The Book Deal
Motivation and inspiration for emerging writers, helping them pave their own pathway to publishing success.
The Book Deal
Author/Illustrator Dean Rankine on what it takes to make a career out of your craft
In this episode of The Book Deal Podcast, hosts Tina Strachan interviews Dean Rankine, a renowned author-illustrator best known for his work on iconic franchises such as The Simpsons, Futurama, and Rick and Morty. Dean shares his journey from a shy, anxious child passionate about drawing to becoming a prolific illustrator and author, discussing his latest book series 'Death Metal Emo Elves.' The conversation delves into the challenges of merging writing and illustrating, the impact of AI on creative industries, and practical advice for aspiring author-illustrators. Dean emphasizes the importance of persistence, navigating rejections, and leveraging side gigs to sustain a creative career. Additionally, the episode explores his role in comic conventions and the enriching, albeit demanding, experience of conducting school workshops.
00:00 Welcome to The Book Deal Podcast
00:43 Introducing Dean Rankin
02:17 Dean's Journey as an Illustrator
04:37 The Impact of AI on Creativity
13:20 Dean's Notable Works
15:31 Creating Death Metal Emo Elves
20:39 Persistence in the Publishing Industry
28:41 Drawing for The Simpsons and Rick and Morty
37:22 Influence of Reading on Writing
37:54 Comic Book Creation Process
38:32 Challenges of Being an Author-Illustrator
40:19 Navigating the Publishing World
41:50 Successful Collaborations
50:33 Balancing Side Gigs and Creative Work
01:00:05 Comic Conventions and Workshops
01:08:54 Top Tips for Aspiring Authors and Illustrators
01:11:48 Philosophy on Creative Success
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This is the Book Deal Podcast. Where you will discover the inspiring stories of the authors behind your favourite books. No matter what stage of writing you are at, we've got you covered. I'm Tina Strong. And I'm Madeline Cleary. And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors. One deal at a time. The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters which it's recorded on. And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
Tina Strachan:Hello, I'm Tina Strachan, and in this episode of The Book Deal, I am interviewing the hugely successful author illustrator, Dean Rankin. Many listeners will know Dean from his prolific back catalogue illustrating comics or from his most recent series he not only illustrated but also wrote called Death Metal Emo Elves. Some of you may not realize that you are familiar with his work until I read the list of his most well known achievements in the interview. I know you would have heard of at least some of them. Unless, for some reason, you have been hiding under a rock for the last 30 years and haven't heard of The Simpsons, Futurama, or Rick and Morty, or that little Australian celebrity called Magda Szubanksi. And that's only scraping the surface. The episode is an absolute goldmine of top tips and advice, not just for author illustrators trying to sign books as both, but Dean's advice about how to navigate the industry, how to make it profitable, and his inspiring work ethic will resonate with all creatives. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to the book deal, Dean Rankin.
Dean Rankine:Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.
Tina Strachan:We are very excited to have you here on the show because you are going to offer something a little bit different to our other guests that we've had so far, because you're not only. a writer of children's books, uh, but you're also an illustrator of many more books and you have even achieved the pinnacle for many author illustrators, which is to illustrate your own books that you've actually written.
Dean Rankine:Yes.
Tina Strachan:So That's incredible.
Dean Rankine:been quite the journey to get to that point. Yeah. Yeah. So predominantly I'm an illustrator. I come from the illustration. It was all I wanted to do as a kid. I wanted to draw. I'd never knew exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to draw pictures, whether it would be in animation or kids books or comics. And in some ways I, it's always. Still like that, still very fluid and I'm still working mainly between comic books and kids books is now where kind of where both my focuses kind of are and I work in that conjunctively, you know, the, um, Um, yeah, yeah, but all in the saying that though, I've also always written, it's not like out of my skin, you know, people go, Oh, you're right. They go, well, yeah, you kind of like, as, as, as kids, you're always right. And I always imagined myself, you know, maybe doing, yeah, writing my own picture books and certainly when it comes to comics. I've written a lot of the comics that I've, I've illustrated. Um, I just think I'm better known as an illustrator and I think I'm a better illustrator than I am as a writer. Um, but it's not stopping me from doing it anyway.
Tina Strachan:Yeah, that's awesome. So that's, it's something that you've always wanted to do. So this is like achieving a bit of a dream for you.
Dean Rankine:Oh yeah. Yeah. I think the, it's, I never wanted, I never wanted to do it. I was a really shy kid, painfully shy. I talked funny, really was anxious, but by. Drawing it was like that was the thing that I had this sort of positive feedback from. So I'm very much a praise monkey. So when people, Oh, you're, oh, you're so, you know, when you're a kid, I was like, you're so good at that. And you, and you go to your, for me as a kid, you go, I'm so good at that. That's the thing I'm good at. Like, you know, I'm not, I'm bad in sports. Bad and everything else, but this is what I'm good at and I clunked that. Looking back, I wasn't good. I was no sort of child prodigy or anything like that. I think I was maybe a dove average. Um, um, but, um, sometimes, you know, it was just, just a passion. It's just all I wanted to do. Um, and any other thing is just, I don't know, even now I don't want to really do anything else. I just like to draw.
Tina Strachan:that's incredible. And what a good passion to have that you can, and that it's something that you can do anywhere, anytime, isn't it?
Dean Rankine:yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That way, you know, we, we talked about AI very briefly before starting the show. Um, and I think that's why, one of the reasons I, I mean, I hate AI so much. Um, so we're talking about generative, generative, like AI that creates pictures and, and. Who that correct writing and stuff that, because I feel like it's stealing. It's not only stealing, but it's stealing from future generations. The opportunities that I had finding myself, because by doing art, that's how I found myself. That's my therapy, that's my passion. That's what I kind of live for, and to have that taken away for the next generation, then that's what AI is basically doing is
Tina Strachan:Silence. Silence.
Dean Rankine:writer. Um, and I just, you know, I think I'm going to be okay. Like I'll weather the storm, I've got, I've got a history behind me, I've got connections, I can do lots of different things, but the up and coming people though, I think they're going to particularly struggle with the changing scape of the creative industries.
Tina Strachan:Yeah, yeah, it's a worry, isn't it? Even my children, I didn't realize, but, and I don't know where they've got it from, or my eldest anyway, like they, um, it must have come from somewhere, right? Because he was doing it well before I even kind of knew about it, like using, um, those sort of AI generators as actual research, as a research tool. And. Which I mean, in an ideal world would be fantastic if you could like, you know, you're Googling something to do your research, you know, as you do as like a uni student or when you're researching a topic for a book. Um, and it just, you know, brings it up and it's in this really easy way for them to understand and to read, right. But it's not really right. But they, for some reason, and they're so young and they just think This is this is, this
Dean Rankine:this is active as well. Yeah, and you see in these AI generated, they have, they have biases. And they're going, they're not actually just, just giving you the facts. They're going by, you know, very strong bias in regards to the information that they're gleaming from it. So, it's, it's going, it's troubling. Um, we're not going to be able to believe the videos we watch. We're not going to be able to believe the things that we were reading. Um, so yeah, I think it's going to hit it in all kinds of ways that we don't even realize. Um, so yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, we shouldn't talk about this because it makes me so upset and it's such a downer. And I know the show isn't just a big downer, but yeah, it does concern me.
Tina Strachan:Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think that's um, something that's very concerning for all, all authors and illustrators, isn't it? And yeah, we've just got to band together to, Yeah. join forces to try and hold it back.
Dean Rankine:Yeah. Just kind of just really, just really quickly on it. Like, you know, I know it's like. New authors and stuff like that. I think it's very tempting to go, Oh, we'll just get, you know, generated art on my book because then I don't have to pay for an artist. And I think you're, are you shooting yourself in your own foot? But also it's just, you know, the, you know, there's these generators that's based on stolen artwork. And I think morally we just can't justify it. I understand why people want to use it. God, this is my, this is my chance to get published. I just want to get published. I understand that. Um, but it's just such an awful thing to do. An awful thing to undermine. The, like, you know, the illustrators in the industry and also yourself. It's like, you know, if you're choosing as a writer to use Chat G GP or is to write your own stuff, you're not writing shit, you know, you're not, it's just it's all crazy
Tina Strachan:that's yeah, that's right. No, that's fair enough. And um, I think you can tell with images as Well, when things are AI
Dean Rankine:Well, yeah, at the moment we can, I think I, I can, I'm pretty good at spotting it, but it, it's starting to get to a point where it's, um, it's harder, you know?
