Do Not Win the Race to the Bottom

Here is another classic Self Employment post. This time, the point is that you should pay yourself a wage you can live on. This is more important than ever, as across the board there has been a huge downward pressure on price for the past several years—don't get caught trying to win the race to the bottom. There will always be someone foolish enough to undercut your price, so set a realistic price and stick to your guns.

Self Respect, or How to Price Your Work

A respected screen printer friend of mine stopped by yesterday. She maintains a shop capable of all type of shirt jobs, but has only a 1 station press, making multicolor jobs on dark shirts very labor intensive. She would like to farm out such work to a colleague, and asked me if I could come up with a price list for her.

I took my “printing on client supplied blank shirts” list and discounted it 10% as a courtesy to her, giving her my best possible rates. At our meeting, she showed me a job that I would print at 2.35 per piece (I probably should have said 2.55). I was informed by her that the rate for the job was 1.75. Note that she didn’t say her price was 1.75, she simply stated what the job was worth (stating her opinion as fact).

Sorry! I do not live in a world where you bid super low in a desperate attempt to attract and keep clients. I don’t create a mindset for myself where market forces dictate to me that I have to work at low wages, suffering an inability to cover my costs.

I mentioned to my colleague that any job on my press has to bring a gross profit of $60.00 an hour through my door to keep the shop rolling. At least! She quipped “We don’t get anywhere near that”. Fine, that’s not my problem. It is her problem, and she was trying to sell it to me. I wasn’t buying.

When setting your prices, pay yourself a rate you are comfortable with. Remember, there is always a market for quality. Your power in any deal is to walk away from it.

© 2007 Steve Lafler all rights reserved

Marketing & Promotion - An Ongoing Process

Here is another in my series of classic "Self Employment" posts. In one sense, this one is the most dated piece I have reprinted. Over the nearly three years since I originally posted this, nothing has changed more in business than marketing and promotion. The rise of "new media" has meant several obvious things--Craig's list has largely replaced the classified section of your local hip weekly, and Google ad words has grabbed a huge share of grass roots advertising action.

This piece still has some very good advice about promoting any small business. I emphasize the importance of creating an ongoing marketing and promotion plan that works for you, it is key to keep putting the word out if you are serious about making a living in self employment!

Make the Phone Ring

Okay, you work for yourself providing a product or service. You need the phone to ring. You need queries about your product or service in your email in box. You need a clientele.

Cover your Bets.

I started my T-Shirt printing service in Oakland in the spring of ’87. For seven out of the next ten years, I maintained a part time job to insure that I could make ends meet. It took time to build a clientele that could support me. Chances are, you are jumping into self employment with minimal capitalization, so it’s incumbent upon you to insure some level of income.

Marketing plans & scams

It has been my experience that intuition supplies one with plenty of ideas about how to attract potential customers. When I started freelancing t-shirt printing as an undergraduate, I simply copied up flyers a couple hundred at a time and papered the bulletin boards of the University of Massachusetts campus with them (and the phone poles, and just about any other surface I could drive a staple into). It was cheap and it worked. I lived for years off of my staple gun. I mean staple guns; actually wore a few out. I took care to design flyers that communicated my message in clear simple terms, including the command “Call Steve for a quote”.

A few years back I gave up the flyer method for a couple reasons. First, there were fewer places to hang flyers. As flyers became a more popular marketing technique, they caused more trash everywhere. Cities, universities and what not became smart about eliminating places where lots of messy handbills could be posted. When I started the biz in Oakland in the spring of ’87, I was the only screen printer posting flyers on the UC Berkeley campus. It brought me a ton of business from dorms, frats, clubs, sororities and the like. Within a year, five or six screen printers started a literal wall papering of campus with flyers like mine. I had to hang twice as many to get half the jobs, and it became a lowball market. Who wants to work cheap? Not me! I’ll also mention that it had become a pain in the ass to truck all over town hanging handbills. It just ain’t that much fun. Occasionally, someone would give me a hard time for trashing up their neighborhood, and who can blame them?

From the very start, I also used what has been my number one selling tool, direct mail postcards. Again, I’ve always taken care to craft a postcard that delivers a clear message: “I do high quality custom T printing at reasonable rates, call me up right now for a quote” was the gist of it. I have usually generated my own mailing lists from local weekly newspapers (go after the advertisers and event listers), the local business to business yellow pages, the regular yellow pages, directories from this industry or that. Collect address of companies or organizations who you would like to do business with. I’ve also bought mailing lists from data base compilers… my experience is that these lists don’t produce calls or email queries as well as lists you produce yourself.

Therefore I recommend crafting a postcard that hammers you message home, creating a mailing list and sending those suckers out. Wait two or three weeks and mail it again. Do another version of the card and mail that to the same list a few times. Advertising is a process, not an event. You have to repeat it. Keep your message consistent and it will sink in.

You can target lists at specific industries or categories. You can offer special prices at your slow times. Hone your message and drive it home. It works. Be patient.

Another marketing tool I’ve used from the start is advertising in weekly or university newspapers. You can do a classified or small display ad. It’s expensive and slow to work, so be realistic in your expectations for response. I still do small display ads in a local tabloid. The response is not great, but it keeps my name and logo consistently in front of a focused audience. With newspaper ads (and print ads in general), be sure to budget enough to run the ad at least five or six times. Again, advertising is a process, not an event. I’m investing 3-4% of my profits consistently into advertising and marketing expenses. Often higher. Do remember to continue marketing when you are busy and flush with success. You don’t want to find yourself low on cash, with no work and no prospects one fine day, only to realize you’ve done no marketing for 21 months.

Your intuition will inform you of methods to reach your potential clientele. I’m a 47 year old cartoonist who has always been in love with print media. I naturally think of marketing solutions that involve print in one form or another. In this era of digital media, a 21 or 22 year old entrepreneur is going to think of digital based, web based, or maybe blog based ways of communicating their message. Without working too much at digital marketing, I’d say that half my business communication is via email in any case, that’s just the norm in today’s climate of commerce.

There is no right way or wrong way to get the word out about the wonderful gift you are ready to offer for a fee, there is simply the truth that you need to consistently put your message across. If something doesn’t work, dump it and move on.

By the way, as usual, I’ll tell you I’m no huge expert on this. Just sharing what works for me, and a bit of the thinking behind it. I might even recommend looking into some of those books on guerilla marketing. Do a web search or something. No doubt here are a million people on the web selling marketing schemes. Look out for snake oil salesmen!

Finally, I’ll mention that from time to time I’ve done a campaign of ads, mailers or whatnot that utterly failed to garner even one phone call. Hey, at least it was tax deductable!

