In Ron Wheeler’s words …

Whether it was journalling, sending letter updates to friends and family, writing comic strips, or even now writing a blog for my website, I have always wanted to express to others what I see in the world around me. The Ralph comic strip in the 1970s opened an avenue of communication inside of me that had never been tapped before. Turns out, what I expressed through this comic strip other students on campus experienced as well. The strip resonated with them. To learn more about this comic strip go HERE.

I was hooked … but not because of the popularity or the controversy these strips generated. That aspect was simultaneously intoxicating and traumatizing … and thus, often very confusing. No, something inside of me came alive when I wrote and illustrated comic strips … and it still does. As Eric Liddell’s character said in the movie Chariots of Fire, “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” When I create cartoon characters, form a world around them, construct a storyline to communicate, and then draw them into action … I feel God’s pleasure. This feeling of God’s pleasure and presence started even before I became a Christian. When I finally came to Christ, the picture was complete. God’s purpose was revealed. I am to create cartoons to be a communication vehicle for spreading God’s Truths.

Praise God that he allowed me to create The Adventures of Jeremiah, 1000 full page comic strips drawn over two decades that role modeled the Christian walk for teenagers. And He gave me a full line of gospel-oriented Cartoon Tracts to create that were pithy, evocative, colorful, and humorous. Tens of millions of copies of these tracts have been sold and distributed all over the world. Plus, He allowed me to write and illustrate other cartoons, children’s books, curriculum and on and on.

Finally, praise God that He allowed me to pour my heart into multiple packages of comic strips that became failed syndication attempts. (BTW: a newspaper syndicate is a company that buys features like comic strips, columns, puzzles, etc. from individual artists and writers, and sells them to thousands of newspapers and other media outlets.)

Some of these “failures” left me weeping deeply because of how much of myself I put into them. Yet I say PRAISE GOD because …

• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have placed my trust in Christ
• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have served God so prolifically through multiple Christian ministries
• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have grown in godly character
• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have grown in my creative abilities
• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have known what it was like to trust God for my provision
• If I hadn’t failed, I might not have been able to minister to others in their failures
• If I hadn’t failed, I would not have been able to write an awesome devotional on suffering. Go HERE to download a FREE document called, “Biblical perspectives on Suffering.“

I could go on and on with this list but you get the point. There is no such thing as failure if you have grown from the experience. My pastor, Jim West, recently stated, “Character is forged and revealed through hardships.”

You can review (below) all of my “failed” syndication attempts over a 35 year period of time in the order they were submitted, along with my commentary.

Trying to be too-cute-by-half:

This was my first formal submission to Universal Press Syndicate, located in Kansas City. After I was fired from the corporate world in St. Louis within two years of graduation, I moved to Kansas City to try to bring this cartooning fixation either into fruition … or get it out of my system so I could get on with life. Because I was now living off of my savings and unemployment insurance during a challenging economic time, I tried to live as frugally as possible while working on these strips night and day. Because I was feeing the pressure of survival, I tried too hard to be clever. My brother once said (as he struggled through his own creative pursuits), “It’s hard to be creative on scared money.”

I thought putting multi-panel comic strips into a single panel format would make my strip more unique. I also put these strips in a large black leather presentation binder, and I built a presentation box with a hinged lid to hold it. Then I nestled my package in padded white satin fabric. (Unfortunately it looked like a coffin.) I then packed my presentation box into a cardboard carton and dropped it off at the syndicate office. After that I went home and chugged a gallon of sangria. Whoa! Why did I do that? Even though I was not a Christ follower yet, doing something like this was not like me. Living alone, I was plagued by my own thoughts. I was filled with uncertainty. Somehow I sensed this was not my best effort. My syndication attempt was now out of my hands and there was nothing more I could do about it. I wanted to clear my mind. I wanted to forget. Somewhere I had heard the myth that getting drunk can make you forget all your troubles. “What I need is a good stiff drink!” is what I often heard. The booze had none of that effect on me. It just made me more miserable, physically as well as emotionally. I was obsessed about this pursuit and I was taking it all too seriously. All I could do now was wait.