Tina Strachan:going to get
Dean Rankine:Um, because, you know, you know, the, the, it's being generated, but then it's going through Photoshop and they're, you know, they're, they're fixing those little things that you'd normally be able to spot about like how many fingers, uh, I just saw a video this morning that it was just videos of people. And I could tell every second one was AI side, but it was actually, everyone was AI.
Tina Strachan:Oh, okay.
Dean Rankine:Yeah. Yeah.
Tina Strachan:know what else I actually saw? Um, recently, was it one, I'm not going to say the name, one of the very famous shoe brands
Dean Rankine:Hmm.
Tina Strachan:created an ad that is 100 percent AI. So no models, but it's all people. So it's like any other ad that you see for shoes, where it's got like athletes running and people dancing, not a single model, not a single Artist. really. And it was like, I couldn't pick it.
Dean Rankine:Yeah. Yeah. this
Tina Strachan:wouldn't have known because they touch those videos up so much, right. To make them bright and light and glary. So they sort of
Dean Rankine:Anyway.
Tina Strachan:to have that look about them Anyway. to make it look like real
Dean Rankine:Slightly surreal look anyway, but yeah. The, um, boring, you know, things like that. Or the, the, the actors who make majority of their living from doing commercials, the, you know, all that kind of stuff, the musicians, the, the, uh, the cinematographers, all this kind of stuff. And I go, these images didn't just come from nowhere. Like they've taken people's photos. They've like scoured the web. And I don't know why there's no more, there's isn't more uproar. From it'll go, you took our stuff, photos of our kids on the beach and you put them into this stuff. And you go, because you've added other stuff that you can't quite tell exactly who's who, they've got all gone away with the theft. So, um, yeah. Hey viewers, we are going to get into some good stuff. We're not going to be dwelling on this the whole time.
Tina Strachan:No, but I think it's really good because I think probably, you know, there are a lot of people who don't understand that that's what it actually is. And it is taking from, and same with words, like you could say for, you know, authors put in, can you write me, you know, a 50, 000 word book on this, this, and this. And they're using words that actually other authors have written to train the program to write. So it is, you know, maybe people just don't understand what it is, what it is actually, but that's Yeah. Oh, they don't care. That's right.
Dean Rankine:I don't care and they're just awful. And I just think, you know, what about you as creatives? Like we're talking about your book that kind of just, you know, just very recently, which is. Super exciting. Um, the, for me to show my art and show my stories, it's like, you're kind of like cracking a bit of yourself, your chest open, right? You're cracking a little bit of yourself open and you're showing the world.
Tina Strachan:Mm
Dean Rankine:the world rejects it, right, it's really, it's kind of hard because it's hard not to take it personally because you are showing yourself and you have to be brave, right? It's, you have to be brave and you're sharing this important little gem of yourself and then what AI has done, you're taking the words that I've formed in my mind over years of experience, that's my story and now they've taken it and they're going to use it for their own evil, you know, uses. Awful. That's awful. It's such a betrayal. I, I, I think, you know, and then for people then to readily accept it and I'm, I'm definitely concerned it's going to be just more and more accepting. Oh, well, that's the way it is. We're just going to, you know, we're just going to go on like that, you know? Um, but I, I'm still rallying against it. I feel like it's like, uh, we're throwing pebbles at a tsunami.
Tina Strachan:Yeah.
Dean Rankine:Um, trying to make a stop, but I'm, I still, I don't think we're wrong. I don't think, I don't think we'll win. Right.
Tina Strachan:Mm. But you can't give up, right?
Dean Rankine:don't think we're wrong.
Tina Strachan:No, no, absolutely. Well, this is like, that's a whole nother episode that, uh, that we should probably record
Dean Rankine:we'll have to break this in two halves. Dean's rant about AI that was 45 minutes and then we'll do the fun stuff.
Tina Strachan:No, but it's great. And it's really relevant. I mean, the, the people who listened to the podcast, uh, all, you know, mostly aspiring authors and, and, or even, you know, seasoned authors and, and illustrators as well. So it's all, it's all very relevant and important, but I do have lots of other
Dean Rankine:Okay.
Tina Strachan:for you, Dean. So we have lots of, um, unpacking. So I even asked some of my author illustrator friends as well. Um, if they had, um, any questions that they wanted to ask on sort of how you become an author illustrator, I get how you get to do both because that's the dream, but because I know you'll have so much success, so much advice for them, but I wanted to, um, Start by reading, um, all the works that you have to your name, actually, sorry, not all the works because we don't have time for that. That's, that's a whole nother episode,
Dean Rankine:it's over, the, the, the,
Tina Strachan:but it's, it's so impressive, Dean, and it needs to be acknowledged. And so for those listeners that may not be familiar with their work, I think once they hear the list, they'll most certainly know of at least a few. So, um, So I guess some of your best known works, correct me if I'm wrong with any of these or, you know, I'm, I'm going to leave out quite a few, but some of your best known works. So you've illustrated, um, Magda Szubanski's Timmy the Ticked Off Pony, Morris Gleitzman's Extra Time and Help Around the House. Uh, Brock the Croc and there's going to be a Brock the Croc 2.
Dean Rankine:Croc 2 Make It Snappy is in stores on the 2nd of
Tina Strachan:it snappy, that's great. 2nd of April. okay, and on the first day of school, the funny thing that happened to Simon's Sidebottom series, the Mad Scientist, the Stuff Happens series, and you were also the author and illustrator of Can You Find the Easter Bunny? Which is a year round favorite in our house, I have to say. Mrs. Snitch is a witch and your most recent series, Death Metal Emo Elves. But that's not all. You're also an illustrator for many hugely well known comics such as Simpsons. Rick and Morty, Futurama, and the Riverdale Diaries. All
Dean Rankine:yeah,
Tina Strachan:so I think we've just taken up all our time with
Dean Rankine:yeah, yeah, yeah. Emo
Tina Strachan:such an outstanding list of works, Dean, and many, many well known titles and authors there that you're working with. But, um, so Brock the Croc 2 coming out soon, but also the fourth installment coming out soon of Death Metal Emo Elves. called Kingdom of Rock. Love the title. Love the book. Also really funny. The kids love it. Can you tell us a little bit about, um, the, the new book that's coming out?