Final Caveat

I’ve been running the current version of my business for almost eighteen years. With all the marketing that I do, at least two thirds of new accounts come from recommendations. So the moral of the story is do quality work, be friendly and deliver a solid value. Oh yeah, one more thing… NEVER GIVE UP!

Copyright 2007 Steve Lafler, all rights reserved

The Win - Win Deal

Here is another classic post from the early days of this blog. Given that I posted a very "hard ball" piece yesterday, it's important to bear in mind that all parties in any given deal must be treated with respect. With that in mind, I present the following diatribe on the "win - win deal".

The Win-Win Deal

Within the scope of private business, capitalism, or what have you, it’s not only possible, but indeed necessary to construct deals in which both parties gain, in order to be truly successful.

Integrity, Honesty and Frankness

Business is nothing if not a series of relationships to the bohemian sole proprietor. In my central Screen Print business, I have roughly three dozen active accounts (a.k.a. customers). My ability to earn an income is dependent on successful navigation of those relationships. It may sound altruistic to pursue the win-win deal, but it’s really pragmatic. Simply, a happy client will recommend you to others. An unhappy one will spread the word that you suck. Take it from a guy who has had both experiences!

Integrity may mean that I suggest an order of 50 shirts to someone who initially says they want 500. My experience is that you shouldn’t over order on a design that doesn’t have a track record, or is not presold to some group, or is for some major concert, etc. If they get stuck with 450 shirts they have no use for, it may occur to them to blame me! If they buy 50 and sell 45, I have a new on-going client.

As for honesty, no need to spill your gut, but do keep your client informed of any information they need to know. Try to make quotes that cover all contingencies so there will be no surprise charges. If, for example, the client hands me an art file that I need to do two hours of work on, I call them right up and say, “This will cost another $130.00 in art time to produce the job.” Then, they have the chance to back out before I start the job. If they become contentious, so do I!

In case of a dispute, if you are straightforward and keep your client informed, you will be able to create a chronology of the facts of the deal to support your version of events. This can be a valuable tool in discussion and settlement of disputes. It’s good in court too, in the unfortunate event that it comes to that.

Pursuit of Quality

I’ve been in the T-Shirt printing game since I was an undergraduate in the late seventies (who knew that an easy way to earn beer and date money would turn into a “career”?).

Not a week goes by where I don’t learn something new about screen printing garments. It is a very simple technology, photographically based, that works swell for printing on fabric. But there is endless and infinite finesse (and technology) that can be brought to bear to make it work better.

As a kid, I got into the business as a low baller, (pricewise) which was appropriate. After awhile, it occurred to me that is was more satisfying to pursue the highest quality available, and that there is always a market for quality.

I had run a low tech water based ink shop for years, still the best approach for the low overhead start-up shop, and the perfect dorm room option. As the demand for multicolor printing on dark shirts increased, I began to farm out jobs to Dan O’Neill Custom Screen Printing. Most of what I have learned about quality printing comes from Dan, who is incapable of doing a bad job. I’ve since tooled up to do these jobs in-house, but Dan is still in business in San Leandro, California with my solid recommendation!

In terms of supporting the win-win deal, quality trumps everything. Everybody loves a job well done.

Pricing

I charge a price slightly high end in my shop. I figure I am offering quality work and fast, friendly service. As a matter of self respect, I pay myself (and my printers) well. Ever do a job where you quoted too low? You were pissed off while you worked on it, right?

A lot of services, from screen printing to graphic design, will charge on the order of $75.00 an hour for labor (here in the S.F. Bay Area). Carpenters, muffler shops, etc. charge likewise. It’s a reasonable proposition, provided you do excellent work. To support equipment, office, promotion, insurance and other costs of doing business, figure out how much you need to make. Realize, you will spend some unbillable time doing accounting, promotion, or latte drinking, so figure you’ll be lucky to bill 20 – 25 hours a week. How much do you need to make? How much do you want to make? Do you have helpers? Contractors? How much do they get, and what do you charge for it?

By the way, if you are an illustrator or graphic designer, consider charging for usage rights rather than on an hourly basis. Be sure to retain copyright (ownership) of your work. Join the Graphic Artist’s Guild (www.gag.org) and learn how to run your business. Do not accept work for hire contracts, where you essentially become an employee without benefits.

Copyright 2007 Steve Lafler, all rights reserved.

Anatomy of a Deal

Here is the inside dope -- the chronology of a deal in the T Shirt custom screen printing business. I note up front that I always want a win-win deal, where all parties get satisfaction and value; I mention "win-win" here because this piece is rather hard nosed in tone. That's the reality in business, you have to be tough, resourceful and detail oriented.

Although this piece describes a wholesale T Shirt deal, the ideas could be applied to many small business scenarios. I wrote this almost three years back, so bits may be slightly out of date.

Anatomy of a T-Shirt Job

1. Customer asks for a quote and places an order. Ask them the basic variables of any job: Quantity of shirts, type of shirt (T-Shirt, Hoodie, American Apparel Women’s T, etc.), color of shirt, sizes, and number of colors in the print (again, this can confuse people. They will count the shirt color as one of the colors, or will forget to count black as an ink color).

• How many shirts? AND SIZES! XXL’s cost more.

• What style of shirt? What brand?

• What color shirt? Color ink?

• How many colors in the design?

• Is the design done? Is it an Illustrator or Photoshop file? A pdf or jpg file? Maybe a ratty sketch on a gin soaked bar napkin? (Art/design billed at 65.00/hour.)

2. Make a quote. Refer to the price list. The prices on the list are a little high, you can cut them a bit if you want, use your judgment. They are fair prices as they stand. Calculate a quote including price of printed shirts, films, and screens. If art is supplied on disk, tell them you may have to tweak their file to get film, graphics are $65.00/hour. If you have to do any typesetting, the minimum is $15.00.

Components of unit price are mark up of 50% and print price.

A standard T-Shirt from Fruit of Loom, Jerzees, Hanes etc. will run 1.25 and up, depends on color of shirt and brand. American Apparel cost more, 3.25 and up, they are in great demand with the younger clientele in particular. I usually mark the blank up 50% of it’s cost, then I add the print price from my “Printing only” price list.

California Sales tax is 8.75%, so multiply the total at .0875. If they have a resale number on file with us, charge tax on film and screens only, not on shirts. For new customers who have a resale number, they must fill out a resale card with their Seller’s Permit number on it. Charge tax to anyone who does not have a resale number, or the state will charge it back to you! Absolutely no exceptions.

GET A DOWNPAYMENT. The customer will finance the job. Once you make the quote, figure out how much the shirts cost so you can ask for a downpayment. If the shirts cost $275.00 on a job, I always ask for $300.00 up front, for example. Call or email the client back and tell them the price, and the amount of the downpayment. If they like it, schedule a meeting to take their order. Or they can send the check and disk, or even email the art files. If they don’t like the price, they may ask for a lower price. Negotiate if you want, I don’t. Don’t let anyone push you into a snap judgment, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. My policy is that my rates are very fair for the level of quality and service I offer, so I do not negotiate after I quote a price.