Results of trying too hard:

I waited a week and called the acquisition editor. He invited me to come in to his office. The first thing out of his mouth was, “It took several days for us to find all the styrofoam peanuts that came flying out when I opened your package.” He went on to say, “We’re interested in comic strips, not fancy presentations.” He then showed me the original Cathy comic strips by Cathy Guisewhite. Even though they were crudely drawn and were simply taped to a few sheets of construction paper, the syndicate could see potential in her work. Her strip became wildly successful … articulating from her heart the challenges of a single insecure woman trying to cope in a feminist-leaning culture. He suggested that I do the same … write from my heart about my world … and don’t put multi-panel comic strips into a single panel format. Below are the strips from this first syndication effort.

“Ralph” Syndication Submission 2:

Going back to the drawing board I began reworking my first submission into a standard multi-panel format. Since this batch was going to be reviewed by a different group of people, I redrew some of the strips from my first effort as well as included new material. I wrote from my heart the trials and tribulations of my experience as a single man in the corporate world.

Here’s a little fun fact:

To give the drawings some visual dimension, I used Duoshade Board, which is a stiff cardboard containing two types of hatch marks imbedded in it … one, a series of faint, diagonal, parallel lined going one direction, and the other, lines going both directions (like a window screen turned at a 45 degree angle). To make these lines visible I would brush on a clear acid that removes one white coating and I used a second clear acid that removes the second white coating. Thus, my drawings can simulate 4 values: white, grey 1, grey 2, and black. If you look closely you can see that the grey shades are really faint black lines. Duoshade boards were a valuable addition to the newspaper industry for several decades because the early presses could only use black ink on newsprint (and even that would rub off on the reader’s hands). This was the way they could simulate grey. I used Duoshade board a lot throughout my career until color printing became more affordable for publishers. (And no, I wasn’t trying to be too-cute-by-half. I was just using the tools at my disposal.)

“Ralph” Syndication Submission 3 (rough sketches):

I didn’t get a whiff of interest for my strip from any syndicates other than Universal Press Syndicate. UPS actually worked with me in developing my writing and drawing style. They had some tweaks they wanted me to make in my work and asked if I could just give them some more strips … but only in rough sketch form. They were careful to not ask too much from the submitting artists lest anyone would think they were being strung along, so they insisted rough sketches were fine. Reworking and including some of the previous strips were fine also. Sensing some real interest on their part, my adrenaline got flowing and I got to work. Two weeks later I brought my sketch book in to the acquisition editor and he was stunned that I had been able to write and sketch 65 strips in such a short period of time.

Before you read these rough sketches, I need to warn you, some of this work was not appropriate for newspaper audiences (then nor now), but it honestly reflected the world I lived in. I was not a follower of Christ yet, and I was “swinging for the fences” in my attempt to be relevant and write from my heart. I wanted my work to be the male counterpart to the Cathy strip they loved so much.

“Ralph” Syndication Submission 3:

The letter I included the end of these rough sketches was presented at the beginning of my submission. It gives a good summary of my political and emotional mindset at the time. After reading my rough sketches, the acquisition editor picked several that would work for my next presentation. I was a bit disappointed that he cherry-picked a few “safe” strips. I felt he interrupted the flow of the my storyline and thus lost the edginess I was wanting to communicate. Yet I went home, completed the strips he liked, mixed in some reworking of old material, and added in some new stuff. Even though sketch form would have been fine, I wanted to give this my best shot, so I gave finished art for the whole package. Then, once again … I waited.

“Ralph” Sunday Strips:

I even included some longer Sunday strips samples.

REJECTION!

After this final submission I was starting to feel pretty good about my chances. Around this time I also started going to church for the first time in my life. I knew I needed help beyond what I could do in my own strength so I found a friendly church and they helped me understand who Jesus was. My perspective toward God at the time was more like He was a Genie in a Lamp. I thought if I prayed hard enough and long enough, God would grant me my wishes. That said, I was also starting to discover a conflict within myself as I began to reach out to God. How does that journey fit with my own achievement mindset? Does God want me to let go of my sense of ambition? Or does he want me to create cartoons for Jesus? That’s crazy! What does He want from me anyway? I would soon discover the answers.

One day as I was coming home from some random church activity, I discovered a large envelope outside my door with a Universal Press Syndicate return address on it. I quickly opened the package and discovered all of the comic strips I had been working on plus a rejection letter. I called the syndicate immediately. The acquisition editor graciously took me to lunch. He said that they had been looking for a comic strip along the themes I was writing, but they found another strip they wanted to go with instead of mine. It was called Downstown by Tim Downs. Tim was a Christian who wrote a comic strip similar to mine at the University of Indiana at about the same time I wrote mine. He was good, yet over time, his strip became only moderately successful and lasted 11 years. I was told one reason they picked his and not mine was because the syndicate’s constituents in New York couldn’t relate to Ralph’s insecurities. I guess I was too sensitive for the big guns.