Dean Rankine:Yeah, um, so yeah, so it's the fourth book. So Death Metal Emo Elves is about a group of elves. The original book is like, in elf world, everybody plays the, like, the polka. You know, like, um How do you describe the polka? Polka music, right? Is the, is the only music that, um, that elves play and this young elf named Emo, um, through his grandmother finds out that, um, the elves used to rock. There was a performer named Elvish. Paisley, I think I named him, um, who was a rock star and he discovers that they used to rock and decides to, to form a death metal band. Um, and so then the, so the, and it goes from there, the insanity goes from there. Um, um. Yeah. So each book would be slightly different, but each book you can kind of read on your own. It's not kind of rocket science. You can read book four if you want. Book four focuses more on individual, um, band members and what happens during the day before band practice. Um,
Tina Strachan:It's super fun. And it's, Um, I feel like there's a lot of yourself in that. Is it like it's,
Dean Rankine:think it's, I think it's like one of those books, the, it's like, I want to write this. This is like, because, you know, like, because comics wise, I've written for the Simpsons, I'm currently working on Rick and Morty, which is fantastic. Um, but also you're kind of doing it for other people. It's not your stuff, right? Um, And in some ways I would have been, like, happily doing that forever, but work isn't always as consistent like that, so you have to kind of make your own stories. Um, but to do Death Metal anyway, I was just like, oh, you know, I like the name, I like the concept, I like urban fantasy as a kind of genre. Um, and I think it's, it's fun, you know. It's one of those books, like, you'll never see, like, a really, there won't be a really big kid. in their human child. It's just the elves and let's live in elf world. Um, and I might go to, I don't know, Candy Town or something like that, but it's, they'll never sort of integrate, you know, hit our world except for maybe some, a giant trash can that happens to be in there. Um, but yeah, yeah, that's one of the, it was one of the works I'm most proud of. I think, um, I tried. Cause I guess it's all about getting published this podcast. Yes, I wrote it and shopped it around to, I don't know how many publishers. So I'm reasonably connected with publishers because I've worked for Scholastic. And, um, yeah, I'm trying to, uh, yeah, Scholastic five mile. Random house as an illustrator. So naively I thought it would be reasonably easy. This is so stupid of me Because well because I know them well, they know me they know my work go. Hey, would you consider publishing something that i've written? um and It was really hard. It was like nobody would say yes to it. Um, and it's not like I haven't got credentials or even writing credentials, which mainly because in comics, but I've still, I've still written. Um, so yeah, I tried everybody. And what I started to do was, okay, well, I'm going to draw it. I'm going to start drawing it. So, um, every day I was working on other stuff. Every day I would do one page of illustrations on this. Um, it was about 200 pages. something like that. Very, very heavily illustrated. Um, so I'm son, I just, I will do it. Like, and then I put on Instagram, like each day, this is my, you know, this page. So people would start to actually see it come together. And I think in some ways it started to get a fan base. Maybe, you know, I remember, I think it was about page 70, something actually thought, Oh, this is, is this stupid, this is like really dumb thing to do to go. Is it just a waste of time? But I kept pursuing and, um, it kept popping, sending it. So I would send it then to publishers with, um, with the illustrations with how many illustrations I've had. So again, really clearly go, you can see how the story, I don't think it was a bad story. You know, I don't think it was the best story. I look, I was pretty good, pretty solid. These are the illustrations. Um, and yeah, and eventually. Um, Redback Publishing, which is a small publisher in Sydney, said yes to it. Um, and which was amazing. Um, and which also, what's really interesting about Redback is like, they don't really, up to this point, they haven't really published books like this. They kind of do things like, I don't know, uh, this like books about Adelaide. This is Adelaide. Adelaide has a population of blah, blah, blah. You don't, you know, that, that, those kinds of books, which is great, but it was not the kind of book that they would normally publish. Um, but also fortunately I said, yes,
Tina Strachan:Yeah, well, I think everyone else is crazy not to Dean, you know, got such a,
Dean Rankine:everybody,
Tina Strachan:yeah, So that's so good though. So I just want to ask you about that because a lot of people who are sparring authors don't realize that published authors and even prolifically published authors like yourself still get rejected.
Dean Rankine:all the time. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's crazy all the time. And even the, even if you think when I was. I'll come back to this one. I'll go first. I'll finish up the Death Metal Emo albums. So yeah, so I didn't like kept going and I said, we would like to do more. We would like to have it to be a series. And originally I hadn't, I hadn't really thought about it being a series. Um, but I think it's a, it's a, it's a young sort of junior fiction kind of. book I think you'd class it as, or it's very, very much a comic in some ways as well. I have to say each page is basically a panel of a comic. Um, um, so yeah, so it's been kind of going on, but there doesn't make much money. So I've had to, um, It's like, you know, we're, we're talking about 200 paid, 200 illustrations per book, really. So, um, that's sort of hard to like squeeze in. It's hard for me to say no to paid work that I know it's going to make. This, this makes money, but not a Um, so yeah, so, but yeah, we, we kick it on. Yeah. So book four comes out, um, March, I think. Um, and then I'll start to try to find a space in my schedule to do number five. Um, I would like to do like an ongoing thing with it. I enjoyed working on it. Um, it'd be nice if it made more money. Um, I, I did submit it to adaptable. I think adaptable is like, you know, I thought, Oh yeah. for
Tina Strachan:Queensland Writers Centre.
Dean Rankine:Yeah, yeah, cool cartoon. Um, but yeah, so to come back onto like your rejection thing, I really want to sort of emphasize that. So for me, that, um, I have always been rejected. It's like this kind of, it's, it's the hustle and the grind of being a creative. You need to hustle for work constantly. And then it's the, it's like the grind to get it worked. You work on it. I know this isn't books, but say, say for instance, my stuff on Rick and Morty, I. So I, the, the publisher only like they open their books five more, I don't know how many years ago now they opened the book. So I sent my, uh, resume in like a resume, not really like a portfolio in, and then I said, Oh yeah, thanks for keeping on file. And then I reckon every maybe. Four to six months afterwards, I contacted them again, even maybe more and said, Oh, just, just checking in, want to show you what we're working on now. Like, you know, here's some new stuff. And then you slowly, slowly kind of like, you know, you sort of chip away. You're always polite and you don't, I would never send like things off that. You know, you're not sending stuff off that you shouldn't be like two people who shouldn't be receiving it. Um, because I think that's really important if there's, if there's a, I, you know, I don't believe in not doing the, uh, submission process correctly, you know, but yeah, so I got in, then I got to do a cover, which was great. And then the company was sold, my editor left, and I think it was, um, then I tried to, you know, send to the same email, you know, once again, oh, here I am. And then I reckon it was maybe five years before they contacted again and said, Oh, we've got this, we've got this comic that needs to get done. You know, would you be interested really short time? And I said, yes, I'd be interested. Um, in, in the end it was going to be. I would have had to pencil two pages a day and ink one page a day to hit, to hit deadline. Most comic artists can normally get a page a day done, right? But not too, just even for me, I'm reasonably fast because I'm very cartoony. But even then I was not, you know, after, even though I said, yes, I said, this is going to be a struggle and they ended up cutting in half and getting another artist to the second half, which worked real well for the comic. So then since I've actually had progressively. Um, sold work with Rick and Morty since then, I've done a number of covers and number of stories since then, which has been really great. But if I had gone, well, or, you know, if I had gone, well, I submitted stuff and they said, they said they'll put me on file and then never heard back. If I had just accepted that, then I would not have got that work. So I'm all, I'm all about being consistently contacting publishers. This is what I'm working on now. This is my new story. It look like if you send, you know how also, I don't know if this is okay, but you know, when you submit a manuscript and I'm sorry, we'll get back to you in nine months, right? Or whatever, whatever, 12 months or whatever. We didn't, I, I don't do that. I will send it. Sometimes I might wait a couple of months, but otherwise I just, I send it off to multiple publishers because. I'm sorry. Like, you know, I know, I understand that publishers are busy, but if I was white, seriously, like I've had rejection letters, I had rejection letters for definitely my elves for the first book, right. When the second one had already been out and published like that long, that long. And you go, I, you know, you've only got. You've only got limited time on this planet, you, you, you know, you have to be able to, you know, I don't know if they, if they come back, back and go, Oh, we swamped, we got like three months, we'll, we'll look at it and get back to you. No problem. But if it's like that, kind of just open, Oh yeah, nine months or 12 months, we'll get back to you thing.
Tina Strachan:Or we, or we won't get back to you
Dean Rankine:Oh yeah, that's it. I just, yeah, that's it. That's the thing. Just assume that we're not interested. I'm not doing it. You know, I've got, I've got a list of, on which I write another book called, um, pineapple comes to pizza town. Right. So it's this pineapple comes to pizza town and she's trying to make friends. Um, and, and she ends up, you know, saving the day and she's finally accepted into pizza town. Right. But I've got a list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. It's actually. Out to, I've said that over time, there's over a couple of years to 11 publishers and I haven't heard back yet. I think it's a fun story. I think it's going to be cool, you know, and it's going to happen, but yeah, you've got to be persistent.
