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Author/Illustrator Dean Rankine on what it takes to make a career out of your craft · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  This is the Book Deal Podcast.
• 0:10
  Where you will discover the inspiring stories of the authors behind your favourite books.
• 0:15
  No matter what stage of writing you are at, we've got you covered.
• 0:19
  I'm Tina Strong.
• 0:20
  And I'm Madeline Cleary.
• 0:21
  And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors.
• 0:25
  One deal at a time.
• 0:29
  The Book Deal Podcast acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters which it's recorded on.
• 0:35
  And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:43
  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.
• 0:51
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:03
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:09
  Tina Strachan: I know you would have heard of at least some of them.
• 1:12
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:23
  Tina Strachan: And that's only scraping the surface.
• 1:25
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:41
  Tina Strachan: I hope you enjoy.
• 1:44
  Tina Strachan: Welcome to the book deal, Dean Rankin.
• 1:46
  Dean Rankine: Thank you for having me.
• 1:47
  Dean Rankine: It's good to be here.
• 1:49
  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.
• 1:59
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 2:13
  Dean Rankine: Yes.
• 2:14
  Tina Strachan: So That's incredible.
• 2:15
  Dean Rankine: been quite the journey to get to that point.
• 2:18
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 2:18
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 2:18
  Dean Rankine: So predominantly I'm an illustrator.
• 2:21
  Dean Rankine: I come from the illustration.
• 2:23
  Dean Rankine: It was all I wanted to do as a kid.
• 2:24
  Dean Rankine: I wanted to draw.
• 2:26
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 2:32
  Dean Rankine: And in some ways I, it's always.
• 2:36
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 3:00
  Dean Rankine: They go, well, yeah, you kind of like, as, as, as kids, you're always right.
• 3:03
  Dean Rankine: And I always imagined myself, you know, maybe doing, yeah, writing my own picture books and certainly when it comes to comics.
• 3:11
  Dean Rankine: I've written a lot of the comics that I've, I've illustrated.
• 3:15
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 3:22
  Dean Rankine: Um, but it's not stopping me from doing it anyway.
• 3:26
  Tina Strachan: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 3:27
  Tina Strachan: So that's, it's something that you've always wanted to do.
• 3:29
  Tina Strachan: So this is like achieving a bit of a dream for you.
• 3:32
  Dean Rankine: Oh yeah.
• 3:33
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 3:33
  Dean Rankine: I think the, it's, I never wanted, I never wanted to do it.
• 3:37
  Dean Rankine: I was a really shy kid, painfully shy.
• 3:40
  Dean Rankine: I talked funny, really was anxious, but by.
• 3:46
  Dean Rankine: Drawing it was like that was the thing that I had this sort of positive feedback from.
• 3:51
  Dean Rankine: So I'm very much a praise monkey.
• 3:53
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 3:57
  Dean Rankine: And you, and you go to your, for me as a kid, you go, I'm so good at that.
• 4:00
  Dean Rankine: That's the thing I'm good at.
• 4:02
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, I'm not, I'm bad in sports.
• 4:04
  Dean Rankine: Bad and everything else, but this is what I'm good at and I clunked that.
• 4:09
  Dean Rankine: Looking back, I wasn't good.
• 4:10
  Dean Rankine: I was no sort of child prodigy or anything like that.
• 4:14
  Dean Rankine: I think I was maybe a dove average.
• 4:16
  Dean Rankine: Um, um, but, um, sometimes, you know, it was just, just a passion.
• 4:22
  Dean Rankine: It's just all I wanted to do.
• 4:23
  Dean Rankine: Um, and any other thing is just, I don't know, even now I don't want to really do anything else.
• 4:28
  Dean Rankine: I just like to draw.
• 4:30
  Tina Strachan: that's incredible.
• 4:31
  Tina Strachan: And what a good passion to have that you can, and that it's something that you can do anywhere, anytime, isn't it?
• 4:36
  Dean Rankine: yeah, absolutely.
• 4:37
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 4:38
  Dean Rankine: That way, you know, we, we talked about AI very briefly before starting the show.
• 4:43
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I think that's why, one of the reasons I, I mean, I hate AI so much.
• 4:49
  Dean Rankine: Um, so we're talking about generative, generative, like AI that creates pictures and, and.
• 4:54
  Dean Rankine: Who that correct writing and stuff that, because I feel like it's stealing.
• 4:58
  Dean Rankine: It's not only stealing, but it's stealing from future generations.
• 5:01
  Dean Rankine: The opportunities that I had finding myself, because by doing art, that's how I found myself.
• 5:10
  Dean Rankine: That's my therapy, that's my passion.
• 5:13
  Dean Rankine: 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
• 5:21
  Tina Strachan: Silence.
• 5:27
  Tina Strachan: Silence.
• 5:33
  Dean Rankine: writer.
• 5:34
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I just, you know, I think I'm going to be okay.
• 5:37
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 5:56
  Tina Strachan: Yeah, yeah, it's a worry, isn't it?
• 5:58
  Tina Strachan: 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?
• 6:07
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 6:18
  Tina Strachan: And.
• 6:19
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 6:29
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 6:35
  Tina Strachan: But it's not really right.
• 6:37
  Tina Strachan: But they, for some reason, and they're so young and they just think This is this is, this
• 6:42
  Dean Rankine: this is active as well.
• 6:44
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, and you see in these AI generated, they have, they have biases.
• 6:48
  Dean Rankine: And they're going, they're not actually just, just giving you the facts.
• 6:52
  Dean Rankine: They're going by, you know, very strong bias in regards to the information that they're gleaming from it.
• 6:58
  Dean Rankine: So, it's, it's going, it's troubling.
• 7:01
  Dean Rankine: Um, we're not going to be able to believe the videos we watch.
• 7:06
  Dean Rankine: We're not going to be able to believe the things that we were reading.
• 7:09
  Dean Rankine: Um, so yeah, I think it's going to hit it in all kinds of ways that we don't even realize.
• 7:16
  Dean Rankine: Um, so yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:18
  Dean Rankine: I was like, we shouldn't talk about this because it makes me so upset and it's such a downer.
• 7:23
  Dean Rankine: And I know the show isn't just a big downer, but yeah, it does concern me.
• 7:26
  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?
• 7:33
  Tina Strachan: And yeah, we've just got to band together to, Yeah.
• 7:36
  Tina Strachan: join forces to try and hold it back.
• 7:40
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Dean Rankine: Just kind of just really, just really quickly on it.
• 7:43
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, I know it's like.
• 7:44
  Dean Rankine: New authors and stuff like that.
• 7:46
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 7:54
  Dean Rankine: And I think you're, are you shooting yourself in your own foot?
• 7:58
  Dean Rankine: But also it's just, you know, the, you know, there's these generators that's based on stolen artwork.
• 8:04
  Dean Rankine: And I think morally we just can't justify it.
• 8:07
  Dean Rankine: I understand why people want to use it.
• 8:09
  Dean Rankine: God, this is my, this is my chance to get published.
• 8:11
  Dean Rankine: I just want to get published.
• 8:12
  Dean Rankine: I understand that.
• 8:14
  Dean Rankine: Um, but it's just such an awful thing to do.
• 8:17
  Dean Rankine: An awful thing to undermine.
• 8:20
  Dean Rankine: The, like, you know, the illustrators in the industry and also yourself.
• 8:24
  Dean Rankine: 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
• 8:35
  Tina Strachan: that's yeah, that's right.
• 8:36
  Tina Strachan: No, that's fair enough.
• 8:37
  Tina Strachan: And um, I think you can tell with images as Well, when things are AI
• 8:41
  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?
• 8:52
  Tina Strachan: going to get
• 8:53
  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.
• 9:09
  Dean Rankine: And I could tell every second one was AI side, but it was actually, everyone was AI.
• 9:15
  Tina Strachan: Oh, okay.
• 9:16
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 9:17
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 9:17
  Tina Strachan: know what else I actually saw?
• 9:19
  Tina Strachan: Um, recently, was it one, I'm not going to say the name, one of the very famous shoe brands
• 9:25
  Dean Rankine: Hmm.
• 9:26
  Tina Strachan: created an ad that is 100 percent AI.
• 9:32
  Tina Strachan: So no models, but it's all people.
• 9:34
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 9:40
  Tina Strachan: really.
• 9:42
  Tina Strachan: And it was like, I couldn't pick it.
• 9:45
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 9:45
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 9:46
  Dean Rankine: this
• 9:46
  Tina Strachan: wouldn't have known because they touch those videos up so much, right.
• 9:49
  Tina Strachan: To make them bright and light and glary.
• 9:51
  Tina Strachan: So they sort of
• 9:52
  Dean Rankine: Anyway.
• 9:53
  Tina Strachan: to have that look about them Anyway.
• 9:55
  Tina Strachan: to make it look like real
• 9:56
  Dean Rankine: Slightly surreal look anyway, but yeah.
• 9:59
  Dean Rankine: The, um, boring, you know, things like that.
• 10:02
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 10:15
  Dean Rankine: And I go, these images didn't just come from nowhere.
• 10:18
  Dean Rankine: Like they've taken people's photos.
• 10:20
  Dean Rankine: They've like scoured the web.
• 10:21
  Dean Rankine: And I don't know why there's no more, there's isn't more uproar.
• 10:26
  Dean Rankine: From it'll go, you took our stuff, photos of our kids on the beach and you put them into this stuff.
• 10:32
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 10:40
  Dean Rankine: So, um, yeah.
• 10:42
  Dean Rankine: Hey viewers, we are going to get into some good stuff.