I was crushed. Now I didn’t know what to do with my life. I DID feel insecure. No other syndicate gave me much attention, so I was completely lost … which I realized later was the very spot God wanted me. That’s when I finally cried out … “God, I give up!” … and I placed my total trust in Jesus to save me.

Jesus to the rescue:

Shortly thereafter God amazingly opened a series of doors for me. The first one was, God directed my eyes toward some commotion across the street from my run-down apartment building. It was a run-down series of three houses connected together that had boards over the windows. It was obviously some kind of business, but hopefully not a nefarious one. I went across the street and asked the first person I met if they had any work for me. I told anyone who would listen I’d empty trash or sweep floors, or do anything. I just needed something to get me by until I could figure out what to do next. I was introduced to the owner of the company and he wanted to know what I had been doing lately. I told him I had spent the last eight months trying to syndicate a comic strip. He said, “Are you a cartoonist?” Having died to all my dreams and desires the day before when I placed my total trust in Christ, I muttered, “Yeah, I suppose.” I was looking down at my shoes with a mixture of shame and embarrassment. Who in their right mind tries to become a cartoonist? “Do you know what we do here?” he asked. “We make educational slide shows for businesses. That’s why we have boards over the windows. We need to keep it dark inside while we work on them.” He continued, “We have been looking for a cartoonist for the last three months to draw some of the scenes we can’t replicate with photos or text slides.” My ears perked up. “If you’re interested in the job, go home and draw me a TWA jet snow skiing down a mountain.”

I practically ran out of the office, found some photo reference at the library, and drew the best jet skiing down a mountain I could create. When I brought the drawing back, he and his wife got excited because my style matched the drawing style of the previous cartoonist that they had been looking to replace.

They hired me that day and I worked for them for 18 months, learning all the skills of a commercial artist … before they ran me out. Honestly, I was not exactly a model employee. I had just experienced how God miraculously grabbed my heart, made me His, and then sat me in the best place where I could be trained to be used by Him. Before that, I had looked all over town for work only to discover the place where He wanted me was right across the street from the seedy apartment He directed me to live. That is one sovereign God! I was not shy about telling everyone about this “God experience” … yet these people were into a variety of cultic activities. The lone Christian couple that worked there, rebuked me for being so aggressive. They said I was wanting these people to become Christians so I could love them instead of simply loving them so they could become Christians. Ouch! They were right … but their rebuke was too little, too late, and I was fired before I could change my ways. (Do you see a pattern here? Seems that God likes to move me where He wants me through getting fired.)

Jeremiah to the rescue!

Up until this point, I had no intention of becoming a freelance cartoonist. As my connections grew, small jobs came my way. Several people suggested that I look for freelance work from Christian publishing companies. I thought, “That’ll never work!” Then one day I happened upon a Christian bookstore. I had never been inside of a Christian bookstore before. I went inside and saw most of the books had “Nazarene Publishing House” or “Beacon Hill Press” (the non-Nazarene publishing imprint of the Nazarenes) on the back. I thought, “Wow! The Nazarene Publishing House (now called The Foundry Publishing) must be the world’s largest Christian publisher.” Then I went outside and saw this bookstore was right in front of a large building with “Nazarene Publishing House” across the top. I tracked down the art director, Crandall Vail, and he said, “Go to the Youth Editorial Department right away and ask for Gary Sivewright!” I made my way to Mr. Sivewright’s office, introduced myself, and told him what I could do. He said, “Wow! That was fast!” “What do you mean?” I replied. He said, “We had just been praying for God to provide someone to create a weekly full-page Christian comic strip in a contemporary setting for our Teens Today Sunday school magazine … and in you walk.” They sent me home to create a test cartoon. I did just that, and the story and the drawings seemed to jump out of my pen. I brought back my comic strip, and he (along with the other editors) said, “This is exactly what we have been looking for!” My free lance career now had been fully launched. For the next 20 years The Adventures of Jeremiah was the anchor for my Christian cartooning career as well as the anchor for the Teens Today Magazine. It was LITERALLY a match made in Heaven. 1000 full page comic strips were created. You can read and download them HERE.