Tina Strachan:love that persistent and not just with the sending it off to publishers, but with the writing or the, or the, or the illustrations, you just got to keep going. Right. So do you think you just do it? You send it. Don't let that stop you. You just got to keep working on
Dean Rankine:In the meantime, you work on your craft. Right. You get better. I'm working on my craft. I'm working on my craft and I'm sending stuff off. Um, but I'm not just like, you know, just sitting around waiting for this to magically happen. I think I'm okay. I'm an okay writer and I'm an okay artist, but I think. that, you know, you talk about my credits, what has given me that stuff is because I'm super stubborn and crazy dogmatic about, because this is what I want. I want to do this. Um, and I'll, you know, I'll just, I'll, I'll push you that. And over time I've become a better writer, I've become a better artist because of the work I've been doing in between. I haven't just been sitting in my laurels, but yeah, you have to be persistent. And even, and yeah, and you know, I remember like reading books about success in comics or success in illustration and you get your first, you know, you start to go, Oh, you've worked on this. And then it solves your work. Then it somehow magically snowballs. And I've never had a magical snowball. Uh, uh, effect, you know, that some are now the works coming in plus four years. I've been pretty solid, I have to say, but like generally up until that point, I still have to hustle for work. So things like something like working on the Simpsons was very, um. was a big moment in my career. Um, I was 38 before I schooled the Simpsons. So I've been working all the time. So it was again, not something magically happened, but I think, so what the Simpsons do for me is that when you send something off to someone, you say, I've worked on the Simpsons. People assume that you know what you're doing and I right? You know, and that, so you can, maybe you can't, it doesn't guarantee it doesn't, definitely doesn't guarantee anything. But it can crack that door open a little bit more. They'll go, oh, they'll always consider it. Go, oh, worked on some. Now I say I was so, I was the worst Simpsons coming. I have no doubt in my mind that I was the worst one who's ever existed, but my thinking is right. There's such, so there's some really, really good artists, right? But my thinking is. And always continues with that. You don't actually have to be the best, right? You just have to be good enough to be the worst. Right. So do you, do you, do you know what I mean? Do you know if you're like, I want to play IFL or something. I want to be the best. You don't have to be the best over. You just have to be good enough to be the worst of the alpha, because then you get to play the game.
Tina Strachan:Yeah.
Dean Rankine:And that's all I want to do.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Well, I have to say, me
Dean Rankine:be able to play
Tina Strachan:the kids. Yeah, we could, like, we've, we've seen your comics that you've drawn for Simpsons, and they look great to me. They look perfect!
Dean Rankine:The early ones are, the early ones are real shaky. Yeah,
Tina Strachan:a question about that? Cause I've always wondered. Um, and I guess, I mean, surely people know that there's multiple illustrators for, cause there's no way that there's one person drawing or all of that. Um, how do you, do you, is that self taught? Do you teach yourself just through lots of practice or is there like a Rick and Morty school where you like train
Dean Rankine:yeah, no, yeah, yeah. So I'm, I'm, again, I'm, I'm very cartoony and, but I have, well, I think it was down to egotistical. I have a pretty good ability to ape. other cartoony styles. So if I, if I, so if I, as long as it's cartoon enough, like I could never draw Batman for instance. I can, I cannot draw like that. It's just not me. Um, but if something like Rick and Morty, something like Simpsons, then I have the capacity to, to mimic that style because I can look at it and go, okay, this is it. Right. So for the Simpsons, prior to Simpsons, I was like indie artists and I'd done some like magazine work and a couple of books. But my style, my anatomy was all over the place. Like I would, people like were quite fond of my style. They would be like eyes below eyes and this kind of really out there. Right. Um, so, but Simpsons, I'll tell you my story. I'll quickly tell you my Simpsons story about how it happened. Okay. So I know we're looking at time. This is going to be really bad. So So I went, I was working on these kids magazines that you used to buy, be able to buy at the supermarket.
Tina Strachan:Ha, ha,
Dean Rankine:D Mag, that kind of thing. I was doing comics for those. They didn't pay particularly well, but I still wanted to draw comics. And the work dried up, so I went to Coles. Was that my night job? I went to Coles to see what was there. It was at the time that they would still sell some comic books at the supermarket. And I picked up a Simpsons. Um, and it all looked amazing, the art looked really good, but there was one page that they've got some kind of guest artist that was kind of really off model. And, and I thought if I could, if I tried hard, I reckon I could just about draw as good as this guy here. Right. Just barely as good as him. Um, so at the time you could actually submit, there was an email submission. Which is unheard of and you could submit your work to them. So what I did was I didn't, like, I didn't show them, here's my picture of Bart. Right? Like, because my drawings are bad, the average at best, but what I did do is like, I sent them two page, like a two page comic. It was, I did, I drew Apu and a snake holding up the Kwik E Mart. It's not, it's not good. And I don't know why they said, yeah, but yeah. I said yesterday, but yeah, I said off and I didn't really, I don't know if I heard anything back and then I sent something off again and they got back to me and go, oh yeah, we're, we're, we're going to, you know, use your, use your work. Um, so then I thought, great. So I would just send them stuff all the time. And so. Most of my work with Simpsons was like two, four page backup stories. So the stories of the back, so I would write them like gag stories, but there were things that I wrote and I was like fully, fully formed stories. I would pencil, I would ink and I would color, send the whole thing off. So then Yeah, so yeah, then I guess like they have this space to fill and I go, I go, this is the guy to fill the space. So what that would then do, that would contact me and go, Oh, so how about this Krusty the Clown comic? Would, you know, we're after a two page, a two page story in the back, back up story. So, you know, because of the time difference there in the States. So then I get it here in Melbourne. So I would. I would rough out stories like throughout the day on pencil and paper. So again, I'm predominantly more of a cartoonist than a writer. So I wouldn't write a script. I would actually roughly draw the whole comic, but really super rough to show them exactly what I had in mind, because a lot of them was a visual gags. It's hard to sometimes write a visual gag. So, um, I would send it off and then, so then. It would be like magic. So that would send it off. So they'd send me an email, they'd go to bed, they'd wake up and there'd be eight stories that they could choose from. They can go, we'll do this one and this one. And then I, then I pencil and ink it and some mostly color, but then by the end of my tenure, they had something else to color it. Um, so, and so on the, what we're talking about, sort of mimicking styles and that kind of thing. So what I found, what I thought was like, if I'm going to get more work from them, I need to be, I need to draw more like Simpsons. I need to be better. So over the time I, you know, I knuckled down, not just my goofy versions of it, but more like more on model. Um, and I got better and better over, over time. I, so I'm the only Australian to work on the comic book,
Tina Strachan:Wow. That's incredible.
Dean Rankine:so it was really cool. yeah, sorry.
Tina Strachan:illustrator for them, just you know, they send an email, they wake up the next morning and
Dean Rankine:It was, it was bad. No, yeah, no problem. I can draw it. I can do it. You know? Oh yeah. And so then it was like, it was nice to be able to be a writer and illustrator in that context. They have a space to feel it and I can fill that space. Um, there's this thick Simpsons how to draw book. It's like this and it became like, you know, my Bible. I would just flick through it. Um, because then you would, you'd have to change. I would always just start with like drawing a picture. I start with the eyes and kind of build out. There's something like Simpsons, they have a kind of a sub structure. Like, you know, you go, okay, Lisa to draw Lisa's head, you've got a little bit like eight circles. You're going to start with the eye, then your circle, then you do the head and then another, the, the bottom of her points of her hair. And then another one for the top of the points of her hair. So it's quite a, you know, it's, it's quite a, quite a process. So that will, that will be a, uh, A bit of time to change my style and go, Oh, okay. This is how I actually kind of need to work to, to draw like that. Um, the other thing I guess as well, it's like, because you're not just drawing the characters. People can draw like, you know, if you haven't tried to draw the Simpsons, you go, Oh, that's a bit wonky. Yeah, that's not bad. But then you try to draw it. Like you go, well, okay. Now you're going to draw, draw Jaime from a 45 degree angle from behind or that kind of thing. So fortunately there's lots of reference and stuff like that. But yeah,
Tina Strachan:it, yeah.
Dean Rankine:And same with Rick and Morty. I think as I've got better over time, Rick and Morty is a very, it's a style that suits me well, that I feel comfortable with. Um, and so over time I've felt like I've got better and better with drawing those characters. And blowback as well, because you start to draw, you're drawing the stuff all the time,
Tina Strachan:Mm.
Dean Rankine:so then it filters into your own style. So something like Death Metal Emeralds. It's a little bit Simpsons, a little bit Rick and Morty, you know, because it's just, you know, definitely my elves is how I draw, but you can't help but be influenced back when you're pushing that out in that direction, if you
Tina Strachan:Yeah. No, I do. I think it's like when you're reading a book, or you're reading a few books in a particular genre and you're writing, I really feel like it influences my writing. Whatever, I'm reading at the moment, when I sit down and I'm, and yeah, it takes a turn. Whatever
Dean Rankine:Whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, that's right. That's the, that's yeah. The beauty about it. You're not, we're not stealing anything. We actually like just be going through our personal filter
Tina Strachan:It's what's in your
Dean Rankine:through us in another way. So yeah.