3. Process the order. Show them the written quote to confirm that is what they want to order. It often changes. Sometimes their art will not be ready for film output, or will have more colors than they said. Take your time to figure out what the art charges will be. Revise the quote to reflect any changes in the job.

Some clients will have a design for both sides, after you quoted for printing on only one side. Or they will cut the quantity in half and expect the same per shirt price. Take your time and calculate the extra charges. Clients may be disappointed if the price goes up when they want a fancy job, be friendly and suggest making it a simpler print.

Make a point of closing the sale. Ask for a downpayment, or a purchase order if it’s a big agency or corporation. “I’ll need a $600.00 downpayment to produce the job.” Usually they happily hand over the check. If they don’t, fine, everybody finds out in advance: no money, no shirts. Finally, find out when they need the shirts and agree on a due date. Generally, this is a lot of fun because you’re working together on a shirt that you both really want to produce. Don’t start work without a purchase order or a down payment; until you have one of those, you do not have an order.

Remember, the power you have in any deal is to walk away from it. If warning signs or red flags go up, walk. I just did this last week. My intuition told me the down payment check would bounce, so I politely declined the job.

4. Producing the job. Order the shirts from San Mar, Apparel Source, Border Bros, Alpha Shirt Sales, or even straight from American Apparel. Check their web sites for wholesale prices, policies etc. Sometimes you want the shirts that day, so you go to Apparel Source if you are in Oakland. Check to see if you need ink for the job, and order it. Check screen supplies too.

If the client gave you the art on disk, get films output. Better yet, output them yourself on your laser printer or ink jet printer. Check www.usscreen.com for information on outputting film from photoshop or illustrator files. When art is on disk, get 20.00 per film in the down payment to pay for the films if you are sending out for film.

I always staple the shirt and ink invoices to my copy of the quote/work order, so when I get a check, I immediately pay for shirts and ink and misc. supplies, if I haven’t already. Look over the shirts to make sure the order is right. Count them in. Also check the shirt invoice, does it match what you ordered? Best to spot errors up front. Before printing the job, double check even the simplest work order, just to be sure of shirt color, ink color, print placement, quantity, etc. Show a proof shirt to client, or perhaps a color inkjet print of the design so they know how it will look on the shirt.

When outputting films, be sure you know what size the client expects the design to be on the shirt. Often they supply designs not at the size that will work on a shirt! If client wants a PMS color match, be sure to charge $15.00 if they want it exact. Or even 20.00. People can be very literal about color matches.

5. Delivery/Client Pick Up. Here’s the fun part. Getting paid. Give the client a call when the job is done. Tell them the amount of the balance they owe. Best if they pick up (keep the transaction on your turf), but some will want delivery. Occasionally, people will turn into weasels and try to get the shirts without paying, especially when you deliver to their place. I usually smile and start hauling the box away, better yet I go in first without the box and announce I have a C.O.D. Usually, it’s a lot of fun and the client is happy and giddy with their new shirts. Once in awhile, you gotta have brass balls and iron nerves. The box of shirts is your ace in the hole. Client already gave you a downpayment, they want the box; so they will cough up the balance.

When you get the check, the first thing to do is pay any invoices on the job: Shirts, ink, sales tax, film, screens.

That’s the basic Anatomy of a deal.

1. Quote/invoice

2. Meet Client/get downpayment

3. Order goods/print

4. Deliver job/get paid/pay invoices.

Classic Boho Self Employment Screed Continues

Here's yet another reprise of my early posts on the self employed life:

The Big Picture: Building and Sustaining a Career

It’s actually pretty easy to succeed as a self employed bohemian if you are obstinate and consistent. This simply means showing up, day after day, week after week, year after year. You will develop a reputation for being reliable, and your clientele will grow over time. Satisfied clients will recommend your product or service to others. Sure, you will execute an ongoing marketing program to tell the world that you are in business, but most of your new clients will come from recommendations. As you hone your skill in executing your job, you will realize more and more that your real job is the successful management of your relationships with your clientele.

Whether your small business is an end in itself, or a stepping stone to some grander design, it is possible to create a very good job for yourself. You can strive to create decent working conditions for yourself, at decent pay. You will want to charge enough to buy at least basic health insurance, and you will want to open some sort of retirement account and dump a little money in it on a regular basis.

Just as you build equity in a house by paying a mortgage over time, you build equity in your self employment career by showing up, doing a good job, and treating your clients and yourself with respect. Equity in a self employment position is certainly an intangible, and is hard to measure; but from where I sit, it provides a very real source of income and control over my life that I can rely on.

If you are cut out for bohemian self employment, you know who you are. You know you do not want to work in a corporate setting. Some of you have tried it, and have experienced the horror. You know you do not want to work for the government, or in a bureaucracy.

I am here to tell you that you can and will work for yourself, and you will succeed on your own terms, and in your own time. You will experience set backs and disappointments. So get a temp job for a minute if you have to. But never, ever give up. You know, deep down, you are not capable of being any thing other than a perfect example of your own fine self. You may as well face it, and give yourself wholly over to the life you know you were born to live. Good luck!

Adventures in Self Employment

As the third anniversary of my Self Employment For Bohemians blog approaches, it's my intention to reassert the central premise--not only is it very good indeed to be self employed, much preferable to the living death of holding down a regular job (especially one in a soulless corporation), but it is very do-able to be self employed.

I am not the only artistically inclined entrepreneur with a broad anti-authoritarian streak, and certainly I'm not the most articulate. I do, however, have something to say about the process of building an independent work life for oneself, and sometimes I'm even funny!

Digging back to the beginnings of this blog, I am going to reprint my seminal pieces about self employment over the next stretch. Presumably I'll have something new to say on the subject once I've reposted my core articles.

The following was first posted at the end of 2004, it's been edited since.

