Sunday Mailbag: Take Any Job?

Q: I’ve seen you say as a freelancer you never know when or from where your next job will come, and that it’s tough to turn down any paying jobs. Does that mean you will do any job that comes along? Are there some jobs you would turn down for personal or other reasons?

A: I’ve been lucky in the 30 plus years I’ve been a freelance illustrator I have managed to keep enough work on my drawing board to afford to be a little picky with the jobs that come in (note emphasis on the adverb “a little”). Still there are some reasons for turning down a job that apply no matter how much work I have coming in or not coming in:

1. Doesn’t Pay Enough– Some jobs aren’t really jobs to begin with. I’ll get offers to do work for too little compensation, or projects where most of the pay would come on the “back side”, meaning after they sell whatever book or project the art is part of I’ll get a larger royalty or profit share. In the case of the former, I simply counter their pay offer with a number that I would consider adequate. Sometimes they agree but often they do not, because if they were a legitimate client they wouldn’t lowball me in the first place. I never even consider the latter “job”. Working on spec or for a pittance hoping for a big payday down the road is for suckers.

2. Pornography- I won’t do any work I consider pornographic. I’m not a prude but once you go down that road, you often close doors that you’d rather stay open. I do work for kid’s publications like Scholastic, National Geographic World, Ranger Rick and others, and they take a dim view of seeing an artist that appears in their publications drawing porno comics for Hustler. I did do work for Penthouse for several years, but I had an understanding with them that I would not do any overt nudity or any really “blue” work, and they respected that. I did mostly caricatures of celebrity columnist Dave Navarro for his column, and the occasional spot or full page illustration for humorous articles.

3. Hate Speech– If the job in question or the publication/person wanting the work done in any way promotes racism, sexism, or in any way disparages vulnerable groups like the disabled, etc. I will not even consider doing it. This might sound like a no brainer and why would anyone ask someone to do work like that, but you’d be surprised. Mostly they try to pretend they are not what they actually are.

4. Jobs where the caricatures are of the client- This includes any illustrations that include caricatures of the people doing the art direction. You can imagine. It’s just not worth the aggravation. I once was convinced by a craft brewery owner to do a logo design with a caricature of him hoisting a stein of beer. He was a short, fat, little man and he sent me pictures that looked like a short, fat, little man. Knowing I needed to be flattering I did several sketches of him that were quite generous but they kept coming back saying “this just doesn’t look like me”. After a couple of rounds I found out this guy was showing these to his MOM and she was rejecting them. Apparently she thought her son looked like Chris Pine when he looked like Chris Farely. I dropped the job immediately, and I have learned not to take such jobs no matter how much the potential client guarantees they will not be like that.

As a freelancer it is tough to turn down paying jobs, but in the long run you are doing yourself a favor by not taking jobs like the ones above. You save yourself aggravation, do not de-value your own work, and don’t sacrifice your ethics for a couple of bucks. There are always more jobs out there.

Thanks to Rich Griffen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!