“Jeremiah” Syndication Submission:

As a Christian comic strip Jeremiah was very successful. It was consistently rated the most popular feature in Teens Today Magazine. Why? I was told it was because it combined humor with an edification that was easy to read and relate to. So I began to wonder, would a strip like this also work as a daily feature in secular newspapers? (Syndicating a comic strip was still in the back of my mind.) Research at the time revealed that about 80% of the US population believed Jesus was an important figure in their life, and about half of that amount considered themselves “born again”. Those were astounding numbers. Would a secular newspaper syndicate take a chance on reaching that market?

The answer came back swiftly. Basically the answer was, “You have certainly improved in your abilities, but Jeremiah has an ‘Archie Comics’ feel to it … and your strips are too didactic.” Didactic? I had to look that word up. It means, “… intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.” Yes, it was didactic, but so was their Doonesbury comic strip. I suppose it just depends on what direction the moral instruction is directed. I could have continued submitting strips but leave off the Christian aspect, but I don’t think I would have been honest with myself. They had encouraged me to write from my heart, and this was in my heart. Maybe it was a little heavy handed, but it described what I was thinking at the time.

Next step: PRAYER!

I wasn’t sure if this was the end of the line for me with regard to newspaper syndication. Ralph was dead, and now Jeremiah was too limiting. I loved writing Jeremiah strips for the Christian audience but with Christian publications in general there was always a pressure to make each episode edifying (maybe even didactic), and I relished the opportunity to broaden my story lines. I had to try again, but now with the purpose of trying to reflect who I was in my work instead of who the publication I was writing for was. This time I first put together a detailed prayer request sheet and passed it around to as many friends as possible. I gathered what felt like an army of people behind me praying that God would open the door for me to create a cartoon feature from my heart that would be well received in secular newspapers. The problem was, whatever I wrote had to pass through the gate-keepers of the newspaper syndicates whose job it was to convince the newspaper editors of the strip’s merit. I knew for that to occur I needed as much prayer support as possible. Below is the prayer request I distributed to everyone I knew.

“Dipstik” Syndication Submission 1:

What I created was a comic strip called Dipstik. I spent a full year of evenings and weekends working on this. It had a Christian base to it, but some of my friends who reviewed it had a problem with the main character being a nerdy Christian, and the name itself sounded almost profane. Maybe my pendulum did swing a little bit in the opposite direction, but my response was, “Face it! Many of us ARE nerdy Christians, but that doesn’t make our faith any less real.” I submitted my strips to several syndicates. I immediately got a small preprinted note from King Features that said, “We are returning herewith the feature you have submitted. We regret that we do not have an opening for the type of material. Please accept our thanks for the privilege of considering your suggestion–and our apologies for this impersonal response. The Editors.” I don’t think they even opened my package. From The Washington Post Syndicate I got this short typed note, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything with Dipstik.”

I even flew out to California to present my strip in person to the head of the LA Times Syndicate. He quickly read through my strips in my presence. I watched him as he would quickly read the first panel and the last panel of each strip, skipping over the middle. His response was basically what I expected. He didn’t really grasp the heart of the strip. I asked him if there were any Christians who worked in his office. He said there might be one or two Catholics but he said he thought he had a good grasp of what his Christian readers would relate to. He did say he liked the Dipstick doll I had created. Below is a photo of the Dipstick doll plus my cover letter. After that are my comic strip submissions.

“Dipstik” Syndication Submission 2:

I created enough strips for two batches of submissions. A salesman friend had suggested I have a second batch ready in case an editor showed initial interest. It would show my commitment to the material and my ability to be prolific. Unfortunately it didn’t help. One syndicate editor DID like my “Dipstick Maneuvers,” however.

What NOW?

I thought I had my fill of newspaper syndication attempts. I couldn’t tell if I was getting better, if I was getting closer to syndication with each attempt, or if I just hadn’t put together my best work yet, or if I was wasting my time. If you’ve ever seen the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington you will know how I felt. A famous line from the movie was, “Lost causes are the only causes worth pursuing.” Was I pursuing a lost cause? I heard that the definition of insanity was … “doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.” Was I going insane? Or was I persevering through what God called me to do? I honestly didn’t know any more. I did know that while I pursued these efforts, my cartooning ability was improving and I was getting more and more freelance work from Christian ministries and publishing companies. I did try to find work outside of this audience, but thee doors for secular publishers never opened no matter how hard I tried to sell myself. Maybe this is the narrow calling God wanted me to pursue … and perhaps all my syndication efforts stretched me to be better at serving God through these ministries.