• 10:43
  Dean Rankine: We're not going to be dwelling on this the whole time.
• 10:46
  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.
• 10:50
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 10:58
  Tina Strachan: And they're using words that actually other authors have written to train the program to write.
• 11:02
  Tina Strachan: So it is, you know, maybe people just don't understand what it is, what it is actually, but that's Yeah.
• 11:10
  Tina Strachan: Oh, they don't care.
• 11:11
  Tina Strachan: That's right.
• 11:12
  Dean Rankine: I don't care and they're just awful.
• 11:14
  Dean Rankine: And I just think, you know, what about you as creatives?
• 11:17
  Dean Rankine: Like we're talking about your book that kind of just, you know, just very recently, which is.
• 11:21
  Dean Rankine: Super exciting.
• 11:22
  Dean Rankine: 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?
• 11:33
  Dean Rankine: You're cracking a little bit of yourself open and you're showing the world.
• 11:37
  Tina Strachan: Mm
• 11:38
  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?
• 11:46
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 12:05
  Dean Rankine: Awful.
• 12:06
  Dean Rankine: That's awful.
• 12:07
  Dean Rankine: It's such a betrayal.
• 12:09
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 12:19
  Dean Rankine: Oh, well, that's the way it is.
• 12:20
  Dean Rankine: We're just going to, you know, we're just going to go on like that, you know?
• 12:25
  Dean Rankine: Um, but I, I'm still rallying against it.
• 12:27
  Dean Rankine: I feel like it's like, uh, we're throwing pebbles at a tsunami.
• 12:32
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 12:33
  Dean Rankine: Um, trying to make a stop, but I'm, I still, I don't think we're wrong.
• 12:36
  Dean Rankine: I don't think, I don't think we'll win.
• 12:39
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 12:40
  Tina Strachan: Mm.
• 12:40
  Tina Strachan: But you can't give up, right?
• 12:42
  Dean Rankine: don't think we're wrong.
• 12:43
  Tina Strachan: No, no, absolutely.
• 12:45
  Tina Strachan: Well, this is like, that's a whole nother episode that, uh, that we should probably record
• 12:49
  Dean Rankine: we'll have to break this in two halves.
• 12:51
  Dean Rankine: Dean's rant about AI that was 45 minutes and then we'll do the fun stuff.
• 12:57
  Tina Strachan: No, but it's great.
• 12:57
  Tina Strachan: And it's really relevant.
• 12:58
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 13:07
  Tina Strachan: So it's all, it's all very relevant and important, but I do have lots of other
• 13:11
  Dean Rankine: Okay.
• 13:11
  Tina Strachan: for you, Dean.
• 13:13
  Tina Strachan: So we have lots of, um, unpacking.
• 13:17
  Tina Strachan: So I even asked some of my author illustrator friends as well.
• 13:21
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 13:43
  Tina Strachan: That's, that's a whole nother episode,
• 13:46
  Dean Rankine: it's over, the, the, the,
• 13:47
  Tina Strachan: but it's, it's so impressive, Dean, and it needs to be acknowledged.
• 13:50
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 14:00
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 14:10
  Tina Strachan: So you've illustrated, um, Magda Szubanski's Timmy the Ticked Off Pony, Morris Gleitzman's Extra Time and Help Around the House.
• 14:19
  Tina Strachan: Uh, Brock the Croc and there's going to be a Brock the Croc 2.
• 14:23
  Dean Rankine: Croc 2 Make It Snappy is in stores on the 2nd of
• 14:28
  Tina Strachan: it snappy, that's great.
• 14:30
  Tina Strachan: 2nd of April.
• 14:30
  Tina Strachan: 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?
• 14:45
  Tina Strachan: Which is a year round favorite in our house, I have to say.
• 14:50
  Tina Strachan: Mrs.
• 14:50
  Tina Strachan: Snitch is a witch and your most recent series, Death Metal Emo Elves.
• 14:57
  Tina Strachan: But that's not all.
• 14:58
  Tina Strachan: You're also an illustrator for many hugely well known comics such as Simpsons.
• 15:03
  Tina Strachan: Rick and Morty, Futurama, and the Riverdale Diaries.
• 15:07
  Tina Strachan: All
• 15:08
  Dean Rankine: yeah,
• 15:08
  Tina Strachan: so I think we've just taken up all our time with
• 15:10
  Dean Rankine: yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:11
  Dean Rankine: Emo
• 15:12
  Tina Strachan: such an outstanding list of works, Dean, and many, many well known titles and authors there that you're working with.
• 15:18
  Tina Strachan: But, um, so Brock the Croc 2 coming out soon, but also the fourth installment coming out soon of Death Metal Emo Elves.
• 15:27
  Tina Strachan: called Kingdom of Rock.
• 15:29
  Tina Strachan: Love the title.
• 15:30
  Tina Strachan: Love the book.
• 15:30
  Tina Strachan: Also really funny.
• 15:31
  Tina Strachan: The kids love it.
• 15:32
  Tina Strachan: Can you tell us a little bit about, um, the, the new book that's coming out?
• 15:36
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, um, so yeah, so it's the fourth book.
• 15:40
  Dean Rankine: So Death Metal Emo Elves is about a group of elves.
• 15:43
  Dean Rankine: The original book is like, in elf world, everybody plays the, like, the polka.
• 15:48
  Dean Rankine: You know, like, um How do you describe the polka?
• 15:51
  Dean Rankine: Polka music, right?
• 15:52
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 16:04
  Dean Rankine: There was a performer named Elvish.
• 16:07
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 16:16
  Dean Rankine: Um, and so then the, so the, and it goes from there, the insanity goes from there.
• 16:22
  Dean Rankine: Um, um.
• 16:24
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 16:24
  Dean Rankine: So each book would be slightly different, but each book you can kind of read on your own.
• 16:28
  Dean Rankine: It's not kind of rocket science.
• 16:31
  Dean Rankine: You can read book four if you want.
• 16:33
  Dean Rankine: Book four focuses more on individual, um, band members and what happens during the day before band practice.
• 16:43
  Dean Rankine: Um,
• 16:43
  Tina Strachan: It's super fun.
• 16:44
  Tina Strachan: And it's, Um, I feel like there's a lot of yourself in that.
• 16:47
  Tina Strachan: Is it like it's,
• 16:48
  Dean Rankine: think it's, I think it's like one of those books, the, it's like, I want to write this.
• 16:53
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 17:01
  Dean Rankine: Um, but also you're kind of doing it for other people.
• 17:05
  Dean Rankine: It's not your stuff, right?
• 17:07
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 17:17
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 17:25
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I think it's, it's fun, you know.
• 17:28
  Dean Rankine: It's one of those books, like, you'll never see, like, a really, there won't be a really big kid.
• 17:32
  Dean Rankine: in their human child.
• 17:34
  Dean Rankine: It's just the elves and let's live in elf world.
• 17:36
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 17:49
  Dean Rankine: Um, but yeah, yeah, that's one of the, it was one of the works I'm most proud of.
• 17:53
  Dean Rankine: I think, um, I tried.
• 17:57
  Dean Rankine: Cause I guess it's all about getting published this podcast.
• 17:59
  Dean Rankine: Yes, I wrote it and shopped it around to, I don't know how many publishers.
• 18:06
  Dean Rankine: So I'm reasonably connected with publishers because I've worked for Scholastic.
• 18:09
  Dean Rankine: And, um, yeah, I'm trying to, uh, yeah, Scholastic five mile.
• 18:16
  Dean Rankine: Random house as an illustrator.
• 18:18
  Dean Rankine: So naively I thought it would be reasonably easy.
• 18:22
  Dean Rankine: This is so stupid of me Because well because I know them well, they know me they know my work go.
• 18:27
  Dean Rankine: Hey, would you consider publishing something that i've written?
• 18:31
  Dean Rankine: um and It was really hard.
• 18:34
  Dean Rankine: It was like nobody would say yes to it.
• 18:37
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 18:45
  Dean Rankine: Um, so yeah, I tried everybody.
• 18:48
  Dean Rankine: And what I started to do was, okay, well, I'm going to draw it.
• 18:50
  Dean Rankine: I'm going to start drawing it.
• 18:52
  Dean Rankine: So, um, every day I was working on other stuff.
• 18:57
  Dean Rankine: Every day I would do one page of illustrations on this.
• 19:00
  Dean Rankine: Um, it was about 200 pages.
• 19:02
  Dean Rankine: something like that.
• 19:03
  Dean Rankine: Very, very heavily illustrated.
• 19:06
  Dean Rankine: Um, so I'm son, I just, I will do it.
• 19:08
  Dean Rankine: Like, and then I put on Instagram, like each day, this is my, you know, this page.
• 19:12
  Dean Rankine: So people would start to actually see it come together.
• 19:16
  Dean Rankine: And I think in some ways it started to get a fan base.
• 19:18
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 19:31
  Dean Rankine: Is it just a waste of time?
• 19:32
  Dean Rankine: But I kept pursuing and, um, it kept popping, sending it.
• 19:36
  Dean Rankine: So I would send it then to publishers with, um, with the illustrations with how many illustrations I've had.
• 19:42
  Dean Rankine: So again, really clearly go, you can see how the story, I don't think it was a bad story.
• 19:47
  Dean Rankine: You know, I don't think it was the best story.
• 19:49
  Dean Rankine: I look, I was pretty good, pretty solid.
• 19:50
  Dean Rankine: These are the illustrations.
• 19:52
  Dean Rankine: Um, and yeah, and eventually.
