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Cartoonist Rick London: Marketing Wiz Kid Grown Up

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The way that Rick London crafted and organized Londons Times Cartoons and it's peripheral shops was a brilliant move in my mind, as a marketing major. Though Rick was not formally educated at the time of launching the venture, he had an instinctive sixth sense of knowing what was missing in the cartoon world.

Rick had a good bit of experience in corporate America before starting. He was keenly aware that most professions had trade magazines and this was virtually an untapped market. Most were low budgeted and could not afford an inhouse cartoonist, and were willing to pay a small amount for a monthly or quarterly cartoon. Rick provided it. He made a hundred calls a day to publishers. Out of that hundred, he would generally sell one or two cartoons. He was building a portfolio and enough money to keep the lights on.

Rick was a master of barter. Where he learned it, I will never know. Since a lot of his clients had little or no budget, Rick bartered with them. I cannot think of a product he did not have. All he did was pick up the phone and if they said no, regarding paying for a cartoon, Rick would give them the cartoon at full value for half a barter back. Rick was "out nothing"; the cartoon would have sat on the Internet and still did. The publisher or webmaster simply got nonexclusive rights to it, and Rick got real retail goods, food, vitamins, and even a wardrobe. He almost made a deal for a car once. Though he had no formal education, his marketing skills were magic.

It was a cold winter in 1997. Rick was living and working from an abandoned Mississippi warehouse. He was not eating well but had made some good trades with fishing tackle companies to put his fishing-related cartoons on their sites. He took the tackle and lures (sometimes live bait he dug up from the woods) and would fish after working in the late afternoon, sometimes into the night until he had enough fish to make a meal. This man knew how to survive. It was like living and working on Walden Pond.

Though he still enjoys the negotiation process of bartering, he does so less than when he started. He started out of need. Now he is the one solicited by publishers and authors who need his work. He had vision when he created his cartoons into categories that would fit into trade journals and business websites. He knew what he was doing when others thought he was a little "mad".

The Internet had not yet evolved into what it is today when Rick started. Yahoo! was about the only "goodie" on the web. There were blogs but they were known as bulletin boards and rarely used for any marketing purposes. Rick had to use the phone most the time to make his deals and get his name known. He couldn't google anything because there was no Google. All he had at the start was a free domain website (he couldn't afford a www) and about fifty cartoons. I knew this hard-working man would make it; I had no idea he would be at the top in ten years. He is.

I sometimes feel like if I look up "commitment"in Webster's, Rick's pic will be there. He wakes up and he is drinking coffee and working. It is habit. He does not drive to an office. He does it all in his living room, yet every move he makes creates jobs for people all over the world from manufacturers to artists to affiliate marketers to publishers. He has a mind that is very creative and unique. I have learned a great deal from him.

Rick London was born and raised in south Ms, not the delta, which is the northern area of Mississippi that brought us such talent as the delta which brought us William Faulkner, Elvis, Grisham, Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, Morgan Freeman, B.B. King, and others. Rick is an enigma from that part of the state. He has invented and reinvented himself a number of times until he says "I finally got it right, I think". I'll never forget working with Rick. He is one special soul.

I am only in touch with him these days by email. We have both moved to separate states. But I still know him as that "grown up wiz kid" who showed me the ropes. I visit his main cartoon website and numerous webstores and think back to the time when it was just a gleam in his eye. Nobody in his hometown knew he had it in him. I don't know why I did, it was just a feeling. I admit, that though I did, I had no idea he would make it this big. I continue to buy items from his many web stores which are fanastic and contain his cartoons; from mousepads to hoodies. I even buy regular casual wear from him. His products are fantastic. I really miss that man and hope to see him again on one day.

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Rick London has the largest offbeat cartoon site on the Internet and several estores Rick London's Marketing Secret: From Nothing To Internet's Top Cartoonist And E-Tailer, and



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