Michel Rabagliati’s Paul A Quebec

What an honor! Michel Rabagliati, who’s is now a very established cartoonist has recently launched his 6th book called Paul A Quebec. In this book Michel decided to immortalized “me” as one of his characters, Brenda Steinberg.

Brenda, a fun out going, quick talking agent with her hair blowing in the wind as she talks on her cell phone in the car, securing contracts for “Paul Baby” on the way.

This series of comic books have been documenting the life of Paul (actually Michel from his early and humble beginnings growing up in Montreal). Each book deals with a different aspects of Paul’s life and experiences and I was lucky enough to have worked with him when he was at his peak of his illustration career.

Michel is a Canadian cartoonist born and based in Montreal. He is published by Drawn and Quarterly in English, and La Pastèque in French. Michel has written and illustrated several semi-autobiographical comic books each furthering the life story of his protagonist Paul. The series includes Paul in the Country, Paul Has a Summer Job, Paul Moves Out, and Paul Goes Fishing. In addition; Rabagliati has published shorter stories featuring Paul including “Paul in the Metro.” Michel started drawing comics in his 40′s, after working as a graphic designer and illustrator for many years. It was then that we met or should I say when I went after him.

I had the pleasure of representing Michel Rabagliati as he was slowing moving up the comic ladder. He eventually decided to stop illustrating all together and concentrate on his comic books. As sad as I was to see him go, I knew that he made the right decision. There is nothing more important in life than to follow your dreams and that is exactly what I told him. At the same time, Michel was doing really well with his illustration career and we were keeping him busier then I think he expected or wanted to be for that matter. All I can say is, that I was really thrilled to see that Michel thought highly enough of me and our relationship to portray me in his book.

Although I was really sad to see Michel leave Anna Goodson Management several years ago I never doubted for a minute that he would not succeed. I guess I always knew that he would triumph because drawing his comics is what made him happy. And when you are happy at what you do, you always come out on top.

To learn more about Michel Rabagliati and his comic books about Paul, Go to drawnandquarterly.com

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The Etiquette of Illustration

The informal or formal way you communicate with a client is just as important as the work you do for them. It has always been our business ethos at Anna Goodson Management to treat our clients with respect. In today’s very competitive market, just showing your appreciation to a client for choosing to work with you can make all the difference.

When a job comes in, we forward it to the illustrator to illustrate. Our business practice is that the illustrator immediately contacts the client thanking them for choosing to work with us. Following that the illustrator confirms in writing all the details such as delivery of the sketches and the delivery date of the finals. The illustrator also asks if there is anything else that they should know about the job. When the first sketch is sent to the client, the illustrator always follows up with an email or phone call to make sure that the client received the sketch and second to make sure all is fine. You would not believe how much work and communiqué get lost while traveling through the internet. Following up until you get a confirmation is part of a proven business model.

Professionalism to me is everything and strong lines of communication is essential to a professional practice. It is also very important to me that our clients know how much we care about what we do and that we appreciate their business. I often get thank you emails back from clients – when these arrive in my inbox… they make me feel proud of the service we offer and its reassures us of the fact that we are doing a decent job. The clients say things like, the work done was fantastic, but more importantly they often tell us how much they loved working with us and our illustrators. They point out the professionalism of the illustrators and the great service they have received. I would have to say that most of our clients give us repeat business because of the care we take when it comes to communication, and in this industry repeat business is very important.

Should an Illustrator have an Agent represent him/her?

To have or not to have, that is the question!

I am often asked this question and to be absolutely honest, I don’t think that every illustrator should have one. Its like marriage, it’s not for everyone. But if you are an artist who has been working in the industry for a while or someone just starting out, then having a rep might be the right thing for you. It is important to fully understand what an Agent or Rep does in order to really know if you need one or not.

At AGM we handle all the business end of the business, allowing our illustrators to concentrate solely on creating and illustrating. We do all the business development, read and negotiate all contracts that come in, create, produce and distribute group promotions and promote their work via our highly visited website. AGM also does quite a bit of PR for the artists that we represent as well as taking care of all the accounts payables and receivables. Like I said, basically we do everything but the illustrations themselves. Thank god we leave that to the real experts, our illustrators.