So, meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had decided to try and finish one cartoon a day for six weeks to see if I could produce at the pace I’d have to if I got syndicated. I did not manage to do this, but I was close. It actually took me about 8 weeks to finish my submission. But I neglected one little thing. I had already WRITTEN these cartoons, I just had to draw and ink them up. Doing those things AND writing a weeks worth in a week was not something I was remotely ready to do until I was suddenly expected to do it.
I had stumbled across a Reader’s Digest story about Scott Adams where he said he used positive thinking to get syndicated. I can’t remember the specifics, but he’d basically written someting like “I am a syndicated cartoonist” 15 times a day, every day, until he got syndicated. So I decided to try it. During the entire time I was doing my submission, I wrote “I am a syndicated cartoonist” 15 times a day. One thing it did was absolutely convince me that I was going to get syndicated. I don’t know if it fools your subconscious or what, but after a while, I had no doubts. I never did this again though because I started to wonder if it was unChristian. I never wrote “Clear Blue Water will become a blockbuster strip,” and sure enough, it didn’t become a blockbuster strip. Funny how that works…
People often want to know how I came up with the name for my strip. I have an affinity for the color blue and I wanted it in the title. I also love water. So I wanted water in the title if possible. My strip was often political, so I decided that I needed to find a political term with blue and water in it. I thought the odds of finding one were just about impossible (my back up title was “Something Blue”, from the marriage poem, Something old, something new, etc.) I googled politics, blue, water and immediately the term Clear blue water came up. It’s basically the idealogical divide between two political parties. Hey, now! Manny’s Republican, Eve’s a Democrat… it seemed like kismet. The title was the easiest part of this entire process. It just fell into place.
Anyway, I finished the cartoons in mid-December 2002, and my goal was to get them sent out before New Years. I had to draw up a character sheet and a cover for my packet, write my cover letters, put each submission into a neat little packet that was tailored exactly to each syndicate’s specifications… yeah, it wasn’t enough time and I basically rushed it because I also had to do Christmas and holidays with my family as well. I finished the packets at around 4 pm on the last day of 2002 that had mail service. I rushed the packets over to the post office so I could get them out before 5, and found out the post office had closed at 4.
I completely freaked out. My goal was to get them out BEFORE New Years, and now that wasn’t possible, and now I’d probably messed up the timing and, and… I KNOW it’s crazy. What difference could a few days either way possibly make? My best friend stepped in and talked me down. She told me that I couldn’t possibly screw up God’s timing, and maybe there was a good reason that my strips weren’t going to go out until January 2. It’s always nice to have people in your life who will talk you down from your crazy ledges without calling you out on your craziness. She does this for me.
I sent my submissions out on January 2, 2003, and on January 8, 2003 Lee Salem called me. My kids were still on Christmas vacation and they were running amuck when the phone rang. I couldn’t hear him and I began frantically motioning for my oldest to herd everyone into another room so I could hear. After a short but intense life-or-death game of charades, she finally obliged. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of the conversation. He said he really liked my work and he’d showed it around to a few editors and they’d liked it too, and now he was going to show it to even more people and get their opinions, and he’d get back to me, but he really liked it.
I basically said stuff like, “Oh! Wow! Really? Thanks!” like a moron, and when he hung up I immediately called my husband and screamed at him that Lee Salem had just called me on the frickin phone! He said, “Who’s Lee Salem?” Sigh. So I explained and then he said, “So are you getting syndicated?!” And um… he hadn’t really mentioned that part. And the clouds rolled in…
Because I had heard so quickly from Universal, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the other syndicates would love me as well. Why, what if there was a bidding war? Oh my goodness, what does one WEAR to a bidding war?
…There was no bidding war. I ended up getting rejected by all of the other syndicates with form letters. Well, that’s not exactly true. I never heard back from King at all, and United Media sent me back my own cover letter with the word NO! scrawled across it in big screaming red letters. …I’m guessing it wasn’t right for their list.
So now it was down to just Universal and it had been a few weeks with no contact and I was getting worried. Then I get a letter in the mail from Universal and I almost cried. They don’t send you letters to syndicate you, they send you letters to reject you. I didn’t even open the letter for an hour. When I finally got my courage up, I found a really nice letter from Lee that told me how much he liked my strip and why. He compared it to a cross between two really big strips (stroke, stroke my ego…) and he told me that there was some concern about the tone of the strip. The main couple was very angry. He didn’t reject Clear Blue Water in the letter. Instead, he gave me his number and told me to call him to talk about my strip.