“Editorial Cartoons” Syndication Submission:

One of my freelance opportunities was with a Christian newspaper. The editor asked me to try my hand at editorial cartoons. I created a batch that I don’t think he ever used. So I sent them to some newspaper syndicates to see if they had any merit. They didn’t. I was actually somewhat relieved. I have a hard time being harsh enough for that business, and now I had an answer for people who asked me, “Have you ever thought about creating editorial cartoons?” I can reply, “Yeah, those doors just don’t seem open for me.”

“Woof” Syndication Submission:

Another client of mine was Focus on the Family. James Dobson’s daughter had written some children’s books called “Woof.” Focus asked me to created some wordless, or close to wordless, comic strips for one of their children’s magazines. I enjoyed what resulted so I sent these strips some newspaper syndicates to get their reaction. It was, “These are sweet, but there are already too many dog strips.” The acquisition editor at Universal Press Syndicate said, “I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but just write from your heart. If it resonates with people, it will sell.”

“Which Two Are The Same” Syndication Submission:

I knew that newspaper syndicates also sell puzzles to newspapers. Someone encouraged me to create some puzzles for websites, so I thought, maybe I should also give this a shot with the syndicates. Can’t hurt. These are easy to put together. I take drawings I’ve already created and make adaptations of them leaving only two that are the same in each picture. The syndicate’s response? Nope. Not much interest with this as well. Even though they are fun to do, there wasn’t much effort from my heart with these, so there wasn’t much of a feeling of dejection from their rejection either. (If you want to see the full complement of this submission, click on the image below.)

One more shot:

Okay, after about two or three decades of effort, I think I’m done. I’ll never be able to bridge the gap between writing from my Christ-centered heart and making it suitable for a secular audience. Then this idea hit me … make it a strip that is allegorical! Take the names God and Jesus out of the strip and communicate the same Truths by making the cartoonist the God figure in the story. After all, it takes an “Omnipotent Cartoonist” to create the characters, direct their actions, and put words in their mouth. Then the main character is the only one who can recognize the “deity’s” presence as a pencil coming in from outside the frame of the strip. Genius! I put together some strips and took it to the same acquisition editor at UPS who looked at my fledgling attempts so many years before. He actually got somewhat excited (about as excited as a phlegmatic newspaper guy can get). He said their syndicate had talked about buying a religious strip if it wasn’t alienating … and it looks like my allegorical approach might fill the bill. (Select the comic strip below to see all of the Overtones comic strips from my first submission.)

This first attempt came back with some issues, but the door was open for more development. I created a second batch of comic strips (in rough sketch form as they requested), and tried to address their concerns. Then I waited … and I waited. After meeting with one of their syndicated cartoonists at a party (Foxtrot by Bill Amend), I learned that the longer you wait, the better your chances. He had to wait three years. (Select the “rough” comic strip below to see all of the Overtones comic strips from my second submission.)

While I waited, I took my Overtones samples to Colorado Springs to see if Focus on the Family might be interested in having me develop a comic strip around their popular Adventures in Odyssey radio broadcast. Show chief writer and producer Paul McCusker excitedly exclaimed, “We don’t want to talk about Adventures in Odyssey. We want to talk about OVERTONES! How can we make this happen?” Turns out Focus had a relationship with Universal Press Syndicate. They would love to produce and promote comic strip book collections and other products, provided UPS or some other syndicate put these strips into daily newspapers.

On another front, I sent these strips to (the now late) Johnny Hart, the worlds most widely syndicated cartoonist. He created Wizard of Id, B.C., among other successful comic strips. He was also widely known as an evangelical Christian. He quickly overnighted a letter to me raving about Overtones, and promising to encourage his syndicate (Creators Syndicate) to buy my strip. I soon got a phone call from his syndicate. AT LAST!!! My ship has come in! The voice on the other end said, “Out of respect for Mr. Hart, I’m calling you. But I have to tell you, we’re not interested. Your strip just isn’t funny enough. We only buy strips that will knock a newspaper editor out of his chair with laughter.” After he hung up I went to their website and looked at their latest releases and found them incredibly unfunny.

