In a previous ‘Cartoon Vault’ I featured a Three Stooges caricature I’d done for some long ago unrealized project.
While digging through my files, I noticed how many other cartoons and illustrations I had done for projects that were never to be.
Some were works done on spec to be sure, but many others were for what at the time seemed to be very promising projects. Some were financial disasters like the film magazine I did a series of caricatures for that lost its backing, others were last minute editorial flip-flops (A political cartoon cover for the Bay Guardian that got switched out at the 11th hour for a photo of Bette Midler (?)). Sometimes I got a kill fee; sometimes I didn’t.
With new magazines “three” tended to be the magic number. The returns would come back from the distributors about the time of the publishing of a third issue of a new publication. Poor early sales often resulted in the immediate canceling of the magazine—if you didn’t make it in one of the first three issues you often didn’t make it at all.
Looking at how much of the work I did in my freelancing days which never saw print reminds me of what a difficult and often frustrating struggle that world can be.
From time to time I will post some archaic unpublished cartoon or illustration on our blog from the ‘vault’.
The Comic Con drawings
Since the Comic Con International is being held this weekend, I thought I’d offer some drawings done in 1982 (back when it was still known as the San Diego Comic Con). These Con vignettes were done for a never published article (again my memory banks aren’t good enough to remember who wrote the article or for what publication).
Since the Comic Con International is being held this weekend, I thought I’d offer some drawings done in 1982 (back when it was still known as the San Diego Comic Con). These Con vignettes were done for a never published article (again my memory banks aren’t good enough to remember who wrote the article or for what publication).
I believe they were all loosely based on sketches I actually did at the Con that year. I know I saw Clarence Nash (the voice of Donald Duck) there that year.
Maybe things haven't changed all that much at Comic Conventions in the last 30 years.
All drawing still copyright Larry Rippee 2012
