Interview At Large: Steve Gadlin and Mighty Mike Negin
Cats adorn many a cubicle at the office, can be seen hiding about the corners of Larry's office, and can even grace the covers of important files. Oh, and Caturday is a staple right here on Medium At Large. Let's continue this inappropriate use of felines as Mike gets to the bottom of IWantToDrawACatForYou.com.
Mighty Mike Negin: Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a big fan of cats. I'm more of a dog person, but I'm in the very small, silent minority around ReedPOP, and I'm sure they talk about me when I'm not here. With C2E2 not too far away, we took a look at our guest list, thinking about who'd be the most appropriate name to launch our interview series. We then disregarded this to have a chat about cats. I'll like to introduce you to Artist Alley Guest Steve Gadlin, the man behind IWantToDrawACatForYou.com.
Mighty Mike Negin: So, I think the first question is... How did you come up with the idea of "I Want To Draw a Cat For You"?
Steve Gadlin: To be honest, I'm not really sure when the idea popped into my head. I come up with all sorts of ridiculous projects. Every once in a while the timing is just right, and I actually follow through on it. I wanted to learn the ABC's of running my own business, soup to nuts. So, I started with something simple... stick figure cats.
MN: Maybe it's an obvious question, but are you a cat person? Why cats? Why not dogs? Or monkeys? Everyone loves monkeys.
SG: I'm allergic to cats, and I'm definitely not an animal person. Cats are super easy to draw; their heads consist of a circle and two triangles. Those other animals are way too hard.
MN: For those who haven't been to the site, the basic premise is that you'll draw a stick figure cat for $10 all dressed up however someone would like. How many cats have you drawn since you started?
SG: As of right now, I've drawn 1,426 cats for people.
MN: That’s a lot of cats. About how many cats do you draw a day?
SG: There's no real pattern. Some weeks I'll be drawing as many as 20 or 30 a night. On average, I'll draw about 10 a week. It depends on what publicity I've been drumming up. I'm expecting this to be a full time job for a while when my Shark Tank episode airs.
MN: That's airing tomorrow night. I want to talk about that more in a bit, but I've got to ask some more hard-hitting questions first. What are some of your favorite cats you've drawn so far?
SG: My favorite requests are the simple ones, because they give me the most room to play around. My least favorite are the super specific ones that feature entire families of cats. People aren't very realistic about how many details can be crammed into a stick figure cat drawing. When someone gives me a little more freedom to draw what I want, I like to get a little goofy and throw in random things. That's more fun.
MN: Can you give me an example of some of the random things you've thrown into your cat pictures?
SG: This is a hard question! I draw so many of these things, it's hard to recall specific drawings. If there's a lot of empty space on a drawing, I'll throw in a bonus pig.
MN: Were there any that actually made you laugh as you drew them?
SG: One time someone had me draw a cat version of George Washington and his crew crossing the Potomac. That one made me laugh!
MN: What are some of the strangest requests you've received?
SG: The strangest probably included a T-Rex and a Space Squid, battling it out with a cat on the moon. Also, three completely different people have requested a Wilford Brimley cat. I thought that was a little odd.
MN: I know most are requests, but do you try to do anything to make each one unique?
SG: I do! The drawings definitely reflect my mood at any given time. I like to throw in a bonus pig from time to time. Pigs are easy, too! And if a request is vague, I like to interpret it in the strangest way possible.
MN: Sounds like a genie interpreting a wish differently than a person had intended. Have you ever had someone who wasn't happy with the way you "interpreted" their request?
SG: Rarely. I've had a couple of people take issue with their cat drawings, but I point them to my terms of service, which say, "You get what you get, and you don't get upset!"
MN: Tough love! I like it! So what's your day job? What do you do when you're not drawing cats?
SG: I'm a web programmer. I run the web team for Weigel Broadcasting -- Me-TV, WCIU -- in Chicago. I also run Blewt!, which is a comedy production team here in Chicago. We produce a handful of stage shows in the city and develop comedy for web and TV as well.
MN: What's Blewt! all about?
SG: Blewt! produces a handful of stage shows in Chicago. In September, we had a TV pilot for our game show “Don't Spit the Water!” air on WCIU. We'll be running the seventh season of our absurd talent competition, “Impress These Apes”, this summer. We also have a series of plays that are written by a Kenyan email spammer called “The Nairobi Project”. We'll be premiering the third play of this project, a musical, later this year. In addition to the stage shows, we create silly products. IWantToDrawACatForYou.com has been joined by TwoFilmTShirts.com and IWantToWriteASongForYou.com. We do weird, crazy stuff.