Universal Press Syndicate found my strip funny. They told me so. Now I just had to wait for things to unfold with them and with Focus on the Family. I created another batch of strips in rough sketch form, just to let them know I was still here and I was still interested (as if they thought otherwise). (Select the “rough” comic strip below to see all of the Overtones comic strips from my third submission.)

Weeping deeply:

As you may have guessed by now, Universal Press Syndicate eventually rejected the strip. You can read the rejection letter on page 6 in the Overtones correspondence below. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting the driveway visiting with a friend. My wife, Cindy, went to the mailbox and hollered to me, “Ron, you’ve got a large package here from Universal Press Syndicate.” Oh no. A knot began to form in my stomach. I knew what this meant. When a large package from a publisher or a syndicate arrives, it means they are returning all your work with a rejection letter. I’ve been down this path too many times. Sure enough, UPS rejected Overtones. For the first time in all my decades of syndication submissions, they didn’t even have a reason to reject it … other than they couldn’t agree to accept it. They said another editor should pick this up. I agree … but there was nobody else. I barely got a sniff of attention from other syndicates in all my years of my syndication attempts. If there ever was a response, it was usually a form letter or maybe one or two sentences on a scrap of paper. Most syndicates just did not have the manpower to be involved with their contributors like Universal Press Syndicate did. When my driveway friend saw my reaction and knew how much this meant to me, he quickly excused himself. I wandered upstairs into my studio and began sobbing deeply. I couldn’t hold it back any more. I had spent a good chunk of my life pursuing something that was never meant to be … and I had nothing left. Finally, with no syndication arrangement, Focus on the Family couldn’t be involved either.

Moving forward:

I know this is just chasing a dream, and many people may not understand why this affected me so much. After all, nobody died. It was just a dream that died. It was not a dream of notoriety or riches, it was a dream of having a broad and unique communication platform that would allow me to personally reveal the richness of God’s grace to thousands, or perhaps millions of people.

Yet God DID give me that platform in a way I hadn’t expected. One fruit from persisting with this dream for as long as I had was, I learned how to be a pretty good cartoonist. Along the way he allowed me to create a line of gospel-oriented cartoon tracts that have sold 75,000,000 copies around the world and in various languages. That alone is a communication platform that rivals anything a syndicated comic strip could have offered. He also allowed me to become the most prolific Christian cartoonist in history. Seriously! Nobody comes close. I didn’t realized it until I began scouring my archives for this website. Over the years I simply had my head down cranking out cartoons over and over. I didn’t realize how widespread God’s work through me had become. It wasn’t until after nearly a half century of churning this out did I realize how much God blessed me to bless thousands of churches and individuals through Christian publishing companies and ministries with attractive materials that furthered God’s Kingdom. But the best fruit from this journey has been the blessing of understanding God’s Word in a greater way. In chasing this dream I learned what it means to be “poor in spirit.”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:3-6).

The humility that came through the multiple syndication rejections helped develop a servant spirit in me to bless other people’s ministry projects. I helped others fulfill THEIR Christ honoring dreams through custom children’s books, comic strips, tracts, curriculum, etc. I guess one could say …

“Blessed are the Christian cartoonists for they will help further God’s Kingdom in multiple ways.”

Postscript:

My Overtones comic concept eventually made its way into an international Christian comic strip contest. It became an award winner which led to creating my Stinky Stevens books. That is a separate story by itself. Check it out HERE. This also led me to ONE LAST opportunity to present a comic strip to Universal Press Syndicate (now Universal U-click). A friend eagerly approached me at church sometime later to tell me that he had a meeting scheduled with the president of this syndicate on a community matter. He said if I was interested in submitting something to them, I needed to put together some strips he could take in with him. I quickly wrote some strips based on my first Stinky Stevens book, threw in the award winning four-page strip and a copy of one of my Stinky Stevens books.

I was surprised to receive a phone call from “Mr. Big” himself, the president of Universal U-click. He said out of respect for our mutual friend he was calling me, (sound familiar?) … but he had some bad news for me. (Here it comes.) He said I was very talented but he thought this batch of strips just weren’t funny enough, and he thought my concept of a God figure as a cartoonist was too limiting. But he finished with …

“I think you should keep submitting work to us.”