• 19:55
  Dean Rankine: Um, Redback Publishing, which is a small publisher in Sydney, said yes to it.
• 20:02
  Dean Rankine: Um, and which was amazing.
• 20:06
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 20:16
  Dean Rankine: They kind of do things like, I don't know, uh, this like books about Adelaide.
• 20:21
  Dean Rankine: This is Adelaide.
• 20:21
  Dean Rankine: Adelaide has a population of blah, blah, blah.
• 20:24
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 20:30
  Dean Rankine: Um, but also fortunately I said, yes,
• 20:33
  Tina Strachan: Yeah, well, I think everyone else is crazy not to Dean, you know, got such a,
• 20:38
  Dean Rankine: everybody,
• 20:38
  Tina Strachan: yeah, So that's so good though.
• 20:40
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 20:52
  Dean Rankine: all the time.
• 20:53
  Dean Rankine: Oh yeah.
• 20:54
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 20:54
  Dean Rankine: It's crazy all the time.
• 20:56
  Dean Rankine: And even the, even if you think when I was.
• 21:01
  Dean Rankine: I'll come back to this one.
• 21:02
  Dean Rankine: I'll go first.
• 21:02
  Dean Rankine: I'll finish up the Death Metal Emo albums.
• 21:04
  Dean Rankine: So yeah, so I didn't like kept going and I said, we would like to do more.
• 21:09
  Dean Rankine: We would like to have it to be a series.
• 21:10
  Dean Rankine: And originally I hadn't, I hadn't really thought about it being a series.
• 21:14
  Dean Rankine: Um, but I think it's a, it's a, it's a young sort of junior fiction kind of.
• 21:18
  Dean Rankine: book I think you'd class it as, or it's very, very much a comic in some ways as well.
• 21:24
  Dean Rankine: I have to say each page is basically a panel of a comic.
• 21:27
  Dean Rankine: Um, um, so yeah, so it's been kind of going on, but there doesn't make much money.
• 21:32
  Dean Rankine: So I've had to, um, It's like, you know, we're, we're talking about 200 paid, 200 illustrations per book, really.
• 21:39
  Dean Rankine: So, um, that's sort of hard to like squeeze in.
• 21:43
  Dean Rankine: It's hard for me to say no to paid work that I know it's going to make.
• 21:50
  Dean Rankine: This, this makes money, but not a Um, so yeah, so, but yeah, we, we kick it on.
• 21:56
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 21:56
  Dean Rankine: So book four comes out, um, March, I think.
• 22:00
  Dean Rankine: Um, and then I'll start to try to find a space in my schedule to do number five.
• 22:08
  Dean Rankine: Um, I would like to do like an ongoing thing with it.
• 22:11
  Dean Rankine: I enjoyed working on it.
• 22:13
  Dean Rankine: Um, it'd be nice if it made more money.
• 22:16
  Dean Rankine: Um, I, I did submit it to adaptable.
• 22:18
  Dean Rankine: I think adaptable is like, you know, I thought, Oh yeah.
• 22:21
  Dean Rankine: for
• 22:22
  Tina Strachan: Queensland Writers Centre.
• 22:24
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, yeah, cool cartoon.
• 22:26
  Dean Rankine: Um, but yeah, so to come back onto like your rejection thing, I really want to sort of emphasize that.
• 22:30
  Dean Rankine: So for me, that, um, I have always been rejected.
• 22:35
  Dean Rankine: It's like this kind of, it's, it's the hustle and the grind of being a creative.
• 22:40
  Dean Rankine: You need to hustle for work constantly.
• 22:42
  Dean Rankine: And then it's the, it's like the grind to get it worked.
• 22:47
  Dean Rankine: You work on it.
• 22:48
  Dean Rankine: I know this isn't books, but say, say for instance, my stuff on Rick and Morty, I.
• 22:54
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 23:02
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 23:13
  Dean Rankine: And then I reckon every maybe.
• 23:15
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 23:25
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, here's some new stuff.
• 23:27
  Dean Rankine: And then you slowly, slowly kind of like, you know, you sort of chip away.
• 23:31
  Dean Rankine: You're always polite and you don't, I would never send like things off that.
• 23:35
  Dean Rankine: You know, you're not sending stuff off that you shouldn't be like two people who shouldn't be receiving it.
• 23:40
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 23:54
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 24:05
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 24:15
  Dean Rankine: You know, would you be interested really short time?
• 24:19
  Dean Rankine: And I said, yes, I'd be interested.
• 24:21
  Dean Rankine: Um, in, in the end it was going to be.
• 24:24
  Dean Rankine: I would have had to pencil two pages a day and ink one page a day to hit, to hit deadline.
• 24:33
  Dean Rankine: Most comic artists can normally get a page a day done, right?
• 24:37
  Dean Rankine: But not too, just even for me, I'm reasonably fast because I'm very cartoony.
• 24:42
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 24:52
  Dean Rankine: So then since I've actually had progressively.
• 24:55
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 25:02
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 25:10
  Dean Rankine: If I had just accepted that, then I would not have got that work.
• 25:15
  Dean Rankine: So I'm all, I'm all about being consistently contacting publishers.
• 25:22
  Dean Rankine: This is what I'm working on now.
• 25:23
  Dean Rankine: This is my new story.
• 25:24
  Dean Rankine: 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?
• 25:36
  Dean Rankine: Or whatever, whatever, 12 months or whatever.
• 25:37
  Dean Rankine: We didn't, I, I don't do that.
• 25:40
  Dean Rankine: I will send it.
• 25:42
  Dean Rankine: Sometimes I might wait a couple of months, but otherwise I just, I send it off to multiple publishers because.
• 25:49
  Dean Rankine: I'm sorry.
• 25:50
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 26:02
  Dean Rankine: When the second one had already been out and published like that long, that long.
• 26:08
  Dean Rankine: And you go, I, you know, you've only got.
• 26:11
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 26:21
  Dean Rankine: No problem.
• 26:22
  Dean Rankine: But if it's like that, kind of just open, Oh yeah, nine months or 12 months, we'll get back to you thing.
• 26:27
  Tina Strachan: Or we, or we won't get back to you
• 26:29
  Dean Rankine: Oh yeah, that's it.
• 26:30
  Dean Rankine: I just, yeah, that's it.
• 26:31
  Dean Rankine: That's the thing.
• 26:31
  Dean Rankine: Just assume that we're not interested.
• 26:34
  Dean Rankine: I'm not doing it.
• 26:34
  Dean Rankine: You know, I've got, I've got a list of, on which I write another book called, um, pineapple comes to pizza town.
• 26:42
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 26:42
  Dean Rankine: So it's this pineapple comes to pizza town and she's trying to make friends.
• 26:47
  Dean Rankine: Um, and, and she ends up, you know, saving the day and she's finally accepted into pizza town.
• 26:53
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 26:54
  Dean Rankine: But I've got a list of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11.
• 26:59
  Dean Rankine: It's actually.
• 27:00
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 27:05
  Dean Rankine: I think it's a fun story.
• 27:07
  Dean Rankine: I think it's going to be cool, you know, and it's going to happen, but yeah, you've got to be persistent.
• 27:13
  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.
• 27:22
  Tina Strachan: Right.
• 27:22
  Tina Strachan: So do you think you just do it?
• 27:24
  Tina Strachan: You send it.
• 27:25
  Tina Strachan: Don't let that stop you.
• 27:26
  Tina Strachan: You just got to keep working on
• 27:27
  Dean Rankine: In the meantime, you work on your craft.
• 27:30
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 27:30
  Dean Rankine: You get better.
• 27:31
  Dean Rankine: I'm working on my craft.
• 27:32
  Dean Rankine: I'm working on my craft and I'm sending stuff off.
• 27:35
  Dean Rankine: Um, but I'm not just like, you know, just sitting around waiting for this to magically happen.
• 27:40
  Dean Rankine: I think I'm okay.
• 27:42
  Dean Rankine: I'm an okay writer and I'm an okay artist, but I think.
• 27:46
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 27:56
  Dean Rankine: I want to do this.
• 27:58
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I'll, you know, I'll just, I'll, I'll push you that.
• 28:02
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 28:09
  Dean Rankine: I haven't just been sitting in my laurels, but yeah, you have to be persistent.
• 28:14
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 28:24
  Dean Rankine: And then it solves your work.
• 28:25
  Dean Rankine: Then it somehow magically snowballs.
• 28:27
  Dean Rankine: And I've never had a magical snowball.
• 28:30
  Dean Rankine: Uh, uh, effect, you know, that some are now the works coming in plus four years.
• 28:35
  Dean Rankine: I've been pretty solid, I have to say, but like generally up until that point, I still have to hustle for work.
• 28:42
  Dean Rankine: So things like something like working on the Simpsons was very, um.
• 28:48
  Dean Rankine: was a big moment in my career.
• 28:50
  Dean Rankine: Um, I was 38 before I schooled the Simpsons.
• 28:54
  Dean Rankine: So I've been working all the time.
• 28:55
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 29:06
  Dean Rankine: People assume that you know what you're doing and I right?
• 29:09
  Dean Rankine: You know, and that, so you can, maybe you can't, it doesn't guarantee it doesn't, definitely doesn't guarantee anything.
• 29:15
  Dean Rankine: But it can crack that door open a little bit more.
• 29:18
  Dean Rankine: They'll go, oh, they'll always consider it.
• 29:20
  Dean Rankine: Go, oh, worked on some.
• 29:22
  Dean Rankine: Now I say I was so, I was the worst Simpsons coming.
