Surprises come in strange places.

“Waiter, there’s a string of pearls in my oyster stew.”

Illustration Friday, of course. What else would get me to write something during this horrible, confusing week? I hate the stock market, and am afraid for the future. I decided a guy I liked isn’t all that. Editors who I thought would buy something this week, didn’t. In spades.

(Although I did get two unexpected queries for textbooks. Surprises do come from unexpected places! Textbooks pay well, but you must ASK for the money. Most cartoonists are the worst businesspeople around. Listen and learn, kids. College textbooks sell for around $70 each. Say the printing is 5000 copies. Add it up. It’s almost $1000 a page. (Although one editor got annoyed with me for pointing this out. “That’s not how we think of it. College bookstores take a part of the price.” Well, that’s how I think of it, ma’am!)

Anyway, back to Illustration Friday. Subject is: strings. See, if I had told you the subject first, it would have ruined the joke. Many contributors to IF are from other countries. I hope everyone knows the old joke about finding a fly in the soup!

This feature, Daily Special, is all about restaurants and food, and runs in a lot of major papers, including the award-winning Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aspen, Albany, and alternatives. It started a few years ago in the Los Angeles Times, in Calendar Weekend. The editor was great – giving me such an opportunity to do a cartoon on a subject I loved.  There was no other graphic on the page at all, not even ads, and so the text “hung” on my drawing/cartoon, as so often happens with a good drawing. I wish more Art Directors understood this!

When it started in the Times, my editor said, “I hope you won’t do anything gross, like finding bugs in the food.”

Nah, that’s not my style. I’m more like Pollyanna. Pearls for everyone!