 2009
Congratulate me, folks–I’m gonna be seen all over the country! Well, my cartoons will be. Life coach and speaker Erika Gilchrist has a book coming out next month: The Secrets to Being an Unstoppable Woman. And it’s going to have my cartoon illustrations in it!
I met Erika at a singles event given by my friend Renee Patikas. She was pre-selling copies of her book and I was doing caricatures for tips. I showed her some of the note and greeting cards I was also selling, and she said that God makes things happen for a reason. It seems she was looking for an illustrator to make cartoons for her new book, and I had just the right style for her.
Last week she gave me an outline of what I was to draw and asked if I could do them by her deadline. I said yes. This week she gave me her contract to look over and sign. I was pleased with it and sent it back to her.
Then I got to work on the cartoons. Some are going to head each chapter of the book and some will be spread throughout the book. Here are a few:
This is the biggest cartoon job Ladytooner has done to date, and I hope it’s the beginning of more big cartoon jobs. I’m doing what I love and getting paid well for it. Hooray for me!
What I’ve learned in 20 years of freelance cartooning
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 22, 2009
I started my cartooning career in 1989 with small successes: a cartoon in weekly papers, the occasional gag cartoon in a small magazine, a caricature job here and there. Twenty years later, the successes are a bit bigger and getting bigger every day. Here are some of the things I’ve learned through all this:
- Keep my ego in check. Not everybody thinks I’m a cartooning genius. So when I do a commercial job and someone asks for changes, I silently say to myself, “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY TALENT! I GAVE YOU WHAT YOU ASKED FOR–TAKE IT!” Then I gladly make the changes.
- Patience bears much fruit. If there’s anything I like more than cartooning, it’s getting paid for cartooning. But some customers take their sweet time in paying me and it’s not always their fault. So I have to be understanding and wait for “the check in the mail”. I can wait two weeks–pacing the floor and hyper, but I can wait.
- I have much to learn, and I can learn it. I have new animation software with an over 200-page manual. Slowly but surely I am getting the hang of using it. I’ve already created a 2-minute presentation for one client, but I have a long way to go before I’m up to Hanna-Barbera standards. (I’m ambitious but realistic.)
- Action gives satisfaction. I work mostly at home on my cartoons; it’s comfortable but familiar and doesn’t always generate ideas. So I change my scene: I go to the library, browse the mall, go to an event with my best friend. Then I get new ideas. Wow, “climbing out of your comfort zone” really does work!
- Giving willingly benefits all. One Sunday last year, my friend Renee had staged an event the previous night where almost everything went wrong. So after church I fixed her a home-cooked taco lunch which cheered us both up. Later that month I got a caricature job running several hours and paying $500! And I wasn’t even trying!
- Cooperation is the way. I have been doing caricatures at Renee’s events for singles since 2006. Besides doing my job, she has me running around passing out thimgs, putting the snacks together, and all kinds of small but necessary tasks that aren’t part of my job description. Not my idea of a good time. But I end up having one when everything’s in place and the party’s on. So it’s all worth it.
- Lighten up and have fun! Believe it or not. this is hard for me. I take being funny way too seriously, so to loosen up, I look at fun videos on the Web, I do loose cartoon sketches and make stickers out of them, and I take time to just dream on paper in my “Cartoonist’s and Animator’s Notebook”. I’ll let you know when and if they work.
So I ain’t neat. That’s another thing I’m learning: To forgive myself for not being Disney quality. Hanna-Barbera works fine, thank you.
I “Swagged” for Diddy and Other Adventures
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 20, 2009
I know it’s been a while since my last post but I’m back! Here is what’s been going on:
Diddy’s Detroit Takeover party was last Sunday. As you know, my minibooks Our Follies and Our Follies 2 were in the celebrity swag bags. I contacted Celebrity Chitt to see if anyone liked the books but they said all they do is supply the swag; I would have to wait until a celebrity who read them said something. So come on, celebs–say something!