• 29:26
  Dean Rankine: I have no doubt in my mind that I was the worst one who's ever existed, but my thinking is right.
• 29:31
  Dean Rankine: There's such, so there's some really, really good artists, right?
• 29:34
  Dean Rankine: But my thinking is.
• 29:37
  Dean Rankine: And always continues with that.
• 29:39
  Dean Rankine: You don't actually have to be the best, right?
• 29:41
  Dean Rankine: You just have to be good enough to be the worst.
• 29:44
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 29:44
  Dean Rankine: So do you, do you, do you know what I mean?
• 29:46
  Dean Rankine: Do you know if you're like, I want to play IFL or something.
• 29:49
  Dean Rankine: I want to be the best.
• 29:51
  Dean Rankine: You don't have to be the best over.
• 29:53
  Dean Rankine: You just have to be good enough to be the worst of the alpha, because then you get to play the game.
• 29:57
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 29:58
  Dean Rankine: And that's all I want to do.
• 30:00
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 30:01
  Tina Strachan: Well, I have to say, me
• 30:02
  Dean Rankine: be able to play
• 30:03
  Tina Strachan: the kids.
• 30:04
  Tina Strachan: Yeah, we could, like, we've, we've seen your comics that you've drawn for Simpsons, and they look great to me.
• 30:09
  Tina Strachan: They look perfect!
• 30:11
  Dean Rankine: The early ones are, the early ones are real shaky.
• 30:14
  Dean Rankine: Yeah,
• 30:15
  Tina Strachan: a question about that?
• 30:16
  Tina Strachan: Cause I've always wondered.
• 30:17
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 30:26
  Tina Strachan: Um, how do you, do you, is that self taught?
• 30:30
  Tina Strachan: Do you teach yourself just through lots of practice or is there like a Rick and Morty school where you like train
• 30:36
  Dean Rankine: yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
• 30:38
  Dean Rankine: So I'm, I'm, again, I'm, I'm very cartoony and, but I have, well, I think it was down to egotistical.
• 30:46
  Dean Rankine: I have a pretty good ability to ape.
• 30:49
  Dean Rankine: other cartoony styles.
• 30:51
  Dean Rankine: So if I, if I, so if I, as long as it's cartoon enough, like I could never draw Batman for instance.
• 30:57
  Dean Rankine: I can, I cannot draw like that.
• 31:00
  Dean Rankine: It's just not me.
• 31:01
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 31:10
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 31:11
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 31:19
  Dean Rankine: But my style, my anatomy was all over the place.
• 31:23
  Dean Rankine: Like I would, people like were quite fond of my style.
• 31:27
  Dean Rankine: They would be like eyes below eyes and this kind of really out there.
• 31:30
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 31:31
  Dean Rankine: Um, so, but Simpsons, I'll tell you my story.
• 31:35
  Dean Rankine: I'll quickly tell you my Simpsons story about how it happened.
• 31:37
  Dean Rankine: Okay.
• 31:38
  Dean Rankine: So I know we're looking at time.
• 31:40
  Dean Rankine: This is going to be really bad.
• 31:40
  Dean Rankine: So So I went, I was working on these kids magazines that you used to buy, be able to buy at the supermarket.
• 31:48
  Tina Strachan: Ha, ha,
• 31:53
  Dean Rankine: D Mag, that kind of thing.
• 31:54
  Dean Rankine: I was doing comics for those.
• 31:55
  Dean Rankine: They didn't pay particularly well, but I still wanted to draw comics.
• 31:59
  Dean Rankine: And the work dried up, so I went to Coles.
• 32:02
  Dean Rankine: Was that my night job?
• 32:03
  Dean Rankine: I went to Coles to see what was there.
• 32:05
  Dean Rankine: It was at the time that they would still sell some comic books at the supermarket.
• 32:10
  Dean Rankine: And I picked up a Simpsons.
• 32:12
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 32:24
  Dean Rankine: And, and I thought if I could, if I tried hard, I reckon I could just about draw as good as this guy here.
• 32:34
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 32:35
  Dean Rankine: Just barely as good as him.
• 32:37
  Dean Rankine: Um, so at the time you could actually submit, there was an email submission.
• 32:41
  Dean Rankine: Which is unheard of and you could submit your work to them.
• 32:44
  Dean Rankine: So what I did was I didn't, like, I didn't show them, here's my picture of Bart.
• 32:49
  Dean Rankine: Right?
• 32:50
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 32:59
  Dean Rankine: It was, I did, I drew Apu and a snake holding up the Kwik E Mart.
• 33:04
  Dean Rankine: It's not, it's not good.
• 33:05
  Dean Rankine: And I don't know why they said, yeah, but yeah.
• 33:08
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 33:20
  Dean Rankine: Um, so then I thought, great.
• 33:23
  Dean Rankine: So I would just send them stuff all the time.
• 33:25
  Dean Rankine: And so.
• 33:27
  Dean Rankine: Most of my work with Simpsons was like two, four page backup stories.
• 33:31
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 33:39
  Dean Rankine: I would pencil, I would ink and I would color, send the whole thing off.
• 33:42
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 33:48
  Dean Rankine: So what that would then do, that would contact me and go, Oh, so how about this Krusty the Clown comic?
• 33:55
  Dean Rankine: Would, you know, we're after a two page, a two page story in the back, back up story.
• 33:59
  Dean Rankine: So, you know, because of the time difference there in the States.
• 34:03
  Dean Rankine: So then I get it here in Melbourne.
• 34:05
  Dean Rankine: So I would.
• 34:06
  Dean Rankine: I would rough out stories like throughout the day on pencil and paper.
• 34:11
  Dean Rankine: So again, I'm predominantly more of a cartoonist than a writer.
• 34:14
  Dean Rankine: So I wouldn't write a script.
• 34:15
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 34:23
  Dean Rankine: It's hard to sometimes write a visual gag.
• 34:26
  Dean Rankine: So, um, I would send it off and then, so then.
• 34:29
  Dean Rankine: It would be like magic.
• 34:30
  Dean Rankine: So that would send it off.
• 34:31
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 34:36
  Dean Rankine: They can go, we'll do this one and this one.
• 34:38
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 34:45
  Dean Rankine: Um, so, and so on the, what we're talking about, sort of mimicking styles and that kind of thing.
• 34:51
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 34:58
  Dean Rankine: I need to be better.
• 34:59
  Dean Rankine: So over the time I, you know, I knuckled down, not just my goofy versions of it, but more like more on model.
• 35:08
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I got better and better over, over time.
• 35:11
  Dean Rankine: I, so I'm the only Australian to work on the comic book,
• 35:14
  Tina Strachan: Wow.
• 35:15
  Tina Strachan: That's incredible.
• 35:16
  Dean Rankine: so it was really cool.
• 35:18
  Dean Rankine: yeah, sorry.
• 35:19
  Tina Strachan: illustrator for them, just you know, they send an email, they wake up the next morning and
• 35:23
  Dean Rankine: It was, it was bad.
• 35:25
  Dean Rankine: No, yeah, no problem.
• 35:26
  Dean Rankine: I can draw it.
• 35:26
  Dean Rankine: I can do it.
• 35:27
  Dean Rankine: You know?
• 35:27
  Dean Rankine: Oh yeah.
• 35:27
  Dean Rankine: And so then it was like, it was nice to be able to be a writer and illustrator in that context.
• 35:33
  Dean Rankine: They have a space to feel it and I can fill that space.
• 35:36
  Dean Rankine: Um, there's this thick Simpsons how to draw book.
• 35:39
  Dean Rankine: It's like this and it became like, you know, my Bible.
• 35:41
  Dean Rankine: I would just flick through it.
• 35:44
  Dean Rankine: Um, because then you would, you'd have to change.
• 35:46
  Dean Rankine: I would always just start with like drawing a picture.
• 35:48
  Dean Rankine: I start with the eyes and kind of build out.
• 35:51
  Dean Rankine: There's something like Simpsons, they have a kind of a sub structure.
• 35:56
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, you go, okay, Lisa to draw Lisa's head, you've got a little bit like eight circles.
• 36:00
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 36:06
  Dean Rankine: And then another one for the top of the points of her hair.
• 36:09
  Dean Rankine: So it's quite a, you know, it's, it's quite a, quite a process.
• 36:14
  Dean Rankine: So that will, that will be a, uh, A bit of time to change my style and go, Oh, okay.
• 36:20
  Dean Rankine: This is how I actually kind of need to work to, to draw like that.
• 36:24
  Dean Rankine: Um, the other thing I guess as well, it's like, because you're not just drawing the characters.
• 36:28
  Dean Rankine: People can draw like, you know, if you haven't tried to draw the Simpsons, you go, Oh, that's a bit wonky.
• 36:31
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, that's not bad.
• 36:32
  Dean Rankine: But then you try to draw it.
• 36:33
  Dean Rankine: Like you go, well, okay.
• 36:34
  Dean Rankine: Now you're going to draw, draw Jaime from a 45 degree angle from behind or that kind of thing.
• 36:41
  Dean Rankine: So fortunately there's lots of reference and stuff like that.
• 36:44
  Dean Rankine: But yeah,
• 36:44
  Tina Strachan: it, yeah.
• 36:45
  Dean Rankine: And same with Rick and Morty.
• 36:47
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 36:55
  Dean Rankine: Um, and so over time I've felt like I've got better and better with drawing those characters.
• 37:01
  Dean Rankine: And blowback as well, because you start to draw, you're drawing the stuff all the time,
• 37:06
  Tina Strachan: Mm.
• 37:07
  Dean Rankine: so then it filters into your own style.