Tina Strachan:That's incredible.
Dean Rankine:Oh yeah. So let's see how to tell. Yeah, so yeah, we always have comic work and yeah, it's very, sometimes you'll have like a, you know, a pencil and sometimes you'll have an inker and a colorist because they have to come up monthly, uh, often have come up monthly. So,
Tina Strachan:work. That's incredible. What an incredible story. And like sort of something that I didn't know anything about. So I've always wanted to ask that question. If
Dean Rankine:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tina Strachan:I'm a bit sad. There's No Rick and Morty school, but that's fine.
Dean Rankine:Yeah. No worries. Yeah.
Tina Strachan:but.
Dean Rankine:Cause neither of the numbers ever said to me, you should be more on model. You should, can you please draw more model? No, it's ever spoke to me, but I've, I've chosen to try to be on more
Tina Strachan:that. Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense.
Emma Pignatiello:Hi everyone, my name is Emma Pignatello and I'm the author of Last Shot, which comes out on the 28th of January with Penguin Random House Australia. I'm very grateful to Madeline and Tina for this opportunity to tell you all a little bit about my debut novel. So Last Shot is an enemies to lovers romantic suspense novel based in a fictional town in the Margaret River region of Western Australia. And the premise is that someone is going to murder millionaire winemaker Giovanni Barberani tomorrow night. And the only two people who can stop the murder from happening are ex con Maxella Conrad and the Barberani's loyal fixer, Grayson Hawke. That is, if they don't kill each other first. If you're a fan of Lucy Score, Devni Perry and Catherine Cowles, And, if you enjoy banter and twists and turns of plotlines and bedsheets, I think you will enjoy Last Shot. I wrote this story because it was simply something I wanted to read, but I couldn't really find on the shelves. I remember looking at my towering, to be read pile filled with romance novels and crime novels and not really feeling in the mood for either. So I thought, why can't we have both? And that's when I started to get really excited about a murder mystery romance with both kinds of guns, the weapons and the arm muscles. Thank you so much to Madeline and Tina for the chance to talk about Last Shot on the podcast and good luck everyone with all your writing and publishing goals as you work towards that book deal.
Tina Strachan:So it's notoriously difficult to be accepted as both or your, your work to be accepted where you're pitching to be both a illustrator and the writer as well. And
Dean Rankine:Why? Why is that?
Tina Strachan:I don't know, but you know, for a lot of, for a lot of maybe for the listeners who don't. who aren't in that space of, you know, children's books that are illustrated. It's, it's, um, so for those people who are author illustrators, often when you, um, pitch, you're told only to pitch words always, like, unless you're specific or you're specifically just pitching yourself as an artist that you'd like a publisher to consider might fit particular books written by somebody else. But if you're trying to do both, like, so you're often asked, um, you know, Uh, only send the words, um, no illustrations with the submissions, don't, don't even put like illustrator notes sometimes. Um, and sometimes there's actually even nowhere to submit illustrations if there's like an online submissions form. Um, and, and that can be because, you know, the publishers like to read something and, you know, make their own sort of idea of. What they think would work, or they might know artists who they think would work with those words, um, or it's something just completely different, but often, Yeah. it's, it's tricky. And so some of the questions that I had from author illustrated friends was just, how do you navigate this process? Like, how do you, I mean, at the moment you're, you are, you've nailed that you're, you can probably pitch anything you want, but you know, do you have any advice, but
Dean Rankine:my list of, you know, pineapple comes to pizza town. I'm still looking at it. It hasn't been picked up. So maybe I'm doing it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I like, so, so the, yeah. So. I guess I'll just briefly talk about how I've, I've had some things published and I guess maybe the listening can glean because what happens is what I find is like a door opens and you go through it right and then it closes behind you so you don't miss can't necessarily do the exact same thing. Someone else can't do the exact same thing that I did to the picture. So, I don't know. So, the thing that's popping in my head isn't a writer illustrator thing. It was, sorry, Brock the Croc. Um, um, Adrian Beck, the author, we've been in contact for years. He said, well, we'd like to work together. Let's work together on something. And he said, oh, we've got this thing to do some character designs. To go with the pitch. And so I, I drew those, I sent them in and he said, okay, great. Here's the pictures that you're cool with that guy. Yeah. He sent it off and it was improved in two hours. Right.
Tina Strachan:So can I ask?
Dean Rankine:I don't know. Is it, is that because, because of him,
Tina Strachan:Yes.
Dean Rankine:the story, do the illustrations help me being a part of that process because of what I've worked on help or, you know, so I don't, so I don't know what
Tina Strachan:never know. Did he send it directly to a publisher? Did you know? So he had like an in an inroad there, so he sort of had that
Dean Rankine:And it worked with that before.
Tina Strachan:Yeah.
Dean Rankine:Um, so I don't know what the, so that's, that's how that worked. Then it was something like, so, Pineapple comes to Pizza Town, for instance, I would, you're right, there's not normally a place for illustrations, but if there's normally a place for it, you send the PDF off. So I have a cover that I've drawn. For that though, it's enough to, to give it a sense of the, the story. I, I struggled because of, because I do both. I struggle with just sending off the ill and I have, um, and so something like definitely my elves, I sent multiple places who I thought would be. reasonably open to it who do those kind of books without illustrations originally and everybody said no.
Tina Strachan:Mm.
Dean Rankine:Um, so then I added illustration. I started illustrating it and then I said, yes, was that just because of the, the, the time or the, the lack of it or, but I just think that illustrating is such a part of me and so important in my. Storytelling process that I can't imagine, um, not putting in,
Tina Strachan:Yeah.
Dean Rankine:I don't know. So, um, something like, so Mrs. Finch is a witch. That was
Tina Strachan:Mm.
Dean Rankine:so Mrs. Finch is a, is a picture book. So I guess the first picture book that I've written or second, kind of, that I haven't self published, um, and that I'd sent that through again, a number of. Um, a number of publishers that I, so I, I, I'd written, I'd written and I'd drawn it right without, without a publisher, um, once again, um, and the publisher picked it up and basically said, cause I think the reason I picked it up was because they had a certain amount of books that had to be sold or that ship out at a certain time. And it was over sort of Halloween and they go, Oh, that's a witch story that would fit really nicely into it. So basically I had a book that was ready to go.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Yes. You're making it easy for them. Yeah,
Dean Rankine:I'm making it easy for them to go, but it's a hell of a, but you can't just, you know, it's a, it's a hell of a thing to be drawing your books constantly because you don't, you don't know what format they want to publish it in. And this, so there had to be some changes to that as
Tina Strachan:Mm hm. Mm hm.
Dean Rankine:And I guess the other thing that I've been working on now is like, so yeah, can you find the Easter bunny? But can you find the Easter bunny? But can you find the peas coming up,
Tina Strachan:Can you find the P's?
Dean Rankine:biggies, piggies. Can you find the piggies,
Tina Strachan:P's?
Dean Rankine:the piggies,
Tina Strachan:That'd be hard.
Dean Rankine:So I wrote that, but so can you find book? It's about these, the three little pigs. They're in, they're in, they're in, you know, pig town, wherever they live. And they're sick of the wolf blowing their houses down. So they, um, they go, we have to get out of town. No, we have to get out of this fairy tale. So they employ the fairly good mother. She's not great, but she's fairly good and, uh, very, very good. And she, um, does a magical spell. And then sort of throughout the, in those gaps, so throughout the, can you find each of the, can you find spreads is a different fairy tale that they land in there, so they land in Hamlin. So you're going to find the pigs and then you go, Oh, count the racks. And you've got this kind of
Tina Strachan:That's So cool.
Dean Rankine:yeah, it's, it's a fun, great thing to work on. And right now I'm working on, can you find the Christmas elves? So the way those kind of values. Scholastic contacted me and said, Oh, you, the editor of Timmy the Tick Tock Pony had recommended me
Tina Strachan:Wow.