MN: Weird and crazy, but also very funny, Do you plan on eventually expanding you cat drawings into a print or web comic?
SG: I have a long history of drawing stick figure cats. This all started in 1990 with my comic strip, Silly Cat Comix. It was drawn on notebook paper during study halls all through high school. In college, when the web was just beginning to grow, I started creating them on a computer and posting them to a website. That comic strip has been gone for ten years, but it's still the root, comically, of everything I've done since. I've been toying with bringing it back.
MN: I think you should! The cat fan base is huge! Are you also a comics fan?
SG: I used to read Groo comics, and I'm a fan of comics culture, but I haven't picked up a comic book in many, many years.
MN: This week you're making an appearance on the ABC reality series, Shark Tank. For those who don't know, the show features a panel of wealthy entrepreneurs called "sharks" who evaluate and negotiate investment proposals from starting entrepreneurs presenting their products or business concepts. Was “I Want To Draw a Cat For You" the idea that you brought on the show?
SG: It was! I'll be pitching my cat drawing business to their panel of millionaires and billionaires, hoping for more than confused looks.
MN: How did you get involved in Shark Tank?
SG: On a whim. I shot them an email one day as a joke, thinking it might give them a laugh. Of course, in the back of my mind, I thought it would be awesome to walk down that hall and pitch my silliness to the sharks. A week later, their producers called me, and the rest is television history.
MN: How was it meeting some of the wealthiest and smartest business people on the planet, which includes Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks? Was it a little daunting?
SG: Incredibly daunting! But I was determined to make the most of my appearance and have a lot of fun with it. There's singing! There's dancing! There's public humiliation before a national audience!
MN: I'm sure the competition was stiff. Was it hard competing against the other contestants? How did you try to effectively sell your idea and set yourself apart?
SG: Fortunately each pitch is solo, and there's no real competition. In any given show, they could invest in everything or nothing... So I wasn't thinking too hard about the other entrepreneurs who were there to pitch. I just wanted to march in there and have some fun and hopefully show these guys that there's some real substance there, too.
MN: I'm sure that you can't tell us how you did since the show hasn't aired yet, but can you tell us how the experience was overall?
SG: I don't think it will spoil the ending to say that I had the time of my life. They flew me out to LA for five days and kept me fed... What's not to like? I got to re-connect with friends out there and meet some great people as well.
MN: I'm not sure if you're aware, but many folks in the ReedPOP office are big cat folks! I'm not one of them I'm a dog person... Pugs to be specific. But many a cat or kitten can be seen adorning our hallowed halls!
SG: Sadly, I was unaware!
MN: What do you think accounts for many folks' obsession with cats?
SG: I have never understood it. In my old comic strip, Silly Cat Comix, the cat would explode at the end of every strip. I appreciate them more for their artistic simplicity than their cuddly hi-jinx.
MN: Speaking of people obsessed with cats....Kim is NYCC and C2E2's Lead Programming Manager and has the unhealthiest fixation with cats. Her cube's decked out with cat photos, cat calendars, and cat doodles. At times, the team worries about her. Can you draw a cat for her?
SG: Most definitely!
MN: You're coming out to Chicago to attend C2E2 in Artist Alley. Is this your first time at a convention?
SG: It'll be my second time at a convention. I attended my first convention last year... I wish I had been attending these all along!
MN: What are you going to be doing at the convention? Are you excited about meeting the many cat fans out there?
SG: I'll be doing what I do best, drawing stick figure cats! I'll also be hawking wares from my other ridiculous project, twofilmtshirts.com. And, of course, I'll furnish my table with a bevy of ladies to draw in customers. I'm very excited about this! It'll be fun to watch the action from behind a table, and hopefully I'll sell a cat drawing or two.
MN: If Kim has a chance to stop by your table, you’ll definitely sell more than a few. You might even cover your car payment for the month. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, Steve! We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!
Check out Steve’s primetime television debut Friday, January 27th at 8 PM on ABC’s Shark Tank, and if you want a cat drawing of your own visit Steve at IWantToDrawACatForYou.com. Tell him @MightyMikeNegin sent you. It won’t get you anything, but maybe Steve will give me a cut once all the dough starts rolling in.
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