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My Path To Syndication, PART 1
By Paul | April 23, 2008
I was one of those fortunate few who knew what they wanted to do from a ridiculously tender age. My mom kept one of those kid scrapbooks where you put your report card and embarrassing class photo and filled in questions about your achievements (“learned that peeing outside was socially unacceptable”) and dreams of future employment. Once I’d gotten past my ambition to become an astronaut (lack of 20-20 eyesight, terror of being any higher off the ground than halfway up the monkey bars) I started answering “artist”.
In grade two I was in one of those split-classes, and a kid a year older than me and I bonded at recess over Mad Magazine. We’d sit and draw from Don Martin cartoons and impress the girls (I didn’t know much about girls at this point, only that impressing them felt important and doing so through sports or other more traditional male methods was proving impractical).
The “Path To Syndication” takes an approximate 25 year break here, diverted by a three-pack of Marvel comics I picked up containing a Hulk, a Thor, and sandwiched in the middle some hapless hero called The 3D Man (they always stuck some piece of junk in the middle that they knew nobody would ever buy on purpose. Why would they even make a comic about 3D Man? He looked like a joke and his only power was that he was 3 times as strong as a regular guy. 3 times?? The Hulk was, like, 500 times). Here’s the cover of the Hulk comic that was in the three-pack that changed my life.
And so I plunged into the world of superhero comics for the duration of grade school. All I wanted to do was draw for Marvel. Perhaps some of this influence is visible still in Pooch Café.
One of the advantages of knowing at such a young age that I wanted to pursue a career that required very little academic achievement was that all I needed was a 60% average and a grade 12 diploma to get to art college, so skimming by on basket-weavers became my elective in high-school. I also learned that any assignment you handed in, no matter how mediocre, would jump one grade if it were accompanied with artwork (teachers are bored as hell reading reports on fault lines or Merchant Of Venice and welcome any break in the flow of regurgitation on student pages no matter how inappropriate). I confided this juicy information to Sandra Bell-Lundy’s 12 year-old son on the sly when she told me he wanted to be a cartoonist and bade him keep this nugget secret, but he wasted no time telling his mom that Paul told him he didn’t have to try hard at school anymore and got me in trouble with Sandra, the little rat.
My parents, bless them, were accommodating of my lack-luster grades as I seemed to be genuinely obsessed with my chosen path of drawing hyper-radiated megalomaniacs in butt-hugging spandex. I had convinced them through years of dedicated dynamic drawing that a knowledge of algebra and the digestive system of frogs was not relevant where I was going. It was no small surprise to them, and to myself as well, when I arrived at art college and began to flunk.
Next: No Art School For Old Superheroes
Topics: Main, Path To Syndication |
Comments
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April 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 am
Love this story about your way to syndication. Very interesting and entertaining….can’t wait for the next installment! Thanks for sharing!
NinaGeeka
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:33 am
Yu learned to right pretty nice fur not payin tention in skool. I never had the gumption to make anything of myself until after I graduated. I loved to draw but never was able to throw myself into it. Glad you had the vision and committment. Having your own syndicated strip must be far better than drawing superheroes for comic books.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 am
You wouldn’t have gotten away with it if you had my mom….she used to say that it was OK to want to be , but you better study something else too, because there’s not a whole lot of s out there, so learn typing or something for goodness sake!
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
What a great story! Truly blessed with great parents. I remember those 3-packs, the middle one was always some bizarre, short-run title, but we didn’t care. Thank God Mr. Gilligan is a Marvel fan.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
How wonderful to have parents support your dreams and nourish your true talents, even if they’re unconventional. You had a vision and they must have seen it. And now we have our Poncho!!!!
Are we going to get to see anything in that book?
Lulu/Archie’s mom
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Yeah, I got really lucky with the parents in terms of their permissiveness re school. Thankfully I managed to make a living at this doodling thing.
Not much of value to show from the book, mostly just embarrassing pictures of extra tiny me with really bad hair.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:53 am
“Devin, do your homework.”
“But Paul says I only need a “C” to get into college.”
“And just look where Paul is today…a 250+ paper client list…a movie deal with Sony…Ringtales…uh…DEVIN, JUST DO YOUR HOMEWORK!”
Curse you Paul Gilligan.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Um hellllooooo Paul? What could be more entertaining (for us) than seeing you at 12 with a really goofy haircut!!!!
Hmph! Poncho wouldn’t be afeared to let his hair down!
It sure is nice they saved the book. When I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was really neat to see Jim Morrison’s and John Lennon’s report cards.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Heh heh. I’m sure your parents recognized your talent. And it’s clear that you chose your path and spent all your life working towards that. Bravo!! So few people do that.
But, just to let you know, some day you’ll need to calculate the square footage of your living room for that new flooring…
April 24th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
He’ll just hire the best tile ppl in town, whilst drawing a funny Poncho scene when Chazz and Carmen are remodeling their home, and of course Poncho tries to help with the pencil behind his ear…;)
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Great story Paul! I’m sure its great to be able to have a career that you enjoy.
Cant wait to read part 2!
And yes….I had that exact school years book back in the day.
Bad hair and clothes pictures still lurk in there i’m sure.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:55 am
You had the same book? That’s awesome! I’ll try to get on with my tale sometime soon.
July 27th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
well….mine said “Danny” on it,but the same book just the same.
LOL
November 25th, 2008 at 6:59 am
[…] we have Paul Gilligan of Pooch Cafe. Part 1: talks of his formative years in elementary school, sure of what he wanted to be when he grew up; Part 2: A divergence into animation and a return to […]