Self Employment for Bohemians
By Steve Lafler

SPONTANEOUS ENTREPRENEURSHIP
I was fifteen minutes from reporting to my first day of work as a minimum wage dishwasher early one evening in June, 1979. It was my first summer living out of my mom and dad’s house. Things had started well enough—my intention was to sell wholesale T-Shirt printing services, pumping out the jobs myself on a freelance basis. The first week, I sold a gross of shirts to a local pub, making a gross of dollars. Considering that rent for my summer sublet was all of $60.00 per month, I felt flush! But I hit the wall after that. Despite hanging flyers all over Amherst and environs (including on the enormous University of Massachusetts campus), the fact was that my client base (dorms, student clubs and the like) had departed for the summer and no one was buying.
Having spent most of my last $20.00 on a book that caught my eye (I’d convinced myself that this was practical through some alchemical equation), I was ready to throw in the towel and signed on for a dishwasher job on campus. UMass hosted an odd assortment of conventions, seminars and crackpot camps in an attempt to pay the bills over the slow summer season. I was to be washing dishes in the campus dining commons for a group of several hundred Transcendental Meditation practitioners from the west coast who were convening a seminar on levitation. I did mention it was the Seventies, right?
I was filled with despair at the bleak prospect of washing dishes. I’d done my time as a dishwasher at a fast food steak house in high school where I was required to wear a polyester cowboy outfit. I had no desire to return to the low rent glory of the dishwashing pit.
At fifteen minutes to the 7:00 pm diswashing shift, a bolt of lightning struck. Of an instant, a fully formed scam literally sprang out of absolutely nowhere and announced itself to me. The underlying message was clear: YOU ARE NOT TO REPORT TO THE DISHWASHING JOB! I’d recalled that an acquaintance, Sue, who worked in the campus center building, had mentioned to me that she had a list of groups who were holding events in the concourse of the campus center that summer. Sue had actually produced a list of the events for me. She assured me, if I was to set up and sell T-Shirts at these events, she would look the other way; not charge me for the space. It seemed risky and a bit scurrilous, and I’d forgotten about it until fourteen minutes to dishwashing.
It was a Thursday evening, and that very weekend, the New England Camera Club was hosting their annual convention in the campus center. I determined that I would grace the show with their official (bootleg) t-shirt. The first problem to conquer was lack of capital. I knew where I could score some blank shirts for a dollar a pop, which I could print and mark up to the princely sum of four bucks, but since I was down to $3.00 on hand, it didn’t seem much of a plan. If I had a hundred bucks, I could buy a hundred shirts and turn it into four hundred over the course of the weekend, enough to finance a month of summer living!
Did I mention it was the Seventies? Very fortunate, as it turns out you could hitchhike anywhere in New England back then within the course of a few hours, a day tops. I elected my mom as my financier and was on the road by five minutes to seven with my thumb up. As my folks lived about 70 miles away, I figured I’d get there just before the summer night settled in. I got a ride out of Amherst towards the western burbs of Boston just about the time my shift supervisor probably started wondering where the hell I was.
Okay, so mom definitely raised an eyebrow at the plan, but recognized my desperation and fronted the bucks. By early Friday afternoon, I was back in Amherst at my drawing board putting together a cute little cartoon logo featuring a guy who had a camera for a head. Somehow I managed to rustle up the blank shirts and get them all printed by eleven that evening.
The next day, I set up bright and early on the campus concourse with a table that Sue scrounged up for me (she was slightly horrified that I’d actually taken her up on her offer!). By noon I’d made Mom’s stake back, and was up to $250.00 by the end of the first day.
By just past noon on Sunday, I hit about $430.00 (having managed to get the shirts for .89, I had a few over 100 pieces). At that point, an obnoxious fifteen year old (who had been flirting with me earlier) returned. With an attitude of scorn and derision, she asked if these were the official New England Camera Club T-Shirts? I said that indeed they were! A pale and disheveled fifty year old sad sack with caved in shoulders stepped forward and introduced himself as the president of said club. I handed him the four remaining shirts, and barked “Here’s your cut!”. I was breaking down the table over his protests and briskly walking it back to the storage bay that Sue had plucked it from the day before. Table tucked away, I smiled at the Pres. and thanked him profusely. Then I turned on my heel and ran close to four minute mile pace back to my flat, a remorseless 22 year old flush with success!
Now I admit that I’d pulled a fast one on that guy, but I am hardly the only college kid to ever make a quick bundle of cash bootlegging a few T’s. The moral of the story, such as it is, goes like this: If you’ve got the BoHo self employment stuff, you know it, because you have an anecdote or two a lot like this. Normal, sensible, thoughtful people do not take risks like this, they do not engage in such brazen behavior. They want “security”! You and me, we’ll take the risk any day… for those who prefer the living death of the secure government job and pension, they can have it!

Is BoHo self employment for you?

Are you an insubordinate scalawag who hates being a cog in a hierarchical organization? Do you enjoy simple accounting? Then BoHo self employment may be the designer lifestyle of choice for you.

I was a paperboy from the age of thirteen until I was fifteen. I wasn’t particularly ambitious about adding new customers, nor was I the best accountant/enforcer I coulda been, but I was conscientious and punctual about getting slightly over forty households their morning Springfield Union for two years. I really enjoyed the earnings—at first, it enabled my Marvel Comics habit, which transformed into an album buying binge when I got a bit old for superhero comics. Finally, at the grand old age of fifteen, the gig supported important early forays into the enticing worlds of beer and weed! I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but apparently having a paper route is a good indicator that you may have the right stuff for entrepreneurship.

That may well be true, but the ultimate test is probably more like this: Have you ever been hired for a job (probably one you desperately needed) only to find yourself really depressed at the prospect of looming indentured servitude? Yes? Now there is a swell indicator that you have the right stuff for entrepreneurship!

Okay, that’s really only part of it. Where lies you passion? Do you obsess over something that can translate into a product or service? Can you see yourself building a business around this passion, this obsession? If you have an intense focus, if you naturally bend your will to doing something about it, bingo! You are ready to put yourself in the driver’s seat in your life. Lemme warn you though, you are in for one hell of a bumpy ride. You gotta want it BAD! Seriously, it is easier for most normal humans to just get a job and have a hobby on the side. Stare yourself down hard, look in your heart and do a gut check. Ready? OK, let’s go!

Disclaimer! I can only tell you about my experience, what has worked for me. Take what resonates with you and dump the rest. I am no business genius, but I am very canny about producing an income for myself. I have been able to do so in adverse circumstances. In the midst of the devastating recession of the early 80’s, fresh out of college with an ART degree (not a lot of hiring going on there!), I created a job for myself out of thin air (more about that in a bit.)
Right now, at the age of 47, I’m running a business that grosses about $130,000 a year. It pays me about 35K, and two part timers last year made a total of about 21K between them working for me. Mind you, I’m working an average of about 30 hours a week… part of my pay I take in TIME. Say what? That’s right, I pay myself in time to do what I want. That’s the BOHO part. According to my handy American Heritage Dictionary, Bohemian is defined thusly: “A writer or artist who disregards conventional standards of behavior”. I’m an artist as well as a businessman, so I’ve always been willing to trade potential earnings for time to do what ever the heck I want. In my case, to write and draw “literary” graphic novels. Yes, I make some money from the comics too, but not enough to keep the wolf away from the door.
I’ve managed to keep myself employed during three serious economic downturns since I got out of college. I’ve been able to buy a house (I went in on it with my wife and sister in law, a very economic way to buy real estate). By virtue of re-investing a lot of my earnings back into my business, I pay pretty darn low taxes. I’m no Donald Trump (thank god!), but I’m reasonably content with the job I’ve created for myself.

