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The Touch of the Master's Hand

It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
Hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
But he held it up with a smile.
"What am I bid, good people", he cried,
"Who starts the bidding for me?"
"One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?"
"Two dollars, who makes it three?"
"Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three",
But, No,
From the room far back a grey haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet,
As sweet as the angel sings.

The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said "What now am I bid for this old violin?"
As he held it aloft with its' bow.
"One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?"
"Two thousand, Who makes it three?"
"Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone", said he.

The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
"We just don't understand."
"What changed its' worth?"
Swift came the reply.
"The Touch of the Masters Hand."

And many a man with life out of tune,
All battered with bourbon and gin,
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin.
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Master's Hand.

"The Master's Hand" was written by Myra Brooks Welch. She was called "The poet with the singing soul."

Just realised I hadn't uploaded a cartoon for a while. I was at the doctors last night getting a check up so I thought I'd post this cartoon I did recently. Apparently local doctors here in Sydney are using the internet more often now and quite often use it to assist in diagnosing or getting more information on rare cases.

I'm responding to what many freelance ask me when we get together or simply communicate over email. The common question amongst many has been what do I charge. I've written before about how to calculate your time and there are some set prices recommended by the Australian Cartoonists' Association. I thought I'd cover another area that I'm sure will upset some as I reveal another secret that freelancers keep to themselves.

It is perfectly okay to ask for a budget. When a client calls to get a quote you should always ask if they have a set budget to adhere to. In many cases a corporation is given guidelines on expenditure and the more intelligent client will work with you on enhancing what they get given their budget. Still there are a lot of clients out there that are newbies to the scene and are very cautious when they are asked for a budget. Their belief is that your quote will match their budget rather than you giving them a price up front for the task.

There has been a real boom in the industry or change in what companies we are now dealing with. Public Relations companies are now starting to expand in to traditional areas that would normally be covered by Advertising Agencies or Direct Marketing companies. Unfortunately with this comes staff who are unfamiliar with how to deal with the creative industry and tend to talk or haggle their way to get a quote.

Too many times in the past year have I had the unfortunate circumstance of having to deal with clients who have no clear defintion of what the final product is they want or what they are trying to achieve. Gone are the days of being given a creative brief that could be quoted and fulfilled without hesitation. Now the trend seems to be that an idea sparks a thought which is passed on via chinese whispers to a staff member who must now complete the project with no real idea on budget or goal set in place.

Here is something that I hope will set in place a way of weeding out the clients who will be worth working for. Lets find those who have a budget or close to one in mind. At least they know what talks.

If the client cannot answer what their budget is, try asking this...

What has been spent on similar projects?
At least this will give you an idea if they have done something similar before.

What is the annual budget and how does this project fit into it?
Here you're asking for a measuring stick ie. if they say the budget is $100,000 per year then you can roughly estimate how much they're used to spending.

You need this information to provide an accurate quote. If this seems to become an issue sorting out the money side of the commission then it is a safe bet that the job will be a painful one. Every client I take on board now must be organised enough to be able to inform me of a rough budget, timescale and a brief that I can work with to create the final product without hassle.

What have I been up to? Well too much and not enough. Christmas saw the decision to stop Cactus Island from print media. The strip has been in newspapers around the country for nearly six years. In recent times the rise of Sudoku puzzles and other like tripe has seen editors choose puzzles over comics for their papers. The growing loss of support to australian comic strips in papers has been felt by many though. After six years with no break it was time to come to a decision and it was thought best to leave on a high than wait around for the ups and downs of current times with content in papers. There will be a monthly strip drawn in the meantime however, in case the syndicate strike a major deal with a newspaper group. If you'd like to see more of the strip in your paper, be sure to write the editor!

Meantime, strangely enough I've started the idea on another strip. This I hope to have time to play around and experiment with a few characters that I'm sure will ruffle a few feathers. I don't see the current drought of aussie content continuing. I think the whole Sudoku thing will pass like most fads and people's interest will wane. Here's hoping. Here is a work in progress for promotional art on the new strip ....

Being created for an auction to be held on the night of the Stanleys (National Cartoon Awards) there is currently a large poster doing the rounds to the comic strip artists of Australia. Being number 7 on the list I had to break out traditional water colours and at least 1 litre of red wine to complete the task..

So I think I've done well considering how inebriated I was at the time. Been a hectic year and hasn't really slowed down any for me. I had fun going back to watercolours and am reconsidering doing some for a solo exhibtion soon too.

Normally I've been pretty particular about how much definition there has been in my work but when I did this there was definitely a whole lot of little concern for how precise and anal the work would be. I really liked seeing other artists whose normal body of work was tight and discovering there more natural side where you see the mistakes. I decided if I was going to make any mistakes that they be seen. I'm no perfectionist any more with regards to that. It gives a better feel to the watercolour work for me.

I haven't been surfing the works for a while so you'll see me posting some new links up from sites i've been to recently. It's taken a while for cartoonists and illustrators to get more of their stuff online.Chicken Girl has some great brightly coloured styles. Worth checking out.

Michael Jantze has been doing his the Norm strip for some time now. I recall reading it on the web some years ago and thinking it had huge potential to be a driving force behind the future of comic strips. Jantze had a brilliant website design and it all came together quite well. Unfortunately once he was published in print media he soon decided that it was no longer becoming financially viable to run the strip. He quit the strip in September 2004.

With support from his wife and the encouragement to continue the strip from fans, the decision was made to continue the strip if they could sell online subscriptions. This meant a goal of 4,000 with a minimum of $25 per year a starting point to subscribe. Before Christmas they reached around $60,000 in subs. Whilst a Syndicate wouldn't call this a 'Hit Strip', it shows exactly what I have been thinking all along. By targeting a small audience over the internet you can achieve a viable income and maintain your creativity. Macro Entertainment will become a way of the future and its a shame more artists are not willing to recognise it yet. Recognise or the fact they're too lazy to pursue something they don't understand.