Today I was paid for an animated presentation I created for the marketing department of a local funeral home. It was a favor for the local marketing director and everybody liked it. The director’s only complaint was that the sound wasn’t loud enough; otherwise, it was fine. She rated it a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent. Not bad.
My friend Renee hosts parties and events for singles in our area. Her latest is tomorrow night. It starts with an hour of for-ladies-only pampering, then the men come in and it becomes a speed dating event. I do caricatures of the guests at all her events and occasionally sell some products and find new clients among the guests and other vendors. Maybe tonight I’ll join in the festivities, too!
I network with othersmall businesses in my area at monthly meetings. Next month on the 15th I’ll also be doing a 15-minute presentation on my business, Ladytooner. The theme: “I Have Worlds Inside of Me”, referring to the many cartoon characters I’ve created and want to put on products. I’m hoping to get my cards and books distributed and sold locally and find someone to help produce animated DVDs. And some more commercial art jobs.
I’ve been selling my new Christmas cards in person and doing better than I thought I would. I sold a couple of packs to teachers at one of the local junior high schools where I also substitute teach. I also made personalized Christmas cards for a friend who works at my city’s health center. I’m doing real fine!
Our Follies: The Latest Laughs at African American Quirks
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 10, 2009
Here are some of the latest cartoons from “Our Follies”, my feature in Gary, Indiana’s “The 411″ weekly. And you don’t have to be black to enjoy them: If you can watch reruns of “Everybody Hates Chris”, you can read “Our Follies”. Enjoy!
A victim of the campaign for fake beauty
Easy for him to talk!
A change of scene can help a relationship
And she will, too!
Now that's black power!
Staying out of the danger zone
Finally somebody respects tradition!
Now, wasn’t that fun?
‘Tis the Season to Get Your Jollies: My Funny New Christmas Cards
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 9, 2009
I like to create cartoon greeting cards, the kind you probably don’t see in stores. I put a dialogue-free cartoon on the front and a smart, snicker-inducing (hopefully) remark on the inside along with the greeting. People like my slightly bent sense of humor; it reminds them of themselves, people they know or something that happened to them.
I once read where one cartoonist called captionless gag cartoons “the true cartoon” because it can sell anywhere in the world without having to worry about translation. To me the true cartoon is one, wordless or not, that people can relate to and then laugh out of recognation. That’s the theme of my cartoons.
I’m selling two different sets of 24 Christmas cards with four different designs (six cards each). Just click on DK’s Big Face on the right to go to my website and then click “Greeting Cards”. Then look, buy and enjoy giving them.
Our Follies: For us to laugh at us
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 6, 2009
This is what will be going into Diddy’s swag bags for his Detroit Takeover: Our Follies, a humorous look at the quirks and habits of us black folk. Torn from the pages of Gary, Indiana’s weekly The 411, you’ll meet black mamas who warn their kids about doing bad, then do bad themselves; technology-savvy students who still get bad grades and don’t care; and all us African Americans who play the race card–and lose. And if you think I’m trashing my own people, remember: My people have been trashing themselves for years.
If you’re not attending Diddy’s Takeover, Our Follies and its sequel Our Follies 2 are available on my website, www.ladytooner.com. Just click, buy and laugh.
Nothing succeeds like success, but what is it?
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 5, 2009
In this recession age, I think we’re all questioning the idea of success. Even today, we think of the world’s idea of success (big title, big money, lots of stuff), but now a lot of us are seeing how empty that can be.
In my 20s, I wanted the usual cartoonist success. You know: syndicated comic strip, work in a big animation house, regular cartoonist in The New Yorker, that sort of thing. But I realized that such success was not easy; it would take years to get it. I had to be happy with the small successes: cartoons featured in weekly newspapers, the occasional gag cartoon in a small magazine.