THE ZERO OVERHEAD MODEL
Okay, the place to start is at the beginning, and we’re almost there, but first I want to tell you about my foolproof concept for starting your own business—it’s called the Zero Overhead Model.

The idea is that your clients are going to finance your business for you! I use my own business model here for a couple of darn good reasons. First, it’s a business I know well. I’m qualified to hold forth on the business of wholesale custom screen printing. Second, my business is built around both a service (custom screen printing) and a commodity (t-shirts/apparel). I believe that the zero overhead model can work for both a service based or a commodity based business.
Here’s how it works in a nutshell. Joe or Joanna Business owner (or any potential client) comes in to order 100 t-shirts imprinted with their logo. I quote a price on the job and they agree to it. I write up the order, detailing the particulars. The client signs the order form, acknowledging their agreement to the deal. Let’s say that the total on the job is $700.00. I tell the client that I require a 50% downpayment to produce the job, with the balance due upon delivery. With costs of about $250.00 total to produce the job, not only have I enlisted my client to finance production of the job, but I’ve gotten a little pocket money up front in the deal!
When I started producing custom screen printing jobs as an undergraduate, it didn’t take me long to figure out that my customers were also going to be my financiers. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention!
This little schema does bring up some obvious questions. For example, why the heck is Joe (or Joanna) Business going to trust you with the aforementioned $350.00 downpayment? Based on what do they trust you? Okay, I admit it’s a con game! A confidence game, that is to say. When you meet a prospective client, you are projecting confidence in your ability to deliver the goods. Your appearance and demeanor project professionalism. If you are indeed in the t-shirt game, you show them samples. They are welcome to walk if they see red warning flags in the course of your meeting. I’m a proponent of the soft sell; as such, I am very comfortable with a perspective client who decides not to place an order at any particular meeting. My attitude is, I’m not so much gunning to close a sale no matter what, rather I’m helping the client fulfill there need for some quantity of screen printed t-shirts. If the price is too dear for them, or if we aren’t a good fit to do business, I’m quite happy with that.
Another question: What about production equipment? What about samples? What about office or production space? Phones? Computers? Etc.? Well, when you are starting out, you just need to improvise. You (hopefully) have a roof over your head, whether it’s your place, your parents house, a sublet garage (ideal!), a dorm room, or even if you are couch surfing. Work with what you have and build from there. If you can borrow a friend or family members phone and/or computer for even an hour a day, that may be enough to contact initial clients and produce that first job.
I’ll dust off another anecdote as an example. I began freelancing t-shirt and illustration jobs while still an undergraduate at UMass, printing jobs in my dorm lounge. I took off for the west coast half a year after taking my degree. After several months of traveling, I found myself in Eugene, Oregon. I spent the little money I had securing an apartment. I placed some ads in the local university newspaper advertising my screen printing services, then I copied up a couple hundred flyers and papered the phone poles in the college neighborhood with them. I was down to about eight bucks when the first job came in (phew!). It was a small job, which would take only about $30 bucks in supplies to produce… yet somehow I had neglected to hit up the client for a downpayment. Oops! I needed a can of ink, four blank t-shirts, a squeegee, a yard of synthetic silk and a wooden frame. What to do… I borrowed the money from my girlfriend! From there I sold more jobs, just scraping by, until a bounty of dorm, frat and music festival gigs rained down on me in the Oregon spring.
You do not want to always ask friends or family to bail you out. And if you do borrow money from them, be sure to make it your first priority to pay them back. But you will rely on your network of friends, family and colleagues again and again. Community is a very good thing! When someone comes to you for help, gladly give it to them! (Unless they are a serial leech, in which case giving them a kick in the ass is the best favor you can do them… ).
The zero overhead model may be the only way to fly for BoHo entrepreneurs, but believe me they aren’t the only ones. Look at a guy like George W. Bush. Is that guy a self made business man? Hell no! Everything that guy ever owned was procured with sweetheart loans from his daddy’s fat-cat friends and stuff like that. Do you think the super rich ever buy anything with their own money? NO! They get it with O.P.M. (other people’s money). OKAY! That’s it for the zero overhead thing for now. I’m getting off track talking about these darn oligarchs and plutocrats.

TAXES

The Schedule C is the best friend of the sole proprietor. Get to know it well. Work it! The Schedule C is the “Profit or loss from business or profession” form, to be filed along with your form 1040.

If you re-invest in your business, your business will grow, and you will pay very little taxes. Keep a very tight ledger of income and expenses, using the categories that the IRS provides on Schedule C; you may also add categories peculiar to your business. At the end of the year, compile the data and boom—it takes like ten minutes to fill out the Schedule C. Okay, so it took you five hours to add up your ledger, if you do it by hand like me. You can do it on your computer too.
You will pay taxes on the profit you show at the bottom line of the Schedule C, and you will also pay self employment tax (figure it on Schedule SE). There’s the rub, the sefl employment tax is a stiff one—currently upwards of 15%. So be sure to make quarterly payments to the IRS, or you’ll get your ass kicked come April 15th. The best way to do this is to set aside a percentage of your earnings for taxes every time you get paid—EVERY TIME! Don’t raid your tax fund when you get tight for funds! If you are tempted to raid it, that is the moments to send it to the U.S. Treasure! Anyhow, the theory is that you’ll get some of that self employment tax back as Social Security when you’re a geezer. Whoops, I forgot, W. is gonna trash Social Security…

Steve Lafler

Contents © 2007 Steve Lafler

Announcing Diva Funnies, a new Web Comic

I'm pleased to announce my new Web Comic, Diva Funnies. It will be a regularly updated Web Comic, starring Constance Reddy, who is a Diva, as you may have surmised.

How to explain Diva Funnies? How about this:

You're not a teenager anymore, Miss Thing, so stop acting like one! Betty & Veronica never had this much fun--but look out for that suave werewolf sipping his cerveza in the corner booth...

The fact is, I'm better at doing comics than anything else, as I recently expressed in this blog, so comics I shall do! And this is how I shall do them!

Steve Lafler

Sanctimonious Polemics Here

Fuck a duck, it's hard being a blogger these days, I have no sanctimonious polemic to bash anyone over the head with today, no trivial whining about my live and loves, no product to flog, no stoooopid joke to tell.
You will have to imagine for yourself some left or right wing indignant screed, some sordid detail about my pecker, some new improved and splendid cog that will slide easily into the desired slot (that can be purchased for only $9.99 via paypal)!
I have no dumb ass jokes, some "friend" you haven't seen for sixteen years will send you a page of them with 50MB photos attatched tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
This all being the case, I'm gonna blog off and blog out for now. For christ sakes, I'm a goddamn cartoonist, if you really love me and care about me, go read my mother fucking comic books, for chrissakes. Now there is a medium in which I am qualified to express myself.
Blog? Fog! Schmog! Bloob, Schmoob.

