August 4, 2003
Woke up this morning trying to distill the NY trip down to the most important parts, or, what really happened. Unfortunately, for me it eerily resembles a trip I took in the mid-eighties when King Syndicate flew me to New York to talk about syndicating my comic strip creation Honkytonk Sue. The meeting went very well and they expressed strong interest in the character, her potential, etc. I remember the guy I would be dealing with directly took me to lunch at an Indian restaurant near the UN. Somewhere, between that meeting and what I turned in to them several months later, the wheels came off the deal. To be blunt, the strips I sent them were not what they wanted. I have kicked myself ever since for not being in direct contact with the guy at King who took me to lunch. Why didn’t I call him and tell him what I was doing and get his input? Big mistake.

On the way to last Friday’s meeting, Bob Brink mentioned to me he thought the network was in the old King Syndicate building. I blanched. He reminded me that Hearst owns King Syndicate (I never made the connection until we were in the limo). It was deja vu all over again. And, the irony is that Bob was above the King honchos who I met with in 1986. Ouch! I think the deja vu of it weighed heavily on my mind during and after the pitch meeting.

In both meetings, it was not all that important what went on in the meeting, but it was, and is, very important what happens after the meeting. Here I am 17 years later. What have I learned?

We’ll soon find out.

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
 —Henry Ford