Dean Rankine:I needed, so for this kind of thing, you don't really, I'm writing them, but you don't really miss it. Like the writing is kind of very secondary to the, to the illustrations. You need it to make sense. So I kind of needed a theoretical writer and illustrator for those books. So that's what we're working on at the moment. Um, so. I, I can't like, so just say what I mean. So none of them specifically, uh, I'm a writer illustrator and you know,
Tina Strachan:I
Dean Rankine:my, my success has been random or because of being dogmatic outside of it and just, just going for it. So yeah, a couple of those things I actually drew first, which I don't know if I would recommend it. I'm not sure if I would. I want this to be a book. And if I, if no one, if no one published it, I would have published it, just self published it.
Tina Strachan:I love that. Yeah. It's because it's, you know, it's, Yeah, it's nice to make some money from it, but realistically we, um, we do it because writing and illustrating, because it's in us and it's joyful and fun. And if you find joy in writing death metal emo elves, then you just got to do it. yeah, And just go. And if it gets published, you know, that's kind of like a cherry on the top, isn't it?
Dean Rankine:so. And it is, it is not, I think, you know, I really liked it, you know, as opposed to self publishing, I really like to be published because in some ways it says to me, um, validates it. Someone else has seen, someone else has seen the work and go, I, I believe in this,
Tina Strachan:Yes. And they do the publishers do a lot of work. It's just, you know. I admire people who are self published because just the work that goes on behind the scenes, like even yeah. Now, like I'm experiencing that, you know, with Harper Collins and they have an amazing team and you know, there's still a lot of work that goes on and you don't even know what it is that they're doing half the time, but it's, it, you know, cause they've got all those industry sort of leads and contacts and they know what to do. It's, it's, um, yes, it's a lot of work.
Dean Rankine:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. The, um, the, the, the Easter Bunny book I got, um, good news is being, um, so it's being picked up by, uh, Canada or somewhere another scholastic, so it's not just classic Australia. So that's the other thing as well, to go through a publishing, get the, uh, international distribution, you can get royalties, you know, those kind of things are, you know, really important because Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still gotta pay the bills.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Can I ask you a practical question, Dean? I think you just sort of touched on it before with sometimes you'll just draw like the cover art or something if you did want to submit illustrations with work, with something that you've written. Um, yeah. Do you suggest that just maybe drew one or two sample pictures or some storyboards? What do you reckon?
Dean Rankine:Let me see, I don't, I don't know, because I don't, I don't, like, you're saying you have a, like, you know, they, there's, some specifically say don't include illustrations. So, um, I'll, I'll, if I've never come across that specifically. So if I want to, like, if I want to, again, because I'm an illustrator and I need, you know, I want to, if I'm planning on drawing it, I feel like I should have the opportunity to say how I would draw it. So I would, I think if I, yeah, if it's something like a picture book, if you're planning on drawing the picture book. Then I say, yeah, draw, like do the, at least the cover,
Tina Strachan:Mm hmm.
Dean Rankine:the, I mean, I don't know, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to lead anybody up the garden path and say, this is how you do it because I don't know how to do it over my years because then things change and I don't know how to do it. Um, I just know that you, um, need to be brave and you need to do it. Um, but you know, and maybe I guess, I guess as an illustrator, maybe you want to check with friends A family, you go, if you'll go, maybe your illustration isn't up to scratch. You know, I think, you know, you know, maybe, you know, you know, I just, you know, I, I hate negative feedback. I, I struggle with accepting any kind of feedback on my work that I don't like, but I think that, um, so maybe, you know, maybe that would be helpful, but maybe it's just not, you know, you know, maybe how you draw characters isn't best for served for this story, for instance, you know, I, I think that,
Tina Strachan:guess I can't help her to include somewhere on your submissions that, I also illustrate and would love to show you my work because you know, I think I've got stuff that would fit that
Dean Rankine:there's a, if there's a, like a portfolio link or
Tina Strachan:Yeah.
Dean Rankine:absolutely, you
Tina Strachan:Yeah, Because the publishers are going to start looking, if they accept your words, they're going to start looking for the right illustrator for it. And you've got to at least at that point be like throwing, throwing your hat in the ring for that. Surely.
Dean Rankine:I think so. I think that's the goal. If you're ill, right, illiterate, you want to draw your own books. So, and I think, you know, but in the meantime, when you're still submitting stuff, you just have to be continuing to work on your. Know, so yeah, I don't, I don't, I dunno what the answer is. I say, I say Yeah, draw it
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Yeah.
Dean Rankine:but yeah,
Tina Strachan:As you can. Yeah.
Dean Rankine:unless you've got, you've got nothing else going, you might as well draw it, you know,
Tina Strachan:Yeah,
Dean Rankine:and have,
Tina Strachan:right. Um, that's really good advice. So, so, uh, obviously you're working on a lot of things and this is Writing and illustrating books is, um, predominantly your job, your predominant job. Um, except so you do work part-time, you were saying, but, you know, for many authors and write and illustrators, you know, making enough money or, or fine. Getting, getting any profit at all from, you know, their books or, or the illustrations is, um, is the dream. Do you
Dean Rankine:I think it doesn't, like you've got some really successful. Authors, I think it's like Angela Slater or something like, like, it's incredibly like, um, great author and well known and published a lot, but she would still take, she was doing classes and running classes and doing critiques. So everybody still seems to have a side gig and that doesn't get talked about very much in the industry. It's like, almost like, I hear people that go, Oh, but I'm only doing this part time. Like it's a, like it's a bad thing. Like you haven't quite made, I'm not quite cutting it because very, you know, and I think it's, it's getting harder and harder to be creative. And I think the side hustle isn't, I don't know, it's just. Part of life, you know, I just think so. Yeah. So what I mentioned is that I have a 12 hour a week job that I work on an outreach needle and syringe program, drive around at night, give out cleaning injecting equipment I've done for 24 years. I don't, some, some days I struggle with it. Most days or evenings, I don't, I don't dislike it. Um, the, but also the, so that pays my super. You know, it's a small amount of super, I've got a little bit of super, you know, and this kind of things that has at least a steady amount of paycheck coming in. So I'm not anti the, the, the, the, the side gigs, because also that means maybe because of that side gig, if work comes in that I don't really want to do,
Tina Strachan:Mm,
Dean Rankine:know, they go, Oh, I don't, you know, it's not something that. Is I don't know ethically that I'm really into or it might just be something that I don't think I'm a particularly good fit that I can say no to it. You know, I don't have to take up everything because I know, you know, you know, I have to still draw and have to still. To illustrate, for money as well, um, but I, I don't feel quite as slave to the system if I've got options. So it's not, yeah, I don't know if it's all as bad as people think by going, oh yeah, I just want to be a full time, you know, of course we, you know, we want to just do it, but
Tina Strachan:think we just want to do our own thing and not have a
Dean Rankine:we want
Tina Strachan:like have anyone like do I set an alarm and just work however we
Dean Rankine:Yeah, you know,
Tina Strachan:more what it is, do
Dean Rankine:know. in, in some ways also, in some ways also that I, I, it's sort like, you know, and like looking at you, your work schedule, you know, the, um, I know how like it's how strict you have to be that I have to get this done. I have to get, I, I work in between here and here, but, you know, kids stuff, all this kinda stuff that have, that I have to work at. I always, like, you're probably doing, you, you're probably doing a, like, being more productive in that period than if you had the whole day or what you know, that you go, okay, I've got x amount of time I'm gonna work. I'm always amazed if I don't feel like working, I'll set an alarm for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes just as a start, like a promodoro technique to get moving. And I'm amazed with how much I can get done in 30 minutes. Like, you know, I had to go and like I can procrastinate all day and go once I actually start, I'm amazed. So, yeah, so I don't, I'm not sure if the, the, the dream is ultimately the, the best thing for us as creatives. You don't want to be, you don't want to be like so exhausted that you can't work, but I think to have some boundaries, some time boundaries and stuff like that, you know, like this whole, like, I don't know about you, this whole, I'm, you know, oh, can you work when you're not inspired? Yeah, like, of course I can, like, you know, they have this, people who aren't working in the creative Sphere kind of thing. Oh, you just sit around and drink some wine and think about inspiration, and then you double some paint on the page and you go, it's just not how I, how I operate and it's not how I work. I'm very much a, I always think I'm like a mechanic, like, okay, I'm broke down. Okay, what do I have to do? I break it down, okay, now I've gotta do this and this and this and this and this. You know, this is my, my process. Also, it helps with my anxiety as well. My, this is my latest, um. Actually, what now has become my thing starting on Rick and Morty late last year. Okay. Okay. I'm so anxious about this blank page of so you get the script and then I do a thumbnail. I'm not sure if everybody knows what a thumbnail is. So you get it. Yes. So then you do A thumbnail is, you kind of break up, really small, you break up the page and you go, okay, so you know, so Rick will stand there, so you choose your shots, like being a director, okay, so often, you know, most comics start with an establishing shot to show the reader what's happening, so each is important you choose your shots right about what's the most what's the best way to tell this story visually you're drawing really rough then i'll draw up all the uh like the the panels and then what i did because i was so overwhelmed i'll go i'm just going to draw rick So I draw Rick, I go Rick's here, Rick's going to be standing here, and the next panel will be standing here, and I'll draw Rick the entire thing. Only Rick. Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick. Then I'll go, okay, now I'm going to draw Morty. Morty. You know, in the positions, because I know where they're going to be standing. And then I'll go, yeah, the whole thing, and then I'll put backgrounds in. I did this weird, weird reverse thing, until it's done. So my thinking is go, You don't have to be, don't get anxious about this. You're just drawing Rick. You can draw Rick. It's fine. You know? And so it's just game. It's kind of this game I play now about just getting through everything. You go, you go, I'm just drawing one character. And then when it comes to inking the, so that's the black line that goes over the top. I, I don't start at the start of the comic and then go to the back. I'll choose. Okay. I'm going to, maybe on the last page, I'm going to do one panel. So you do one panel and you go next panel. And then, so if I'm tired and I'm not doing my best, then I'm hoping that that say, if it's, if it's a panel that's a bit shaky, then I'll have these good panels around it. So it won't look quite as bad, you know what I mean? So, and then I'll just go through it. So this is how I break up my sort of work day and how I work. It's a very systemic, like systematic about how I work and not, not flowery. I don't drink tea and play with water is not
Tina Strachan:no. Oh, that's a shame. No, I didn't think that you did though. I had to see it as I did.