It was in the late 90s and early 00s that my cartooning career took off with caricature jobs at local parties and events and cartoons and a column in the Gary, Indiana weekly The 411 (formerly the Gary Info). I also had a cartoon in Hammond, Indiana-based The Calumet News before it switched to totally online. In 2006 I met Renee Patikas of Single Lifestyle Magazine and started doing caricatures for her many singles-let’s-mingle events. Through Renee I met other small businesspeople and formed great relationships and got new cartooning jobs.
So what is the meaning of success for D.K. Upshaw? Well, I’m not making the $3000 a month that’s my current goal, most of the money I make goes to paying down debt and I still live and work in a little one-bedroom apartment. But I’ve got a whole slew of new friends, I’m closer to my family and I’m doing the work I love with the money following–slowly but still following. So I am a success–on my terms, the only terms that matter–aside from God’s.
I Want to “Swag” for Diddy
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 2, 2009
The opportunity of a lifetime came last week: the chance for my cartoons to be seen by celebritites, including Diddy himself, Sean Combs! How? Let me explain.
On the Ladies Who Launch website for female entrepreneurs (www.ladieswholaunch.com), I learned that a company called Celebrity Chitt was looking for products to put in “swag bags” to be handed out at Diddy’s Detroit Takeover party in November.
For those of you who don’t watch Access Hollywood, a swag bag is a gift bag full of ridiculously expensive stuff (jewelry, electronics, leather goods, exotic trips, etc.) to be given at huge events to celebrity guests who can easily afford to buy them themselves.
So what does all this have to do with me? Well, when I read about this, I had a sudden feeling of daring, of wanting to take a risk. I emailed Celebrity Chitt, asked if I could include copies of my minibooks Our Follies and Our Follies 2 in the bags.
For those of you who don’t get the weekly newsaper The 411, Our Follies is my weekly Page Two cartoon in that paper. It highlights the quirks and foibles 0f African Americans. Like a Tyler Perry play without the gun-toting grandma. I put together two minibook collections of the cartoon; they’re available on my website (www.ladytooner.com). Both are under $2. And I want to put them in Diddy’s hundred-thousand-dollar swag bags. I must be losing my mind.
Or I’m a very shrewd marketing genius! Celebrity guests will get these bags, which means celebrity eyes will see my books and celebrity funnybones will be tickled. And who knows? Maybe one of them (perhaps Diddy himself) will mention me on Access Hollywood.
Do What They Love and the Frustration Will Follow
Posted by: ladytooner on: November 1, 2009
Last Friday I completed animating a two-minute presentation promoting a local funeral home. It was the second draft after the home’s marketing director rejected the first and suggested changes. When I finally sent her the new one, I sat down because I was tired. And it wasn’t the “good kind of tired” .
All of a sudden I got resentful. I thought to myself, She’d better like this ’cause I’m not doing it over again! And the thing of it was she was not being unreasonable. The first version did have flaws–glaring flaws. My narration wasn’t loud enough, I misspoke a few times, two characters had to be redesigned to more closely resemble their real-life counterparts. At the time I took it well–she was right, after all. And while I did the second version, she was gently pushing me by e-mail to complete it soon, and that wasn’t unreasonable, either.
So why did I cop an attitude after it was all done? Artist’s ego, pure and simple. Most of the time I get compliments for my cartoon work and I soak it all up. This helps during the times when I start thinking my work is crud; I remind myself that my work is loved.
But every artist gets criticized negetively; not everyone is going to like my work. A couple of times when I did caricatures at events, a couple of older ladies didn’t like how their cartoon portraits turned out. I got snarky and said to them (internally, not out loud), “Come on, I’m a cartoonist! You want fine art, see Leonardo da Vinci!”
Right now commercial art is the “bread and butter” of my business Ladytooner, and I cannot afford to have an artist’s ego. In my 20s and even in my 30s this kind of criticism would have me in a blue funk for days. Now at age 50, I have a mini-meltdown, realize I’m not going to be loved by all and that I do need correction now and then and eventually go on. In time, I will have micro-meltdowns.
This is what is known as “dying to self”, putting someone else’s need and wants before my own. It’s part of the commercial art business, and also part of life.