• 37:09
  Dean Rankine: So something like Death Metal Emeralds.
• 37:11
  Dean Rankine: 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
• 37:23
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 37:23
  Tina Strachan: No, I do.
• 37:24
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 37:32
  Tina Strachan: Whatever, I'm reading at the moment, when I sit down and I'm, and yeah, it takes a turn.
• 37:38
  Tina Strachan: Whatever
• 37:38
  Dean Rankine: Whatever, whatever it is.
• 37:40
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, that's right.
• 37:41
  Dean Rankine: That's the, that's yeah.
• 37:43
  Dean Rankine: The beauty about it.
• 37:44
  Dean Rankine: You're not, we're not stealing anything.
• 37:46
  Dean Rankine: We actually like just be going through our personal filter
• 37:50
  Tina Strachan: It's what's in your
• 37:51
  Dean Rankine: through us in another way.
• 37:53
  Dean Rankine: So yeah.
• 37:54
  Tina Strachan: That's incredible.
• 37:55
  Dean Rankine: Oh yeah.
• 37:56
  Dean Rankine: So let's see how to tell.
• 37:57
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 38:09
  Dean Rankine: So,
• 38:09
  Tina Strachan: work.
• 38:10
  Tina Strachan: That's incredible.
• 38:11
  Tina Strachan: What an incredible story.
• 38:12
  Tina Strachan: And like sort of something that I didn't know anything about.
• 38:14
  Tina Strachan: So I've always wanted to ask that question.
• 38:15
  Tina Strachan: If
• 38:16
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Tina Strachan: I'm a bit sad.
• 38:17
  Tina Strachan: There's No Rick and Morty school, but that's fine.
• 38:19
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 38:20
  Dean Rankine: No worries.
• 38:20
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 38:21
  Tina Strachan: but.
• 38:22
  Dean Rankine: Cause neither of the numbers ever said to me, you should be more on model.
• 38:25
  Dean Rankine: You should, can you please draw more model?
• 38:27
  Dean Rankine: No, it's ever spoke to me, but I've, I've chosen to try to be on more
• 38:30
  Tina Strachan: that.
• 38:31
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 38:31
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 38:31
  Tina Strachan: No, that makes sense.
• 38:33
  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.
• 38:44
  Emma Pignatiello: I'm very grateful to Madeline and Tina for this opportunity to tell you all a little bit about my debut novel.
• 38:50
  Emma Pignatiello: So Last Shot is an enemies to lovers romantic suspense novel based in a fictional town in the Margaret River region of Western Australia.
• 38:59
  Emma Pignatiello: And the premise is that someone is going to murder millionaire winemaker Giovanni Barberani tomorrow night.
• 39:06
  Emma Pignatiello: 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.
• 39:15
  Emma Pignatiello: That is, if they don't kill each other first.
• 39:19
  Emma Pignatiello: 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.
• 39:32
  Emma Pignatiello: I wrote this story because it was simply something I wanted to read, but I couldn't really find on the shelves.
• 39:38
  Emma Pignatiello: 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.
• 39:47
  Emma Pignatiello: So I thought, why can't we have both?
• 39:50
  Emma Pignatiello: 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.
• 39:59
  Emma Pignatiello: 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.
• 40:11
  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.
• 40:22
  Tina Strachan: And
• 40:22
  Dean Rankine: Why?
• 40:22
  Dean Rankine: Why is that?
• 40:23
  Tina Strachan: I don't know, but you know, for a lot of, for a lot of maybe for the listeners who don't.
• 40:28
  Tina Strachan: who aren't in that space of, you know, children's books that are illustrated.
• 40:31
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 40:50
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 41:03
  Tina Strachan: Um, and sometimes there's actually even nowhere to submit illustrations if there's like an online submissions form.
• 41:10
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 41:20
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 41:28
  Tina Strachan: it's, it's tricky.
• 41:29
  Tina Strachan: And so some of the questions that I had from author illustrated friends was just, how do you navigate this process?
• 41:36
  Tina Strachan: 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
• 41:46
  Dean Rankine: my list of, you know, pineapple comes to pizza town.
• 41:48
  Dean Rankine: I'm still looking at it.
• 41:49
  Dean Rankine: It hasn't been picked up.
• 41:50
  Dean Rankine: So maybe I'm doing it.
• 41:51
  Dean Rankine: Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
• 41:52
  Dean Rankine: I like, so, so the, yeah.
• 41:56
  Dean Rankine: So.
• 41:57
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 42:16
  Dean Rankine: Someone else can't do the exact same thing that I did to the picture.
• 42:20
  Dean Rankine: So, I don't know.
• 42:22
  Dean Rankine: So, the thing that's popping in my head isn't a writer illustrator thing.
• 42:27
  Dean Rankine: It was, sorry, Brock the Croc.
• 42:29
  Dean Rankine: Um, um, Adrian Beck, the author, we've been in contact for years.
• 42:35
  Dean Rankine: He said, well, we'd like to work together.
• 42:37
  Dean Rankine: Let's work together on something.
• 42:39
  Dean Rankine: And he said, oh, we've got this thing to do some character designs.
• 42:43
  Dean Rankine: To go with the pitch.
• 42:45
  Dean Rankine: And so I, I drew those, I sent them in and he said, okay, great.
• 42:49
  Dean Rankine: Here's the pictures that you're cool with that guy.
• 42:51
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Dean Rankine: He sent it off and it was improved in two hours.
• 42:55
  Dean Rankine: Right.
• 42:56
  Tina Strachan: So can I ask?
• 42:57
  Dean Rankine: I don't know.
• 42:58
  Dean Rankine: Is it, is that because, because of him,
• 43:00
  Tina Strachan: Yes.
• 43:01
  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
• 43:15
  Tina Strachan: never know.
• 43:16
  Tina Strachan: Did he send it directly to a publisher?
• 43:18
  Tina Strachan: Did you know?
• 43:18
  Tina Strachan: So he had like an in an inroad there, so he sort of had that
• 43:21
  Dean Rankine: And it worked with that before.
• 43:23
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 43:24
  Dean Rankine: Um, so I don't know what the, so that's, that's how that worked.
• 43:28
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 43:40
  Dean Rankine: So I have a cover that I've drawn.
• 43:42
  Dean Rankine: For that though, it's enough to, to give it a sense of the, the story.
• 43:47
  Dean Rankine: I, I struggled because of, because I do both.
• 43:50
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 44:03
  Dean Rankine: reasonably open to it who do those kind of books without illustrations originally and everybody said no.
• 44:10
  Tina Strachan: Mm.
• 44:10
  Dean Rankine: Um, so then I added illustration.
• 44:13
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 44:28
  Dean Rankine: Storytelling process that I can't imagine, um, not putting in,
• 44:35
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 44:36
  Dean Rankine: I don't know.
• 44:36
  Dean Rankine: So, um, something like, so Mrs.
• 44:38
  Dean Rankine: Finch is a witch.
• 44:39
  Dean Rankine: That was
• 44:40
  Tina Strachan: Mm.
• 44:43
  Dean Rankine: so Mrs.
• 44:43
  Dean Rankine: Finch is a, is a picture book.
• 44:45
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 44:55
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 45:17
  Dean Rankine: And it was over sort of Halloween and they go, Oh, that's a witch story that would fit really nicely into it.
• 45:22
  Dean Rankine: So basically I had a book that was ready to go.
• 45:26
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 45:27
  Tina Strachan: Yes.
• 45:27
  Tina Strachan: You're making it easy for them.
• 45:29
  Tina Strachan: Yeah,
• 45:30
  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.
• 45:39
  Dean Rankine: And this, so there had to be some changes to that as
• 45:41
  Tina Strachan: Mm hm.
• 45:42
  Tina Strachan: Mm hm.
• 45:42
  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?
• 45:47
  Dean Rankine: But can you find the Easter bunny?
• 45:48
  Dean Rankine: But can you find the peas coming up,
• 45:50
  Tina Strachan: Can you find the P's?
• 45:51
  Dean Rankine: biggies, piggies.
• 45:52
  Dean Rankine: Can you find the piggies,
• 45:53
  Tina Strachan: P's?
• 45:54
  Dean Rankine: the piggies,
• 45:55
  Tina Strachan: That'd be hard.
• 45:56
  Dean Rankine: So I wrote that, but so can you find book?
• 45:58
  Dean Rankine: It's about these, the three little pigs.
• 46:01
  Dean Rankine: They're in, they're in, they're in, you know, pig town, wherever they live.
• 46:05
  Dean Rankine: And they're sick of the wolf blowing their houses down.
• 46:08
  Dean Rankine: So they, um, they go, we have to get out of town.
• 46:11
  Dean Rankine: No, we have to get out of this fairy tale.
• 46:13
  Dean Rankine: So they employ the fairly good mother.
• 46:16
  Dean Rankine: She's not great, but she's fairly good and, uh, very, very good.
• 46:20
  Dean Rankine: And she, um, does a magical spell.
• 46:22
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 46:33
  Dean Rankine: So you're going to find the pigs and then you go, Oh, count the racks.
• 46:36
  Dean Rankine: And you've got this kind of
• 46:37
  Tina Strachan: That's So cool.
• 46:38
  Dean Rankine: yeah, it's, it's a fun, great thing to work on.
• 46:41
  Dean Rankine: And right now I'm working on, can you find the Christmas elves?
• 46:44
  Dean Rankine: So the way those kind of values.
• 46:46
  Dean Rankine: Scholastic contacted me and said, Oh, you, the editor of Timmy the Tick Tock Pony had recommended me
• 46:53
  Tina Strachan: Wow.
