I was at an awards night for editorial writing/cartooning for middle schoolers tonight at Barnes & Noble. Guest speakers were Nick Meglin, Dwane Powell, Grey Blackwell, and myself. Each of us spoke about our genres related to the cartooning field. And it struck me how I would have killed for such an event when I was growing up as a cartoonist wannabe. I would suggest for one of our future Southeastern meetings we heavily advance-publicize it as a budding cartoonist event and have some time for each of us to share our particular expertises. We have a wealth of talent and variety of disciplines amongst us. And there is a whole generation who hasn't the foggiest of how to do what we do unless it's on a CD to insert in their computer. I say advance-publicize because it's the nature of our fast-paced culture that to attract a crowd, a bombardment of publicity is mandatory. Publicity for our Myrtle Beach panel was good, but look at the paltry crowd that showed up. Not that people aren't interested-- but we live in a publicity culture where if it's not highly visible, the immediate perception is it's not important. I say all of this from decades of working in advertising illustration. You can have the best product or service, but if you don't toot your horn loudly and often, they won't come. All of us as working professionals love what we do. No one had to cajole us into pursuing this. But the reality is, we have a different generation before us who has grown up with different motivational stimuli than we had. So we have to work harder than our predecessors to capture their attention.

That said, I would encourage everyone to think about what you do in the cartooning field, and how you would be willing to share your expertise via slideshow, original art, Powerpoint, etc. and let's have a "cartoonerama extravaganza" for kids in the near future. Why does McDonald's have a playground? If they can get kids hooked with regular visits, they'll grow up and be McDonald's customers for life.

When I was a kid I daydreamed of doing the Wednesday morning rounds in NYC, selling my gag cartoons to Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Good Housekeeping, etc. I took correspondence courses and read everything I could on the proper procedure to submit cartoons, gag-writing, and just everything I thought might be relevant to what I wanted to achieve. In 7th-12th grades I was submitting to all of those markets with rejection slips galore to wallpaper my bedroom. By the time I was old enough to truly make it a career, those Golden Age magazine days had passed with the changing climate and folding of major publishers. But other markets occurred to me and those I pursued. It's no secret our profession is at a crossroads today. Syndication is not what it once was, printed media are becoming dinosaurs, and if we are not to become a buggy whip industry, we need to be ever more creative in marketing our wares. Kids today need to know this. I was an adjunct professor just a few years ago and the things being taught were 10 years behind what I was doing for a living. There will always be a need for humor and cartooning. We just have to be in tune to the avenues that best accomplish the delivery of what we do.

We live in a TV/computer generation now which has almost and will ultimately supplant the print media generation. Think about ways you can adapt what you do to the new opportunities. Cartoonists of old were innovators in the print generation. Our challenge is to do the same in an electronic generation. And that's what we have to inspire kids today to do just as our heroes in print inspired us.