The Funkiest White Man who Ever Lived

To move to a new house, a new city, a new country is to open a door on a moment filled with portent--rarely in life is there such a clean divide between the old and new.
When I schlepped several pick-up truckloads of stuff into our new place in San Felipe Del Agua, a neighborhood in Oaxaca city, last Friday, I was aware of this, but frankly was too tired from the effort to fully appreciate it.
It is a cozy, welcoming and very Mexican casa; Serena and I were pleased as could be to lease it, as a try at an earlier rental had collapsed in negotiations that underscored our lack of finesse in the protocols of Mexican business. Hell, it was a blessing in disguise, as the house we took was far warmer, a better vibe.

Popping open a first symbolic box at the conclusion of unloading, I spied a CD of a Little Feat studio session from '74, and popped it in. Suddenly, here is Lowell George at the peak of his powers putting a groove in my step with an insanely funky reading of "Rock and Roll Doctor". Lowell's rich, distinctive take on the Howlin' Wolf vocal style has room to shake in this number, and his Delta slide meets L.A. guitar leads are smokin'. Bill Payne on piano, Kenny Gradney on bass, Sam Clayton on congas, Paul Barriere on rhythm guitar and Richy Hayward on drums are unmatched in distilling the essence of New Orleans into pristine yet supremely butt-shakin' rock 'n roll.

Goddamnit Lowell, thanks for welcoming me into my new house! You are indeed the funkiest white man who ever lived.

Found A House

After living out of suitcases (well, duffel bags actually) for about ten weeks, the wife and I have finally landed in a nice modest house in San Felipe del Agua, a pretty neighborhood about 2 miles north of the center of Oaxaca.

I am most relieved, as this means I can get back to my art routine.

Borrowed a pick up truck from our hosts Alvin & Arlene Starkman at Casa Machaya B&B Friday last (stayed with the Starkmans for four weeks, a great experience), and schlepped our 40+ boxes of stuff, art, jugetes, clothing and just plain junk down one steep hill and up another to this cozy modest house. (That is my spokesmodel Max Lafler sitting in the courtyard out back by the guest cottage.)

I was sore as hell the next day. Fuck a duck, I have this self image as this studly guy who has been able to run like a demon his whole life, but the fact of the matter is, at the age of 50 maybe I shoulda hired movers!

Things improved this evening when I opened the box with my cartooning supplies--I found my Winsor Newton Series 7 sable brush (#2), and forgot the aching muscles. It was like finding a mini rosetta stone to my soul.

What the stratocaster was to Jimi Hendrix, what Tiger was to Jerry, what powdered rubber jumpsuits are to Lux Interior, the Winsor Newton brush is to me: That magic tool that is infinitely simple, but allows infinite expression with a flick of the hand.

I've been slinging india ink with brushes for 35 years; I figure if I keep it up, I'll be gettin' good at it before long.

Now I can begin in earnest what I came to Oaxaca to do: Locate the art pedal, and press it to the metal!

Meanwhile, I note that I've added a product to my cafepress.com T Shirt shop. It's the FrankenJerry T Shirt, my painting of Frankenstein's monster jammin' on Jerry Garcia's infamous guitar, Tiger.

I'm trying to figure out how to make a buck from Oaxaca, and I guess my cafepress shop is a stab in that direction.

My New T-Shirt Shop

I've set up a new apparel shop featuring my paintings, like this here guitar playin' cactus. And let's not forget the giant wolfman chasing Benb in his '63 Impala!

The shop is hosted by Cafe Press, a most reputable site recommended to me by none other than Tom Tomorrow, the brilliant, distinguished creator of the This Modern World weekly comic strip. When a national treasure like Tom gives the thumbs up to a web portal, I am inclined to trust his judgement!

The apparel shop features Tees, Hoodies, Baby Doll scoop necks, and other trendy sportswear styles.

I'm looking to develop some more full color fun & unusual items as the holidays approach. I'll post new images in the blog here as they go through the formality of appearing in actual paint in the physical world!

Where Can You Sit?

This is the type of question you ask from a position of confusion. I have been a gypsy of sorts for two months plus, living in a gorgeous B&B on a hillside tucked between the city of Oaxaca and the nearby mountain range. It's fucking stunning, the jaunty trees clinging to the hillside in the foreground, moody cloulds tussling with the mountain tops a few miles away.

But... but... I don't got no car, no phone, no house (yet), no drawing table. Today my scanner arrived--smashed to bits by the combined genuis of the US & Mexican postal services. I know, I shoulda known better.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted to be here, but I am a creature of habit. And I guess my favorite habit is working. I want to get down to some serious art making here. I know I will soon, but for the meanwhile I will try to remind myself that I am having a blast here with Serena, Max and Genevieve, and that we are living our dream in real time.

Truth be told, we have mixed it up with a hell of a lot of seriously nice people too, eager to help us and welcome us to Oaxaca. Damn near every person who sees two year old Genni with her riot of red curls falls instantly in love with here.

OK, time to turn off the lights, escape the bugs, and get some sleep.

On to Oaxaca de Juarez!

The obstacles to achieving one's dreams can be stronger than dirt. Serena and I were booked to fly to Oaxaca on Aug. 4 to begin our ex-patriot life there, when we were slammed with something unexpected, to say the least.

Now, rounding the bend of mid August, we are getting back on track and will be leaving wonderful Portland in a week or so for Oaxaca, but to get a sense of what we are up against, I'll just provide a link to Serena's blog right here:

http://haveyouseen.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-test-before-oaxaca.html

I'm fond of telling anyone who will listen that I'm lucky in life, and lucky in love, and that I pretty much came up a winner in the relationship lottery. What can I say about Serena, I love her, she is a singularly beautiful woman, and she is brilliant enought to support me in just about anything that my artist's imagination tosses in our way.
She is an accomplished artist and writer herself--the example of her genius and keen intellect push me to do shit I'd never think of otherwise!
We have embarked upon and completed adventures together that are far beyond what I could have imagined for myself, for us, let alone our kids.

And, here is the rightous good news... her doctor's have pronounced her cancer free!

On to Oaxaca de Juarez!

Stupid Real Estate Tricks

I never intended to be a real estate baron/profiteer, and it ain't nothin' but dumb luck that I kind of am a real estate baron/profiteer.

What I am, as this blog exists to point out, is a self employed bohemian. I've been a cartoonist and T-Shirt screen printer, and that pretty much suits me to a T (fuck, that is a baaaaad pun).