A decade later I got the same opportunity, again, and this time you better believe I called him. I actually wrote out a color coded script so I could make sure I remembered to hit important points, and (after a stern talking to by my best friend “You BETTER call this time!”) I sent my husband to the park with the kids, gathered a notebook and pen, and called. His secretary said he was out. A reprieve! We set up a time to call him back when he’d be in, and I hung up.
To be continued…
Oh, by the way, about today’s strip. It’s a double daily because I didn’t feel like making it a Sunday and coloring it, considering that today’s Friday, but I also didn’t want to stretch the halloween stuff into two days, and the strip I wrote was too long for a reagular daily. So it’s a double daily.
8 comments
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October 31, 2008 at 8:46 am
Sandra Bell-Lundy
>>He didn’t reject Clear Blue Water in the letter. Instead, he gave me his number and told me to call him to talk about my strip.
Heh, heh…I’m thinking he heard the kids in the background and figured it was better to let YOU choose the time to talk?…
🙂
October 31, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Ted Seeber
On today’s strip, you weren’t too far out of line. Portland, OR, a metro area where Obama is almost a shoe-in, still has a “Trick-or-Vote” campaign to get people to mail in their ballots by Saturday.
October 31, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Ted Seeber
I guess, I should have mentioned, for those who aren’t ‘gonies- Oregon, the entire state, has no fixed polling place nor time to vote. I’ve had my ballot for three weeks and only just drove to the elections office yesterday to turn it in (I’ve got a thing about paying $.80+ to vote for my wife and I).
To fit in with federal elections law, the votes aren’t counted until next Tuesday- but you *absolutely* have to either have your ballot in the mail Saturday or drop it off at one of your local county approved dropoff sites by 8pm Tuesday.
Thus the Trick-or-Vote campaign this year where Obama & McCain supporters can get lists of voters who haven’t turned in their ballots yet in local neighborhoods, to pester them to turn in their ballots.
Since I only turned in mine yesterday, I suspect I’ll have a ghoul or two come to my door to exchange a “please mail in your vote” pamphlet for candy.
October 31, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Crazy salad « Literature Should Mean Something in Your Life
[…] also reading Karen Montague-Reyes’ blog, and I wanted to share with you something she said in today’s post: “It’s always nice to have people in your life who will talk you down from your crazy […]
October 31, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Karen' sister Lisa
Ok, I am really enjoying this blog, but I feel I must point out to my older sister that she said to me way back in the day that she wanted something with blue and water in it for a name for her comic strip. So I Googled it, and found a bunch of references to clear blue water (mostly in the UK). So I named the strip. Me. I am the wind beneath my sister’s wings.
And I really enjoyed that same line mentioned by Crazy Salad “It’s always nice to have people in our life to talk you down from your crazy ledges without calling you out on your craziness.” People call me on my crazy though.
October 31, 2008 at 9:17 pm
clearbluewatercomic
Lisa, and well they should call you on your crazy. Well they should.
And, Miss wind beneath my wings, I have no memory of this conversation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen. All it means is that we have two totally different memories of the same events.
Crazy salad, thanks!
Ted, this was totally made up. I can’t believe people actually use trick-or-treating time for politics. Though I guess, why waste a perfectly good walk aroud the neighborhood?
Sandra, I think you hit that nail right on the head!
November 1, 2008 at 12:33 am
meansomething
Oh, that “Crazy salad” thing was me. It is the title of the post on my blog (where I try to give posts the titles of books). I didn’t realize that it would show up here; I guess it’s because I also use WordPress.
I am really enjoying this story too.
March 21, 2009 at 3:08 pm
LG
I’m really excited that I stumbled upon this blog! I’ve spent today using the blog as my treat between revision periods! CBW is one of my favourite comic strips – and I found it by pure chance*. So, Karen, you have a fan that’s way outside your local community and probably outside your typical fanbase… I am a university student, who unfortunately is nowhere near to being a mother yet, who has never even set foot in the great USA, and sadly belongs to none of the ethic groups of the Torres family, and yet the strip really strikes a chord with me! I believe I emailed you ages ago because I thought it was so great! (And I think that’s the only fanletter I’ve written in my life!)
My heart’s in my throat…this blogpost’s a real cliffhanger! It’s been wonderful learning of the background to CBW and I hadn’t realised what a struggle it has been, so, it makes me appreciate the challenges of being a cartoonist even more. Good luck, God bless, and keep writing!!
*Well, Comics.com