• 46:54
  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.
• 47:00
  Dean Rankine: Like the writing is kind of very secondary to the, to the illustrations.
• 47:05
  Dean Rankine: You need it to make sense.
• 47:07
  Dean Rankine: So I kind of needed a theoretical writer and illustrator for those books.
• 47:13
  Dean Rankine: So that's what we're working on at the moment.
• 47:14
  Dean Rankine: Um, so.
• 47:16
  Dean Rankine: I, I can't like, so just say what I mean.
• 47:19
  Dean Rankine: So none of them specifically, uh, I'm a writer illustrator and you know,
• 47:25
  Tina Strachan: I
• 47:25
  Dean Rankine: my, my success has been random or because of being dogmatic outside of it and just, just going for it.
• 47:35
  Dean Rankine: So yeah, a couple of those things I actually drew first, which I don't know if I would recommend it.
• 47:40
  Dean Rankine: I'm not sure if I would.
• 47:42
  Dean Rankine: I want this to be a book.
• 47:43
  Dean Rankine: And if I, if no one, if no one published it, I would have published it, just self published it.
• 47:47
  Tina Strachan: I love that.
• 47:48
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 47:48
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 47:59
  Tina Strachan: And if you find joy in writing death metal emo elves, then you just got to do it.
• 48:05
  Tina Strachan: yeah, And just go.
• 48:06
  Tina Strachan: And if it gets published, you know, that's kind of like a cherry on the top, isn't it?
• 48:10
  Dean Rankine: so.
• 48:10
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 48:20
  Dean Rankine: Someone else has seen, someone else has seen the work and go, I, I believe in this,
• 48:25
  Tina Strachan: Yes.
• 48:25
  Tina Strachan: And they do the publishers do a lot of work.
• 48:27
  Tina Strachan: It's just, you know.
• 48:28
  Tina Strachan: I admire people who are self published because just the work that goes on behind the scenes, like even yeah.
• 48:34
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 48:49
  Tina Strachan: It's, it's, um, yes, it's a lot of work.
• 48:52
  Dean Rankine: Oh, absolutely.
• 48:53
  Dean Rankine: Absolutely.
• 48:53
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 48:54
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 49:04
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 49:14
  Dean Rankine: We still gotta pay the bills.
• 49:15
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 49:17
  Tina Strachan: Can I ask you a practical question, Dean?
• 49:18
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 49:27
  Tina Strachan: Um, yeah.
• 49:28
  Tina Strachan: Do you suggest that just maybe drew one or two sample pictures or some storyboards?
• 49:33
  Tina Strachan: What do you reckon?
• 49:34
  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.
• 49:41
  Dean Rankine: So, um, I'll, I'll, if I've never come across that specifically.
• 49:47
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 49:58
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 50:05
  Dean Rankine: Then I say, yeah, draw, like do the, at least the cover,
• 50:08
  Tina Strachan: Mm hmm.
• 50:09
  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.
• 50:21
  Dean Rankine: Um, I just know that you, um, need to be brave and you need to do it.
• 50:29
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 50:38
  Dean Rankine: You know, I think, you know, you know, maybe, you know, you know, I just, you know, I, I hate negative feedback.
• 50:44
  Dean Rankine: 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,
• 51:05
  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
• 51:14
  Dean Rankine: there's a, if there's a, like a portfolio link or
• 51:17
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 51:18
  Dean Rankine: absolutely, you
• 51:19
  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.
• 51:26
  Tina Strachan: And you've got to at least at that point be like throwing, throwing your hat in the ring for that.
• 51:29
  Tina Strachan: Surely.
• 51:30
  Dean Rankine: I think so.
• 51:31
  Dean Rankine: I think that's the goal.
• 51:32
  Dean Rankine: If you're ill, right, illiterate, you want to draw your own books.
• 51:34
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 51:42
  Dean Rankine: Know, so yeah, I don't, I don't, I dunno what the answer is.
• 51:45
  Dean Rankine: I say, I say Yeah, draw it
• 51:47
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 51:48
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 51:49
  Dean Rankine: but yeah,
• 51:50
  Tina Strachan: As you can.
• 51:51
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 51:52
  Dean Rankine: unless you've got, you've got nothing else going, you might as well draw it, you know,
• 51:54
  Tina Strachan: Yeah,
• 51:55
  Dean Rankine: and have,
• 51:55
  Tina Strachan: right.
• 51:57
  Tina Strachan: Um, that's really good advice.
• 51:59
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 52:12
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 52:22
  Tina Strachan: Getting, getting any profit at all from, you know, their books or, or the illustrations is, um, is the dream.
• 52:28
  Tina Strachan: Do you
• 52:29
  Dean Rankine: I think it doesn't, like you've got some really successful.
• 52:32
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 52:46
  Dean Rankine: So everybody still seems to have a side gig and that doesn't get talked about very much in the industry.
• 52:54
  Dean Rankine: It's like, almost like, I hear people that go, Oh, but I'm only doing this part time.
• 53:00
  Dean Rankine: Like it's a, like it's a bad thing.
• 53:02
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 53:12
  Dean Rankine: And I think the side hustle isn't, I don't know, it's just.
• 53:17
  Dean Rankine: Part of life, you know, I just think so.
• 53:19
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 53:20
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 53:30
  Dean Rankine: I don't, some, some days I struggle with it.
• 53:32
  Dean Rankine: Most days or evenings, I don't, I don't dislike it.
• 53:35
  Dean Rankine: Um, the, but also the, so that pays my super.
• 53:40
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 53:48
  Dean Rankine: 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,
• 53:59
  Tina Strachan: Mm,
• 53:59
  Dean Rankine: know, they go, Oh, I don't, you know, it's not something that.
• 54:03
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 54:12
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 54:20
  Dean Rankine: To illustrate, for money as well, um, but I, I don't feel quite as slave to the system if I've got options.
• 54:29
  Dean Rankine: 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
• 54:39
  Tina Strachan: think we just want to do our own thing and not have a
• 54:41
  Dean Rankine: we want
• 54:42
  Tina Strachan: like have anyone like do I set an alarm and just work however we
• 54:46
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, you know,
• 54:47
  Tina Strachan: more what it is, do
• 54:48
  Dean Rankine: know.
• 54:48
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 55:00
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 55:07
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 55:18
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 55:27
  Dean Rankine: And I'm amazed with how much I can get done in 30 minutes.
• 55:30
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, I had to go and like I can procrastinate all day and go once I actually start, I'm amazed.
• 55:37
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 55:47
  Dean Rankine: 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?
• 56:00
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, like, of course I can, like, you know, they have this, people who aren't working in the creative Sphere kind of thing.
• 56:08
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 56:17
  Dean Rankine: I'm very much a, I always think I'm like a mechanic, like, okay, I'm broke down.
• 56:22
  Dean Rankine: Okay, what do I have to do?
• 56:23
  Dean Rankine: I break it down, okay, now I've gotta do this and this and this and this and this.
• 56:26
  Dean Rankine: You know, this is my, my process.
• 56:28
  Dean Rankine: Also, it helps with my anxiety as well.
• 56:31
  Dean Rankine: My, this is my latest, um.
• 56:35
  Dean Rankine: Actually, what now has become my thing starting on Rick and Morty late last year.
• 56:39
  Dean Rankine: Okay.
• 56:40
  Dean Rankine: Okay.
• 56:41
  Dean Rankine: I'm so anxious about this blank page of so you get the script and then I do a thumbnail.
• 56:46
  Dean Rankine: I'm not sure if everybody knows what a thumbnail is.
• 56:48
  Dean Rankine: So you get it.
• 56:49
  Dean Rankine: Yes.
• 56:49
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 57:34
  Dean Rankine: Only Rick.
• 57:35
  Dean Rankine: Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick.
• 57:36
  Dean Rankine: Then I'll go, okay, now I'm going to draw Morty.
• 57:38
  Dean Rankine: Morty.
• 57:39
  Dean Rankine: You know, in the positions, because I know where they're going to be standing.
• 57:42
  Dean Rankine: And then I'll go, yeah, the whole thing, and then I'll put backgrounds in.
• 57:46
  Dean Rankine: I did this weird, weird reverse thing, until it's done.
• 57:51
  Dean Rankine: So my thinking is go, You don't have to be, don't get anxious about this.
• 57:54
  Dean Rankine: You're just drawing Rick.
• 57:55
  Dean Rankine: You can draw Rick.
• 57:56
  Dean Rankine: It's fine.
• 57:57
  Dean Rankine: You know?
• 57:57
  Dean Rankine: And so it's just game.
• 57:58
  Dean Rankine: It's kind of this game I play now about just getting through everything.
• 58:02
  Dean Rankine: You go, you go, I'm just drawing one character.
• 58:04
  Dean Rankine: And then when it comes to inking the, so that's the black line that goes over the top.
• 58:09
  Dean Rankine: I, I don't start at the start of the comic and then go to the back.
• 58:13
  Dean Rankine: I'll choose.
• 58:14
  Dean Rankine: Okay.
• 58:14
  Dean Rankine: I'm going to, maybe on the last page, I'm going to do one panel.
• 58:18
  Dean Rankine: So you do one panel and you go next panel.
• 58:20
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 58:31
  Dean Rankine: So it won't look quite as bad, you know what I mean?
• 58:34
  Dean Rankine: So, and then I'll just go through it.
• 58:36
  Dean Rankine: So this is how I break up my sort of work day and how I work.
• 58:39
  Dean Rankine: It's a very systemic, like systematic about how I work and not, not flowery.