So what happened? Well, several years back, I hooked up with a couple cute chicks I knew (aka my wife and sister in law) and we bought a gorgeous but shambling old victorian in Oakland. Before the big crazy run up in prices. We just wanted to avoid dumping cash into the rent hole, so we pooled resources to buy our lovely dump.

Fast forward to today, two home sales and one insane real estate bubble later, and the wife and I are set up to move into the fertile territory of our dreams.

Indeed, we have cashed out and are headed to Oaxaca City in Mexico to make art and raise our kids. Yes, we are jumping into the deep clear waters of the unknown, into the very heart of our deepest longings for sublime adventure--and we are dragging our two beloved little kids along for the ride!

We lived in Oaxaca (and other parts of Mexico) for half of '97, and we loved every shaggy minute of our time in the amazing, misunderstood jewel to the south. We swore to return, so here we go!

I'm gonna blog more about this for sure, but I'm about to lose my damn battery here in the wifi cafe on Portland's Alberta St. (yes, we are really gonna miss beloved PDX!). Stay tuned!

lotsa love
Steve

I Heart Celebrities

"The Beatles were real bastards" quipped John Lennon in an interview shortly before his death, describing the Fab Four's climb to the top of the heap. It stands to reason that the famous, the true big shots, might be possessed of huge egos and a certain ruthlessness in order to deliver themselves to the winner's circle.

Yet in our culture, we worship at the altar of celebrity in a most earnest way. I'm willing to bet that your average cynical hipster with their ironic pose would melt like butter if, say, William Shatner or perhaps Julia Roberts got involved in a fender bender with them.
Why is this? Well, Hollywood provides a sort of faux royalty, and we accept that. Certainly we generally agree that politicians are bottom feeder scum, so their status is less than movie stars, sporting gods, and music industry icons
Like most average folks, I too suffer from the fixation on celebrity. Indeed, I am aflicted with a bad case of hero worship for certain writers, rock stars and the like. It's embarrassing, but so it goes.

And like most people, I've had actual encounters with some famous folks, and have sort of known some sort of famous folks, as follows:

John Linnell - They Might Be Giants (same high shcool, mutual friends)
Robert Crumb - (fellow cartoonist, mutual friends)
Matt Groening - (see above)
Dan Clowes - (see above, and I actually used to hang with Dan a bit in my Oakland days)
Margaret Cho - (printed her t-shirts for years, barely met her face to face, but she rocks)
Lux Interior - (never actually met the guy, but he did give me a quote for the back of my BugHouse book)
Tom Robbins - (see above)
Alberto Salazar - (lived one town over from Al, ran against him frequently in high school. That kid was smoke!)

I am happy to report that none of these people were "real bastards" to me, as per John Lennon's comment about making it big. Hell, I could even think of some fairly glowing things to say about each person based on personal experience.

Which brings us to my celebrity/famous guy story I really want to tell, about a bonafide genius who also struck me as a truly cool dude.
When I was in my early twenties, I dated a girl named Becca whose family was in the architecture game, and were well connected. In fact, her brother in law, an "old guy" in his 40s, was the Dean of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
We were hanging around the Dean's fancy pants Back Bay townhouse one fine spring Saturday afternoon, when I am introduced to a friend of the family, an architect, one Frank Gehry. Although Gehry was then 50 years old, I was struck by his boyishness, his unaffected charm and frank accessibility. He seemed like a peer, not a big shot "old guy".
It was not a bullshit bluff, a middle aged ploy to seem cool to college kids either. He was simply present, nothing occupied his heart and mind but the moment he was sharing with my gal Bec and I.
Still, I was surprised when he whipped out a bag of weed and inquired if I might roll a joint? Why sure Frank, be glad to! We lit up the doobie as Gehry explained that he couldn't roll for shit.
Sure, he can design the Bilbao Guggenheim, but he can't roll doobies to save his life!
I recently saw a documentary film about Gehry, and was struck once more at his joy in life, his insistence on being present in the moment and being spontaneous with the expression of his creativity.
Rock on Frank, it was an honor to burn one with you!

The Ben Tanzer Experience

See Ben display his handsome mug on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aq3UKEGm0U

This may well inspire you to pick up a copy of his novel Lucky Man, which can be done at Amazon

Truth is, by doing this Ben reminds me that it's high time I took a shot at posting something on You Tube! Looks like the perfect medium for a cartoonist.

Memorial Day Blues

Has there ever been a time in history when sanctimonious hypocrites like George Bush and Dick Cheney have not called for a fresh infusion of cannon fodder to advance their venal lust for absolute power and control? No.

Come every Memorial Day, jerks like Cheney and Bush implore us to honor our war dead--the implication is that we owe them for the liberty and freedom they delivered to us. Sadly, most of our fallen soldiers were serving to advance the ambitions and dreams of the rich and powerful, who, far from the battlefield, have been willing to spill the blood of others for their personal gain.

Certainly there have been times where it has been necessary to defend the country, but most military actions have been designed to advance the agenda of the rich and powerful who stand to gain from it.

When a George Bush asks you to feel a pang of guilt for the price that a soldier paid on your behalf, he is pulling a fast one on you. That soldier likely died to pump up the bottom line for a Haliburton or Bechtel, not to insure that your first amendment rights are intact. Bush is, in truth, attempting to perpetuate the myth that military adventures benefit us all. Why is he doing this? One central reason is that weasels like him will always need fresh cannon fodder (this means you, your friends, your children and grandchildren).

If we are to truly honor people serving in the military, we would not waste their lives on missions inspired by greed and naked power lust (or religious fanaticism, for that matter). We would not send them on ridiculous adventures meant to line the pockets of venal, corrupt, power mad oligarchs and corporate slime balls. We would accord the proper respect to those who serve by allowing them to defend the country and the Constitution, as they were meant to.

I want to honor all those who have fallen in war throughout history as follows: As human beings, we can do better than to engage in violence as a means of sorting out our problems. We owe it to those who have died by the sword to prove that there is a better way to live.

I suggest that it's worth resisting the call to war, to militarism, to nationalism. The greedy few have manipulated the masses throughout history to die for them, to advance their bloody fortunes, while invoking fuzzy patriotic nonsense about "honoring our war dead". I saw we honor them by not adding to their ranks. There would be no greater tribute to those who have fallen.

Those Swashbuckling Creators from Manx Media on Tackling the Novel

Ben Tanzer & Steve Lafler in Conversation

Steve Lafler: Ben, in your debut novel Lucky Man, you take a unique approach—the story is told from the point of view of four friends. Gabe, Jake, Louie and Sammy each get a crack at the narrative from their own point of view. In part four of the book, Sammy’s version of the story brings a crescendo and a sort of denouement to the book. I’d like to know what inspired you to structure Lucky Man this way?