Dean Rankine:Yeah, I
Tina Strachan:but you know, you gotta do what works for you and it's practical and it's, you know. treating it like a job. I remember someone saying. Um, once they, you know. they've been writing forever and it wasn't until they started treating it like a job, which doesn't sound very romantic and like creative, does it? But, but the reality is, Yeah. you know, if you start treating it like a job, as in like, I'm going to show up for this every day between this time and try and get X amount of words down. for example, or drawings down. And um, that's when it really starts to sort of flow. And
Dean Rankine:Yeah.
Tina Strachan:what's that saying? Is it like, if you want something to get done, you give it to a busy person? Is that the
Dean Rankine:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it.
Tina Strachan:it's true.
Dean Rankine:Yeah, absolutely, and we all are, you know. Sometimes I like it to be a little bit easier. You know, sometimes I do get anxious when there's Too many deadlines or something like that. And, you know, Oh God, this publisher is going to ask you about this. And I'm right now, I'm still trying to get this work done on this thing. So that's because you have to sometimes work on multiple things at once. Um, that's a little bit of a hassle, but yeah, I, yeah, I still, you know, I like what I do and I just, it's, I think it's okay to have your own process about how to, how to go about doing things, but yeah, yeah, you know, but publishes a schedule, I mean, that's my, you know, don't miss deadlines. That's not, you know, I don't, you know, I, I, I, yeah, I'm not the kind of, you know, if you're a prima donna author that you're, Oh no, I'm going to be another 12 months. So that might be, you can get away with that. But most of the, they, they, they need that by that time and get it done by that time.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Cause there's a lot of people that are working on it, a huge amount of people that are
Dean Rankine:Absolutely. They plan it like 12 months in advance. Like, you know, like,
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Yeah. yeah, But things, things happen. Don't they? Sometimes. And you know, so it's not
Dean Rankine:Yeah, absolutely. It also be nice to yourself. Yeah. I've been, uh, last month it's been very leisurely for me. I haven't like rocked up into the, I'm working on two things at once, but nothing's crazy. So you know, I don't, you know, I, I can just like, you know, I can work on a little bit in the day and it's been actually read a book, you know, a little bit sometime. I know it's unheard of, like, you know, two years ago I read two books cause I just drew every day. But like I drew, I do draw every day. I do draw every day. Even if I'm not doing a lot. Um, every day I'll go to the studio and
Tina Strachan:of something. Yeah. Um, well, speaking of it, treating it like a job and, you know, when it does come to jobs and earning money, uh, you know, sort of touched on it before about sometimes just selling the actual product, like the book on the shelf for many authors. That's not how they make the most, I guess, um, income in a year, but it's, it can be from, um, you know, writing or illustrating, um, related. Um, events and courses that they're running or, um, appearances or, um, things like that. You know, can you talk a little bit to that because you do a lot of that and school visits and you do all the comic con fests and stuff, which, which I just think you just do for fun. Really?
Dean Rankine:Yeah, they're pretty, they're pretty funny. You get away, you get away for the weekend, drink too much, you know. So the, uh, yeah. So, um, I've been very fortunate that I get to be. I've been get to be a guest at comic conventions. Um, so I wanna, I wanna, I, I guess I have to put a caveat on that as a warning. Don't tell me because I get, like, I get my, like flights accommodation covered for my interstate flight at interstate conventions. So I'm a guest, right? If you are going. So, yeah. So what I, sorry. Comic convention. I should talk about common conventions. Comic conventions are a blast. People cosplay, there's stalls, there's artists, there's actors, there's, you know, voice actors from your, you know, favorite, you know, animated TV shows. So people rock up like this, you know, supernova people rock up. Well, I saw your Gold Coast supernova, is that right? That's
Tina Strachan:Yep.
Dean Rankine:So, so great day, great day, great day for the kids, everybody. I highly encourage anyone if you've never done a convention before to check it out.
Tina Strachan:They're fun.
Dean Rankine:Um, yeah, so, so our conventions is a thing called Artist Alley, and in Artist Alley, you'll have comic creators. So yeah, so more mainstream comic creators like I am, and then you have like independent comic creators, um, and also authors. So they'll have, um, they'll have, um, so they'll have author guests who are there, um, and they'll be like, you know, in a booth normally. I think it's that time they had the author from, is it fourth wing fourth
Tina Strachan:Yes.
