"My answer remains the same."
- A syndicate editor, rejecting a 2013 comic submission
In truth, that quote is from a rejection for a different comic series called My Guardian Grandpa (see last week’s post). That series was submitted with revisions based on syndicate feedback almost annually from 2008 until 2014. The quote above might as well have been about Mates and Dates though because I pitched that strip every year following its inception too. Feedback was constructive and helpful and heeded to improve/resolve the issues each time but, eventually, even the most supportive syndicate editor just stopped responding.
You know what the editors probably said to each other when another Buddy and Romeo submission arrived? The same thing Duke said to Apollo Creed in 1979.
“He’s all wrong for us, baby. I saw you [ reject ] that man like I never saw no man get [ rejected ] before and that man kept coming after you. We don’t need that kind of man in our lives.”
-Tony “Duke” Evers, played by Tony Burton in Rocky II (1979)
Submitting comics to a syndicate is like preparing what you think is the perfect proposal for a woman and you get down on your knee (more like two knees) and you spill your soul to her and reveal all of your thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams. But it turns out you wet your pants without realizing it and she says no. Then you’re embarrassed and upset and you wonder “How did I not realize this?” So you wait a while before trying again and you think you can make up for the last proposal and you’re wearing a new (dry) outfit from the J. Peterman Clothing Company and she says no again. For some reason you keep trying and you keep getting the same result because it doesn’t matter what proposal you come up with because it will always be delivered in your voice. You the person is being rejected.
I started submitting comic strips to the syndicates in 2002 and continued to do so on an annual basis for nearly 20 years.
“I’m going home to my mother! She loves me! Even if my clothes are old and ugly!”
- Shirley Temple in the role of Lloyd Sherman in 1935’s The Little Colonel
Romeo is drawing Scrooge McDuck (DuckTales - 1987) and Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - also 1987). The earliest drawings of mine that my parents saved are of the Ninja Turtles from when I was 5-years-old. If memory serves, I was introduced to DuckTales in summer of 1988. I was three; about to turn four. We were sitting in the family room by the VHS tapes and my mom was sitting next to me. She said “We don’t have any DuckTales tapes yet.” I remember thinking “What’s DuckTales?” She bought me three tapes that fall (the first being “Fearless Fortune Hunter”). I got all of the original Ninja Turtle action figures for Christmas in 1989, after months of being caught up in the original wave of Turtle Mania. Both TV shows were defining parts of my childhood and drawing the DuckTales characters continues to influence my drawing style to this day.
Part of me wishes my parents forbade me from opening those original 10 1988 Playmates Ninja Turtles figures. Unopened on eBay they fetch anywhere from $300 and up (one lot of the four 1988 turtles is listed at $2,000. But here’s an opportunity to bid on all four of them for a few hundred dollars…). I suppose keeping them in the package would have been a cruel trick though. A little kid unwraps brand new toys and then isn’t allowed to open them and just plays with them in the boxes. “You’ll thank us in 35 years when the value appreciates.” Accurate! And I would have but try reasoning with a five-year-old.
This would make for a strange resume item. I wish I could remember where this idea even came from. Around this point in the strip’s run I was really pushing for absurdity.
I often wonder how people can go out in public after the way they behave on the Internet and social media. Good for Buddy’s mom.
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