Drawing Success From Stick-to-Itiveness
Few people have the self-esteem or tenacity to endure three years of rejection, but Bruce Eric Kaplan did just that. Each week he routinely mailed 10 cartoons to the New Yorker magazine in the hopes of being published. And each week he promptly was rejected.
But Kaplan persevered. More than 1,500 cartoons later, he finally received an acceptance.
Since 1991, the cartoonist from Los Angeles--best known for his simple line drawings and wittily dry observations of human nature--has been a regular contributor to the elite weekly chronicle of all things New York.
For those who enjoy Kaplan’s cartoons but don’t collect the magazine, Simon & Schuster recently issued a compilation of his work titled “No One You Know.” We caught up with the cartoonist to talk about his experiences:
Question: What first brought you to the New Yorker?
Answer: I was trying to be a writer, and I was kind of getting sidetracked, so I started doing cartoons as a form of expression. I sent like 10 off to the New Yorker assuming that they wouldn’t buy all of them. I got a form letter back, but by that time I had already sent 10 more for the following week, so we were crossing paths in the mail. Even though I was rejected, I assumed if they didn’t take any from the first group, they would from the second. Of course they didn’t.
Q: Why did you continue sending them?
A: It felt right, so I kept doing it. Even though the New Yorker didn’t buy them for years, I sent them every week. When my mother would call she’d ask, “What’s new?” and I’d say, “the New Yorker rejected me,” even though it was my 400th week into it. It was like a fresh wound every time.
Q: You submitted your cartoons to the New Yorker and no one else?
A: It’s psychotic, I know. It was just part of my life.
Q: Why the New Yorker obsession?
A: I know they didn’t feel it, but I really felt like I should be in there. I felt like I fit there. I connected. I don’t mean like I should be in the New Yorker because it’s the greatest magazine, but I connected with that sensibility. I read the New Yorker when I was a kid. I used to love the cartoons and pick the cartoons out of the library, so I felt I knew the world of their cartoons.
Q: It must have been pretty thrilling to be accepted after so long.
A: It’s a miracle when you think about it. I don’t know how long I could have kept on with it.
Q: So, how’d it happen?
A: I came back from work, and instead of a rejection letter there was a Fed Ex on my front door. I opened it up, and it was an order from the art editor saying, “I know you think we haven’t been looking at your stuff, but we have.”
Q: Did you see your work improve over the years that you were unsuccessfully submitting to the magazine?
A: I don’t have any formal art training, so my stuff, especially when I first started sending it to them, was very primitive. Visually, the style got more cohesive or more polished, but I thought some of the jokes back then were pretty good. I don’t know how much my jokes improved.
Q: Why do you draw a single panel instead of a comic strip?
A: I thought about trying to do a strip. I even tried to do it, but I felt I didn’t have the voice. Even though I liked that form, I didn’t think I thought in the form of the three panels.
Q: How many cartoons have you drawn over the years?
A: You should come over here and see these closets. I’ve got trees that have died for this. Thousands and thousands. I’m looking at a stack of about 30 file boxes of cartoons. I’m in a sea.
Q: Why did you decide that now was the time to put out a book?
A: I had always wanted to do a collection of cartoons, but you have to wait until someone is actually interested.
* Bruce Eric Kaplan’s work is on display at Storyopolis, 116 N. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 358-2500.
* Susan Carpenter can be reached by e-mail at so calliving@latimes.com.