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Wednesday, APril 19, '39.
Erie, Pa.
On Feb.25th I temporarily abandoned this journal to devote the time to cartooning. I cartooned very earnestly for a month or more and produced a total of about a dozen carefully wrought cartoons that I thought were really fairly good and compared favorably with some of the stuff I had seen in the magazines lately. So I sent about 7 of them in a batch to the Satevepost with much more optimism than good judgment. To my chagrin they bounced back in 3 days with a curt printed rejection slip. So I shipped them forthwith to Collier's and they bounced back in about 5 days with a curt printed rejection slip. I don't bear up well under such treatment and it just knocked the slats right out from under my enthusiasm. I thought there was a chance of their buying one picture, a good chance of their buying at least one idea and the least I expected was a brief note of interest. The rejections were so final and utterly complete it blew my enthusiasm cold as ice. I struggled on for awhile with some new ideas and a few preliminary sketches. Then the war scare in Europe began to assume alarming proportions. I read magazines and newspapers avidly every night, and gradually the cartooning has petered out but I think only temporarily.

The past week has seen me in one of those periods of unrest, dissatisfaction and downright unhappiness that grip me occasionally. There