Dean Rankine:And I've never seen lines like it on, uh, she was so popular, incredibly popular. Um, so you have like, you'll have like bunch of authors, um, who, who'll be the, the sort of selling books and signing books, but also as an independent author, or you can just, you can take your books, you can, you, you, you buy a table for the weekend, you know, hire a table. And, um, and the idea is that you sell your stuff at the conventions that can be tricky for an independent creator because, you know, Big, big dreams about getting new readers. Um, uh, but it can be a hard gig because if your work isn't a well known IP, then a lot of people might just walk past it. So. You know, people like it, like a lot of money selling prints. Like, oh, here's my Deadpool print, for instance, and they'll draw, here's my picture and they'll, they'll, they'll sell that. Um, so what I do is I do at conventions, I sell like, you know, my comics and books that I've worked on, do signings, um, I'll do panels and stuff like that. Like people ask me about, you know, Being a, a comic artist and illustrator. And, um, I draw, so I draw people like they're a Simpsons character as well. And also I draw their heads and jars like their fu armor. So that's been a, that's been really good for me. So it's not an easy place to draw at a comic convention. Like some artists will do full commissions, like color commissions and stuff like that. I don't love to do that. Um, it's not, I, I generally work now digitally, so when it comes to, okay, at a, at a convention, something like that. Um, yeah, it's the first time I've picked up a marker to draw in some time often. Uh, but yeah, so I draw people like they're a Simpsons character. Um, so yeah, and I come back with some money each, each time. So, you know, have a good time, go around the country. You know, I've had done some international conventions before. There was a blast. Um, you get to hang out with the famous people. That's really nice. Um, and you get your name out there. I think it's really important. So that's one thing that I. No, I do. I think last year I did something like 15 conventions because like regional towns and stuff like that are doing conventions now. Um, so that's really nice. I've seen parts of Australia that I would never have gone to before. Like I went to casino. Yeah. I didn't hear the casino, you know, who would have done that? You know, um, And so the other thing I do is run workshops. So I've got two going to be soon three booking services that, so libraries and schools can contact me. Um, so, so how like a lot of authors I'll do author talks and I don't particularly enjoy author talks for me. This is for, me because. They'll put you up in front of, I don't know, I've had some really bad experiences like, I don't know, 200 year sevens, um, who are not interested in your, you know, even if you're doing comics, they're not interested, right? So what I've tried to, and I've tried to convince my booking services that I don't want to do those and say, okay, maximum of 70 young people. And I run a comic book workshop. So I start with stick figures and by the end of it, they've done their stick figures and by the end of drawn their own comic page. And I find that for me much more fulfilling and much, I think better for them as well. I'll try to get you to have a lot more students cause more bang for their buck. Um, but I, yeah, I, I, I like it. Like, yeah, yeah. I just silly stuff, you know, um, The silly ways that they can then generate ideas for characters I do. Um, and, um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a fun little session. So I did 34 of those last year. Um, so that was, yeah, authors do more. I love, I've, I've heard a lot, a lot, like, you know, doing,
Tina Strachan:job in itself, just
Dean Rankine:oh, August, book week goes, book week goes for like six weeks.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Yeah. it. does now, doesn't it?
Dean Rankine:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah,
Tina Strachan:Oh, well, hang on. Week. It
Dean Rankine:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any librarians or, you know, or teachers just get us in other times besides August, please. Uh, so, um, so that's been money's great. I would like, I would like, um, the booking services originally was like, this is how much we charge. I was like, Oh my God, this is great. Um, and I would never have done that. But now I can't go yet. No, it's like, yeah.
Tina Strachan:that's
Dean Rankine:this is my, this is my minimum of amount of money that I would, I would like during my, um, for my session. Um, I'm an introvert. You wouldn't think so how much I've talked today, but I'm a, I'm pretty introverted and I find them enjoyable, but draining.
Tina Strachan:Oh, I
Dean Rankine:Like I'm, I've kind of spent after the, after the time, um, and, um, I kind of think if I was like a, like a theater kid. If I was like, if you're kind of like really like to perform, you'll do very well in that kind of context and have a good time. Um, I, yeah, I was kind of a theater kid, but I worked in the background. So like, it was like, no, I find it. Yeah. I like it by fine. I do find it tiring.
Tina Strachan:Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. And I think though, um, cause I've, you know, I see a lot of all the talks as well and I've seen the full spectrum of people who are basically clowns on, on The stage, which is, you know, gray and I've got so much energy. And then, and then I've seen the complete opposite of people who are really quite quiet and just. be themselves and just stand up there doing their thing. And, you know, I think that just some appeal to some and some just don't, appeal to others, you know, and, you know, I think it can be, I think it can actually be either way. And you're going to appeal to, you're not going to appeal to every single person in you. yeah, You don't have to be a clown. I think a lot of
Dean Rankine:I don't, yeah, yeah,
Tina Strachan:by that and think that's what you have to do to entertain the children. And it's not always that, well, I'm hoping it's not that because I can't be a clown.
Dean Rankine:wanted to be, I wanted to have some substance as well. I wanted to take, like, when you hear things like, uh, this kid who doesn't really do anybody life's comics, and I've had times where they go, like, the kid who was really quiet, they will start, they continue working on their comic. During recess, afterwards, those are the kinds of things that I find really important. And those are the things that go, you know what, as a kid, that's the kind of kid that I would have been. That, so it's, you know, not just engaging the, the gregarious kids, but the ones who are quiet and more contemplative. Um, so yeah, so yeah, also, you know, if I wasn't getting paid for it, I wouldn't do it. I don't want you to think it's altruism, um, at all. But I think it is. a good way. And I think in some ways, I think you'll find some authors basically that's what they're not writing for, but that's what they're actually generating their main income from doing all the talks. That's where most of their money actually coming from. Not the, not the illustration part or the, um, the writing
Tina Strachan:The authoring
Dean Rankine:I just find it interesting. I just think, yeah, good, good as well. A good string to your bow. If you can, if you can get it. So, yeah.
Tina Strachan:Yeah, no, that's awesome. Thank you. So that's all really good tips and, um, but do you have like a number one top tip for authors or illustrators or someone who wants to be an author illustrator? Like what's your number one top tip?
Dean Rankine:I think you, yeah, I think you need to be brave. You need to work hard, um, and you need to put yourself out there and don't roll with those rejections. Um, work on your craft. I'm just, I know it's like 5, 000 things work on your craft in the meantime, but yeah, don't, I'm not saying be rude, but you know, just go, you know, you can, you can submit. More than once, unless they've said no, stop it, no more submissions, you know, just submit again. Um, it might have, you know, might have like rolled, you know, might have been a bad day from someone. You might find there's a different editor looking at it now. It's, you know, you know, things change, are always changing. So yeah, don't, maybe don't think, okay, I was rejected by them or I didn't hear back. I don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with circling back. down the, down the track. Um, and yeah, it's, yeah, and yeah, you have to be stubborn. That's the diplomatic. Absolutely. And I think Yeah, yeah.
Tina Strachan:the second time that they see your name, right? So then that's starting to, you know, maybe form in their mind a little bit or just, Oh, I remember that. No.
Dean Rankine:I don't know what the answer is. I mean, you almost, you need to have like someone on the other side of the fence is almost like a champion on your behalf or someone who'll go, Oh, actually you, I believe in this book. I believe in this person. Um, I know one, um, I don't know if it's bad to me. I won't mention who it is. who it was, but I know one, one story I was told that a recent picture book that they, their friend basically walked it up to the editor inside, they must have another author said, you need to publish this book. You know, that, you know, you need to like, have a look at this and it's been rejected a thousand times. And so. It's like nothing is like, yeah, there's no clear rules. Um, I think the, there's this, it's like this pulp series years ago, I read, it's called the stainless steel rat. And it's about this guy who's a thief, right? You like, you like, it was like, it's like being a rat. Like, you know, in the old days you would be able to scuttle just through like wooden brick. But now in the future, if you're like a, if you're. A rat, you have to, it's a stainless steel world that we live in. And so, and I kind of think about that as well when it comes to creatives, they go to stainless steel and we're rats in stainless steel world. And we have to be smart, um, and be creative about the way we promote ourselves, the way we get in. There's no clear thing, but you have to be. You have to be tough, you know, you will, you will take it, take the, take the blows. Um, this is going to be, you might have to cut this story, but I guess that the
Tina Strachan:No.
Dean Rankine:the story about working in Hollywood and it's like that you. It's like, it's like climbing a mountain of shit to get to a single rose, right? So you climb the mountain of shit, and by the time you get to the rose, you've lost all sense of smell. Right, right, right. There's, and I just, in some way, I think it's, you know, so I guess I'm philosophical about my success. You know, you go, I've done this, this, I really feel really proud of one of these awards, but, but I know what it's taken to get there. That is just love to get there. So you're, you're, you're thankful, but it's not, you know, yeah, it hurts. You go, you, you, you don't, you know, in some ways, if you're not hurting, you're not doing it right because there, there is, there's, there's this. There's a, there's a price to pay, you know, so, um, but yeah, Daniel, a positive note, still, still really great. Still, I don't, there's nothing I want to do other than I want to do. I just want to do this. Um, I just want to play the game. I want to be good enough to be the worst and play the game. And if there's nothing, you know, um, it's all I want to do. And if there's a price to pay, then I'm willing to pay it.
Tina Strachan:That's great. That's a great point to end on. Thank you, Dean. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Dean Rankine:No worries. It was great. Great training.
Tina Strachan:Thank you for listening to the book deal podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the pod so you can receive updates as soon as our new apps drop. And to keep up to date with what the pod is doing, you can also find us on Instagram.