• 58:46
  Dean Rankine: I don't drink tea and play with water is not
• 58:49
  Tina Strachan: no.
• 58:49
  Tina Strachan: Oh, that's a shame.
• 58:50
  Tina Strachan: No, I didn't think that you did though.
• 58:52
  Tina Strachan: I had to see it as I did.
• 58:53
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, I
• 58:54
  Tina Strachan: but you know, you gotta do what works for you and it's practical and it's, you know.
• 58:59
  Tina Strachan: treating it like a job.
• 59:00
  Tina Strachan: I remember someone saying.
• 59:01
  Tina Strachan: Um, once they, you know.
• 59:03
  Tina Strachan: 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?
• 59:11
  Tina Strachan: But, but the reality is, Yeah.
• 59:13
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 59:20
  Tina Strachan: for example, or drawings down.
• 59:22
  Tina Strachan: And um, that's when it really starts to sort of flow.
• 59:26
  Tina Strachan: And
• 59:26
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 59:27
  Tina Strachan: what's that saying?
• 59:28
  Tina Strachan: Is it like, if you want something to get done, you give it to a busy person?
• 59:31
  Tina Strachan: Is that the
• 59:32
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 59:33
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, that's it.
• 59:34
  Tina Strachan: it's true.
• 59:35
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, absolutely, and we all are, you know.
• 59:37
  Dean Rankine: Sometimes I like it to be a little bit easier.
• 59:39
  Dean Rankine: You know, sometimes I do get anxious when there's Too many deadlines or something like that.
• 59:44
  Dean Rankine: And, you know, Oh God, this publisher is going to ask you about this.
• 59:47
  Dean Rankine: And I'm right now, I'm still trying to get this work done on this thing.
• 59:50
  Dean Rankine: So that's because you have to sometimes work on multiple things at once.
• 59:53
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:00:10
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:00:18
  Dean Rankine: So that might be, you can get away with that.
• 1:00:20
  Dean Rankine: But most of the, they, they, they need that by that time and get it done by that time.
• 1:00:23
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  Tina Strachan: Cause there's a lot of people that are working on it, a huge amount of people that are
• 1:00:27
  Dean Rankine: Absolutely.
• 1:00:27
  Dean Rankine: They plan it like 12 months in advance.
• 1:00:30
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, like,
• 1:00:31
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:00:33
  Tina Strachan: yeah, But things, things happen.
• 1:00:36
  Tina Strachan: Don't they?
• 1:00:36
  Tina Strachan: Sometimes.
• 1:00:37
  Tina Strachan: And you know, so it's not
• 1:00:38
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:39
  Dean Rankine: It also be nice to yourself.
• 1:00:40
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  Dean Rankine: I've been, uh, last month it's been very leisurely for me.
• 1:00:43
  Dean Rankine: I haven't like rocked up into the, I'm working on two things at once, but nothing's crazy.
• 1:00:49
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:00:59
  Dean Rankine: I know it's unheard of, like, you know, two years ago I read two books cause I just drew every day.
• 1:01:03
  Dean Rankine: But like I drew, I do draw every day.
• 1:01:05
  Dean Rankine: I do draw every day.
• 1:01:06
  Dean Rankine: Even if I'm not doing a lot.
• 1:01:08
  Dean Rankine: Um, every day I'll go to the studio and
• 1:01:09
  Tina Strachan: of something.
• 1:01:10
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:01:11
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:01:24
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:01:36
  Tina Strachan: Um, events and courses that they're running or, um, appearances or, um, things like that.
• 1:01:43
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:01:53
  Tina Strachan: Really?
• 1:01:53
  Dean Rankine: Yeah, they're pretty, they're pretty funny.
• 1:01:55
  Dean Rankine: You get away, you get away for the weekend, drink too much, you know.
• 1:01:58
  Dean Rankine: So the, uh, yeah.
• 1:01:59
  Dean Rankine: So, um, I've been very fortunate that I get to be.
• 1:02:02
  Dean Rankine: I've been get to be a guest at comic conventions.
• 1:02:06
  Dean Rankine: Um, so I wanna, I wanna, I, I guess I have to put a caveat on that as a warning.
• 1:02:13
  Dean Rankine: Don't tell me because I get, like, I get my, like flights accommodation covered for my interstate flight at interstate conventions.
• 1:02:19
  Dean Rankine: So I'm a guest, right?
• 1:02:20
  Dean Rankine: If you are going.
• 1:02:22
  Dean Rankine: So, yeah.
• 1:02:22
  Dean Rankine: So what I, sorry.
• 1:02:23
  Dean Rankine: Comic convention.
• 1:02:23
  Dean Rankine: I should talk about common conventions.
• 1:02:25
  Dean Rankine: Comic conventions are a blast.
• 1:02:27
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:02:36
  Dean Rankine: So people rock up like this, you know, supernova people rock up.
• 1:02:39
  Dean Rankine: Well, I saw your Gold Coast supernova, is that right?
• 1:02:41
  Dean Rankine: That's
• 1:02:41
  Tina Strachan: Yep.
• 1:02:42
  Dean Rankine: So, so great day, great day, great day for the kids, everybody.
• 1:02:45
  Dean Rankine: I highly encourage anyone if you've never done a convention before to check it out.
• 1:02:49
  Tina Strachan: They're fun.
• 1:02:50
  Dean Rankine: Um, yeah, so, so our conventions is a thing called Artist Alley, and in Artist Alley, you'll have comic creators.
• 1:02:58
  Dean Rankine: So yeah, so more mainstream comic creators like I am, and then you have like independent comic creators, um, and also authors.
• 1:03:08
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:03:17
  Dean Rankine: I think it's that time they had the author from, is it fourth wing fourth
• 1:03:23
  Tina Strachan: Yes.
• 1:03:24
  Dean Rankine: And I've never seen lines like it on, uh, she was so popular, incredibly popular.
• 1:03:30
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:03:46
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:03:57
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:04:09
  Dean Rankine: So.
• 1:04:10
  Dean Rankine: You know, people like it, like a lot of money selling prints.
• 1:04:12
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:04:18
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:04:28
  Dean Rankine: Like people ask me about, you know, Being a, a comic artist and illustrator.
• 1:04:34
  Dean Rankine: And, um, I draw, so I draw people like they're a Simpsons character as well.
• 1:04:39
  Dean Rankine: And also I draw their heads and jars like their fu armor.
• 1:04:42
  Dean Rankine: So that's been a, that's been really good for me.
• 1:04:43
  Dean Rankine: So it's not an easy place to draw at a comic convention.
• 1:04:47
  Dean Rankine: Like some artists will do full commissions, like color commissions and stuff like that.
• 1:04:52
  Dean Rankine: I don't love to do that.
• 1:04:53
  Dean Rankine: Um, it's not, I, I generally work now digitally, so when it comes to, okay, at a, at a convention, something like that.
• 1:05:01
  Dean Rankine: Um, yeah, it's the first time I've picked up a marker to draw in some time often.
• 1:05:07
  Dean Rankine: Uh, but yeah, so I draw people like they're a Simpsons character.
• 1:05:09
  Dean Rankine: Um, so yeah, and I come back with some money each, each time.
• 1:05:13
  Dean Rankine: So, you know, have a good time, go around the country.
• 1:05:16
  Dean Rankine: You know, I've had done some international conventions before.
• 1:05:18
  Dean Rankine: There was a blast.
• 1:05:20
  Dean Rankine: Um, you get to hang out with the famous people.
• 1:05:22
  Dean Rankine: That's really nice.
• 1:05:23
  Dean Rankine: Um, and you get your name out there.
• 1:05:24
  Dean Rankine: I think it's really important.
• 1:05:25
  Dean Rankine: So that's one thing that I.
• 1:05:27
  Dean Rankine: No, I do.
• 1:05:27
  Dean Rankine: I think last year I did something like 15 conventions because like regional towns and stuff like that are doing conventions now.
• 1:05:34
  Dean Rankine: Um, so that's really nice.
• 1:05:36
  Dean Rankine: I've seen parts of Australia that I would never have gone to before.
• 1:05:40
  Dean Rankine: Like I went to casino.
• 1:05:41
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:05:41
  Dean Rankine: I didn't hear the casino, you know, who would have done that?
• 1:05:44
  Dean Rankine: You know, um, And so the other thing I do is run workshops.
• 1:05:49
  Dean Rankine: So I've got two going to be soon three booking services that, so libraries and schools can contact me.
• 1:05:57
  Dean Rankine: Um, so, so how like a lot of authors I'll do author talks and I don't particularly enjoy author talks for me.
• 1:06:05
  Dean Rankine: This is for, me because.
• 1:06:08
  Dean Rankine: 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?
• 1:06:20
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:06:31
  Dean Rankine: And I run a comic book workshop.
• 1:06:34
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:06:40
  Dean Rankine: And I find that for me much more fulfilling and much, I think better for them as well.
• 1:06:46
  Dean Rankine: I'll try to get you to have a lot more students cause more bang for their buck.
• 1:06:50
  Dean Rankine: Um, but I, yeah, I, I, I like it.
• 1:06:53
  Dean Rankine: Like, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Dean Rankine: I just silly stuff, you know, um, The silly ways that they can then generate ideas for characters I do.
• 1:07:02
  Dean Rankine: Um, and, um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a fun little session.
• 1:07:06
  Dean Rankine: So I did 34 of those last year.
• 1:07:09
  Dean Rankine: Um, so that was, yeah, authors do more.