Ben Tanzer: Steve, I was thinking about how friends of a certain age or circumstance can become so close that their thoughts and experiences begin to merge, like they have one brain, and I really wanted to run with that. I also wanted the characters to be somewhat distinctive though and so they not only get to tell the same story from their perspective, but the novel is divided into four sections, with each section highlighting one of the characters and their struggles. I always knew the fourth section would be focused on Sammy and so I crafted his story to come to some bit of closure at the same time as the overall story. What I would like to know is what inspired you to tackle your new graphic novel in partnership with someone else? I could see where that might be an experience that’s both more creative and more frustrating.

Steve Lafler: When Stephen Beaupre and I began work on 40 Hour Man, we had no idea it would become a novel. We were creating it as installments to run in Buzzard magazine, a comics anthology we published under in the 90s. 40 Hour Man generated it’s own momentum; we serialized the piece over 13 issues of Buzzard.

The funny thing with graphic novels is that it may bebe best to start work without seeing a whole novel—it would be a daunting task to intend to write and draw hundreds of pages! For example, when I started BugHouse, I thought I had maybe thirty pages of material, and ultimately ended up with a pretty hefty novel, just following my muse and executing the premise.

As for the partnership with Beaupre, it grew out of the exact sort of shared experience/friendship you depict in Lucky Man, so we come full circle! It felt natural and organic to work with him; we put no pressure on ourselves, we just had a good time.

Meanwhile, I know you have a second novel underway, is a first draft done? How did you approach your sophomore effort?

Ben Tanzer: I have completed a first draft of my second novel which I am tentatively calling Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine. I had this idea that I wanted to do something focused on a couple that falls for one another quickly, implodes just as quickly, and then have to find their way back to one another. This idea had been kicking around in my head for several years. I also had a sense of how I wanted to start and finish it, knew there were a couple of scenes I wanted to do for sure, and then I just started writing. Lucky Man was somewhat similar, big idea, start and finish, a couple of scenes, except that once I started it I just kept going day after day until it was done and I always felt like I knew how I was going to get to the end I had in mind. With this new one, I would write for a week, and then I would put it down, I wasn’t always definitely sure where the next scene was going, but then something would come to me and I would get back to it. It took longer, but started in the same way. I guess if anything, Lucky Man was sort of more fully developed than I knew and desperate to get out of my head, and Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, was half-formed and comfortable with that. Having talked process, let’s talk themes. Are there themes you find yourself repeating in your work?

Steve Lafler: I seem to have come to my tenure here on the planet pre-installed with a will towards being a Zen trickster, so that comes through in my work. My big overarching thematic thread is: What is the nature of creativity? What is the purpose of being human? Why are we suspended in this peculiar medium known as “time”? These concerns came into focus for me in a most spectacular way on April 10, 1976 when I first gobbled down some magic mushrooms as a college freshman. As far as I can tell, I experienced a classic shamanic initiation, traveling through an apparent death and returning to consider it over time, through my art. On subsequent trips, I have not approached that terrifying threshold, let alone traveled through it.

Now let’s here about your overarching concerns that drive you to put it down on paper!

Ben Tanzer: Nice, I’m not sure I can compete with that. Still, there are definitely themes I come back to again and again, looking at them from new angles and trying to make sense of them. Coping is the probably the overarching theme, people coping with abandonment particularly, and abandonment by parents especially, but abandonment by society as well. I tend to focus on how poorly people cope with the things they are struggling with, how they turn to substance abuse and violence and obsessive compulsive behavior, how much of their coping is internal. I’m fascinated by their struggle to make sense of the world and their confusion about how they’ve found themselves where they are. They are people who are not sure how to communicate what they’re experiencing and don’t necessarily have the tools they need to gain more self-awareness. And this of course is all fictional. So, where does that leave us? What else do you want people to know before we say good-bye?

Steve Lafler: The concerns you list are certainly there in Lucky Man, especially in the parent/grown kid relationships. I suspect you start with a grain of truth, some emotional truth, and let it manifest as fiction? And I note that the theme of Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine is the next chronological step in life challenges after leaving home, that is to negotiate the rapids of relationships.

My thought to end on would be something like this… the novel (and/or the graphic novel) is truly a grand challenge to a creative person. It’s huge in scale, even if you bust one out if a few weeks, as Kerouac was known to do. It took me years of cartooning to warm up to the task, and I’m freeing myself at present to come at it anew from the moment.

Fuck if I have any idea right now what my next novel will encompass, even what the overarching process will be, but I’m rarin’ to take the bull by the horns and get on with it!

You’re up maestro, give us the final word!

Ben Tanzer: What I love about novels, graphic or otherwise, is that they can be these sprawling messy affairs, with subplots and drama, cool characters, struggles, humor, babes, drugs, pop culture, politics, pain, joy, love, triumph, and insanity, yet still be cogent, focused, insightful, and entertain someone over a long afternoon or weekend. They’re like life in that way and that to me is pretty awesome. So is the chance to write them.

Lucky Man and 40 Hour Man can be ordered from Amazon.com

Punked!

Ben Tanzer has posted a shorty interview with me on the Punk Planet site, where he is one of their esteemed in-house bloggers.
He manages to ask a few key questions that touch on all the main stops of my comics career, and even lets me talk about how much I love The Cramps! Thanks Ben!
Punk Planet is a great magazine, to say the least--I heartily recommend voting for them at the newsstand with your dollars!

Dog Boy Comic Books

I recently posted a slew of my Dog Boy comic book covers on this blog.

These books will be available from Cosmic Monkey Comics, Portland's great comic book store.

To recap, I introduced Dog Boy in Guts #3 in the summer of 1982 (Dog Boy's first actual appearance was on a "publishing party" poster for my Benb & Gerald book in March 1980 -- the band was Martian Highway, and the guitarist Carl Mayfield and I collaborated on the poster. We printed in silver ink on black paper, so that it would look like an 11" x 17" hit of blotter acid).

Dog Boy #1 (Special Shoe Issue) appeared in March '83, and I went on to publish seven issues under my Cat-Head Comics imprint. Fantagraphics stepped in and published another ten issues, starting up with Dog Boy #1 (volume 2).

Certainly I will produce a collection of Dog Boy material at some point. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pages of material, I envision a 200 - 300 page volume, culling the best stuff into one killer package. Not sure when this will happen at present, except to say it's a good bet it won't be in 2007.

As I am frankly too busy to run a back issue catalog business, I've placed over 1000 copies of Dog Boy and Bughouse comic magazines with Cosmic Monkey.

I'm giving myself the job of staying focused on my current comics work. As the dad of two small children, I have been by necessity neglectful of entering into my full-on comics creating trance for the past several years. I'm ready again to turn the light inward to see what strange fish I might haul back to the surface world for presentation to the public!