Early start today. Liz is going to make a website for the Chapel Hill Cartoon Map! Right after she finishes her English class with a student from Poland!

When I started the Pioneer Days Cartoon Poster in Carbondale, Pennsylvania in 1990, the first prospective advertiser I went to see was the editor of the Carbondale News, the local paper. He was a guy just a few years older than me, he was a Vietnam vet, and he had a bit more cynical view of the world than me. Carbondale was a former coal town that appeared to have never recovered from its glory days. Its Main Street was rundown, with empty storefronts that gave the appearance of a town in a long, steep decline.

I gave the editor my pitch, and he asked me how many advertisers I expected to get on the poster. I usually try to get a hundred advertisers on a poster to make it worthwhile, but I lowered my expectations a little for Carbondale.

"Eighty," I told the editor.

"You'll never get eighty advertisers," he told me bluntly.

"If I get eighty advertisers on the poster, will you give me a job in your sales department?" I asked him.

"Okay," he agreed. I started driving around town and discovered that despite its rundown downtown section, Carbondale had a thriving manufacturing community spread throughout the town, with different businesses making everything from glass beads to frozen quiches to helmets for military fighter pilots. So for two months I went around town visiting every one of them and then I went back to see my newspaper editor.

"So, are you going to be my 80th advertiser?" I asked as I showed him my list of those businesses that had signed up for the project. He looked at the list in disbelief, and agreed to add his name to the list. And after a few minutes, he said "You still want that job in our sales department?"

"No, thanks. I was just kidding about that." I finished up the Pioneer Days Poster and was off to my next project.