• 1:07:12
  Dean Rankine: I love, I've, I've heard a lot, a lot, like, you know, doing,
• 1:07:16
  Tina Strachan: job in itself, just
• 1:07:18
  Dean Rankine: oh, August, book week goes, book week goes for like six weeks.
• 1:07:21
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:07:22
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:07:22
  Tina Strachan: it.
• 1:07:22
  Tina Strachan: does now, doesn't it?
• 1:07:23
  Dean Rankine: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:25
  Dean Rankine: So yeah, yeah,
• 1:07:26
  Tina Strachan: Oh, well, hang on.
• 1:07:27
  Tina Strachan: Week.
• 1:07:28
  Tina Strachan: It
• 1:07:28
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:07:28
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  Dean Rankine: Any librarians or, you know, or teachers just get us in other times besides August, please.
• 1:07:35
  Dean Rankine: Uh, so, um, so that's been money's great.
• 1:07:39
  Dean Rankine: I would like, I would like, um, the booking services originally was like, this is how much we charge.
• 1:07:45
  Dean Rankine: I was like, Oh my God, this is great.
• 1:07:48
  Dean Rankine: Um, and I would never have done that.
• 1:07:51
  Dean Rankine: But now I can't go yet.
• 1:07:52
  Dean Rankine: No, it's like, yeah.
• 1:07:53
  Tina Strachan: that's
• 1:07:53
  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.
• 1:07:59
  Dean Rankine: Um, I'm an introvert.
• 1:08:01
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:08:08
  Tina Strachan: Oh, I
• 1:08:08
  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.
• 1:08:17
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:08:25
  Dean Rankine: Um, I, yeah, I was kind of a theater kid, but I worked in the background.
• 1:08:30
  Dean Rankine: So like, it was like, no, I find it.
• 1:08:33
  Dean Rankine: Yeah.
• 1:08:34
  Dean Rankine: I like it by fine.
• 1:08:35
  Dean Rankine: I do find it tiring.
• 1:08:36
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  Tina Strachan: I know what you mean.
• 1:08:37
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:08:48
  Tina Strachan: And then, and then I've seen the complete opposite of people who are really quite quiet and just.
• 1:08:53
  Tina Strachan: be themselves and just stand up there doing their thing.
• 1:08:55
  Tina Strachan: 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.
• 1:09:04
  Tina Strachan: And you're going to appeal to, you're not going to appeal to every single person in you.
• 1:09:09
  Tina Strachan: yeah, You don't have to be a clown.
• 1:09:10
  Tina Strachan: I think a lot of
• 1:09:11
  Dean Rankine: I don't, yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:12
  Tina Strachan: by that and think that's what you have to do to entertain the children.
• 1:09:15
  Tina Strachan: And it's not always that, well, I'm hoping it's not that because I can't be a clown.
• 1:09:19
  Dean Rankine: wanted to be, I wanted to have some substance as well.
• 1:09:23
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:09:38
  Dean Rankine: During recess, afterwards, those are the kinds of things that I find really important.
• 1:09:43
  Dean Rankine: And those are the things that go, you know what, as a kid, that's the kind of kid that I would have been.
• 1:09:48
  Dean Rankine: That, so it's, you know, not just engaging the, the gregarious kids, but the ones who are quiet and more contemplative.
• 1:09:56
  Dean Rankine: Um, so yeah, so yeah, also, you know, if I wasn't getting paid for it, I wouldn't do it.
• 1:10:00
  Dean Rankine: I don't want you to think it's altruism, um, at all.
• 1:10:03
  Dean Rankine: But I think it is.
• 1:10:06
  Dean Rankine: a good way.
• 1:10:06
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:10:17
  Dean Rankine: That's where most of their money actually coming from.
• 1:10:19
  Dean Rankine: Not the, not the illustration part or the, um, the writing
• 1:10:23
  Tina Strachan: The authoring
• 1:10:23
  Dean Rankine: I just find it interesting.
• 1:10:25
  Dean Rankine: I just think, yeah, good, good as well.
• 1:10:27
  Dean Rankine: A good string to your bow.
• 1:10:28
  Dean Rankine: If you can, if you can get it.
• 1:10:30
  Dean Rankine: So, yeah.
• 1:10:31
  Tina Strachan: Yeah, no, that's awesome.
• 1:10:33
  Tina Strachan: Thank you.
• 1:10:33
  Tina Strachan: 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?
• 1:10:44
  Tina Strachan: Like what's your number one top tip?
• 1:10:46
  Dean Rankine: I think you, yeah, I think you need to be brave.
• 1:10:49
  Dean Rankine: You need to work hard, um, and you need to put yourself out there and don't roll with those rejections.
• 1:10:57
  Dean Rankine: Um, work on your craft.
• 1:10:58
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:11:08
  Dean Rankine: More than once, unless they've said no, stop it, no more submissions, you know, just submit again.
• 1:11:15
  Dean Rankine: Um, it might have, you know, might have like rolled, you know, might have been a bad day from someone.
• 1:11:19
  Dean Rankine: You might find there's a different editor looking at it now.
• 1:11:23
  Dean Rankine: It's, you know, you know, things change, are always changing.
• 1:11:26
  Dean Rankine: So yeah, don't, maybe don't think, okay, I was rejected by them or I didn't hear back.
• 1:11:33
  Dean Rankine: I don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with circling back.
• 1:11:36
  Dean Rankine: down the, down the track.
• 1:11:38
  Dean Rankine: Um, and yeah, it's, yeah, and yeah, you have to be stubborn.
• 1:11:42
  Dean Rankine: That's the diplomatic.
• 1:11:44
  Dean Rankine: Absolutely.
• 1:11:45
  Dean Rankine: And I think Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:50
  Tina Strachan: the second time that they see your name, right?
• 1:11:52
  Tina Strachan: So then that's starting to, you know, maybe form in their mind a little bit or just, Oh, I remember that.
• 1:11:58
  Tina Strachan: No.
• 1:11:59
  Dean Rankine: I don't know what the answer is.
• 1:12:00
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:12:11
  Dean Rankine: I believe in this person.
• 1:12:13
  Dean Rankine: Um, I know one, um, I don't know if it's bad to me.
• 1:12:17
  Dean Rankine: I won't mention who it is.
• 1:12:18
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:12:31
  Dean Rankine: You know, that, you know, you need to like, have a look at this and it's been rejected a thousand times.
• 1:12:36
  Dean Rankine: And so.
• 1:12:38
  Dean Rankine: It's like nothing is like, yeah, there's no clear rules.
• 1:12:42
  Dean Rankine: Um, I think the, there's this, it's like this pulp series years ago, I read, it's called the stainless steel rat.
• 1:12:49
  Dean Rankine: And it's about this guy who's a thief, right?
• 1:12:51
  Dean Rankine: You like, you like, it was like, it's like being a rat.
• 1:12:53
  Dean Rankine: Like, you know, in the old days you would be able to scuttle just through like wooden brick.
• 1:12:59
  Dean Rankine: But now in the future, if you're like a, if you're.
• 1:13:01
  Dean Rankine: A rat, you have to, it's a stainless steel world that we live in.
• 1:13:04
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:13:12
  Dean Rankine: And we have to be smart, um, and be creative about the way we promote ourselves, the way we get in.
• 1:13:18
  Dean Rankine: There's no clear thing, but you have to be.
• 1:13:21
  Dean Rankine: You have to be tough, you know, you will, you will take it, take the, take the blows.
• 1:13:27
  Dean Rankine: Um, this is going to be, you might have to cut this story, but I guess that the
• 1:13:31
  Tina Strachan: No.
• 1:13:33
  Dean Rankine: the story about working in Hollywood and it's like that you.
• 1:13:37
  Dean Rankine: It's like, it's like climbing a mountain of shit to get to a single rose, right?
• 1:13:42
  Dean Rankine: So you climb the mountain of shit, and by the time you get to the rose, you've lost all sense of smell.
• 1:13:48
  Dean Rankine: Right, right, right.
• 1:13:50
  Dean Rankine: There's, and I just, in some way, I think it's, you know, so I guess I'm philosophical about my success.
• 1:13:59
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:14:06
  Dean Rankine: That is just love to get there.
• 1:14:07
  Dean Rankine: So you're, you're, you're thankful, but it's not, you know, yeah, it hurts.
• 1:14:13
  Dean Rankine: 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.
• 1:14:20
  Dean Rankine: There's a, there's a price to pay, you know, so, um, but yeah, Daniel, a positive note, still, still really great.
• 1:14:29
  Dean Rankine: Still, I don't, there's nothing I want to do other than I want to do.
• 1:14:32
  Dean Rankine: I just want to do this.
• 1:14:34
  Dean Rankine: Um, I just want to play the game.
• 1:14:36
  Dean Rankine: I want to be good enough to be the worst and play the game.
• 1:14:38
  Dean Rankine: And if there's nothing, you know, um, it's all I want to do.
• 1:14:41
  Dean Rankine: And if there's a price to pay, then I'm willing to pay it.
• 1:14:44
  Tina Strachan: That's great.
• 1:14:45
  Tina Strachan: That's a great point to end on.
• 1:14:47
  Tina Strachan: Thank you, Dean.
• 1:14:49
  Tina Strachan: Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
• 1:14:52
  Dean Rankine: No worries.
• 1:14:52
  Dean Rankine: It was great.
• 1:14:53
  Dean Rankine: Great training.
• 1:14:55
  Tina Strachan: Thank you for listening to the book deal podcast.
• 1:14:57
  Tina Strachan: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the pod so you can receive updates as soon as our new apps drop.
• 1:15:04
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