support,” Cartoon shares, “but money is a way for me to implement programs for kids and to help people.” Cartoon started as an artist at 8 years old and feels lucky to have found his life’s calling so early. But he doesn’t use ‘luck’ in the conventional sense of the word. “Labor, Using, Correct Knowledge, Yearly,” he explains his self-made motto. “Labor: busting your ass; Using: putting the work to use; Correct Knowledge: learning what works in your life and putting action behind it; and putting action behind it and doing it every year consistently, which is Yearly.” A true inspiration, Cartoon has a clothing company, a film deal and a shoe deal with Nike. He also designed a limited edition T-Mobile sidekick, has a major motion picture coming about his life, a retail store coming soon and a graphic novel that will be in stores soon. But he didn’t start out saying he wanted to do licensing deals. He started by drawing stick figures on paper at 8 years old with parents who supported him by telling him he had talent and could be anything he wanted to be. “When I was younger, I thought my street life was payback for my talent,” he tells. “I felt I had to suffer to pay for this gift I had.” And suffer he did, embracing drugs and street life before he got back on track. At the age of 12, Cartoon got paid for his first art job, lettering on store windows. At 16, he started air brushing t-shirts at Swap Meets. By the time he was 18, he felt he was getting a lot better as an artist and started going to car shows and airbrushing cars. He did Kid Frost’s album cover in 1990 or 1991, and he got to see a giant billboard of his work with the album cover on Sunset Blvd. This led to more business from record labels and television studios. This constant reinforcement showed him he was on the right career track, but success was hard for him because he felt like his friends would look at him differently and that he might have to become shrewd and evil to be successful in business. He began to blow opportunities because of his negative mental associations with money. Finally, he was able to resolve the issue by realizing how much good he could do with money. He realized that money was not evil and he had the choice to be righteous and fair, regardless of the money. Cartoon’s vision is incredible. When sharing his ideas he makes it a point to say “I will,” instead of “I’d like to.” It’s the difference between him just being a dreamer and putting things into action. He expects to make things happen instead of hoping that they will. For example, when I asked if, at 37 years old, he’s training the next Cartoon, he talks about starting a university eventually, where he will teach the lost art of pin striping and airbrushing cars.
I noticed he was wearing a gorgeous Breitling watch and realized that people would pay big money to have a Cartoon-designed watch (hell, I would). He discussed how he will have watches that he designs to sell in the store he will open down the street. His “can do” attitude is infectious. Just the same is his focus is on the importance of keeping artistic integrity. One of his secrets to success is focusing on the “artistic integrity by keeping up the quality level and not coming off corny. A good artist worries about selling out. Once you jeopardize your artwork, and start getting lazy and corny and your artwork comes off as half-assed, or once you start listening to people who don’t know what it’s about and you start tailoring it to them, that’s selling out.” Selling out means losing authenticity and fans ultimately. Cartoon explains how he designed a limited edition T-Mobile Sidekick (a six-figure deal) without losing his integrity. “I did work on a cell phone, a Sidekick that is so hardcore in terms of the imagery that it’s never been seen on something that big.” They only made 13,000 of them, but he kept control of what artwork would be on the sidekick. He kept the meaning of the design personal: “an Aztec pyramid to symbolize my heritage, a Low Rider, a home boy with a Pendleton brim hat, a chainlink fence to represent the fence around our city that keep homeboys from never traveling out of the neighborhood.” That’s authentic. At this stage Cartoon realizes he has to be careful about which opportunities he accepts. “They’ll throw checks at you all the time,” he shares. “I want to do deals with the best of the best, like Nike. I look at the next 10 years and what I want to do. I gotta do it the right way. I gotta put the right quality out there. I could have 4 shops out there: a shop in NY, Miami, Frisco, and LA - Houston if I wanted to, with neon and pictures of all the rappers on the wall and 2 for 1 specials, put a stripper pole in there and I might get a check off of that. But my thing is that when fools see the artwork there’s a buzz about it. They know how hard it is to go to get an appointment. There’s a one on one - I’m building with customers one on one about what the artwork is gonna be. It’s a slow process. The business comes down to originality. We get so much support from the streets. We keep doing what we are doing and eventually they’ll get it.” Eventually the corporations do get it and the fortunate ones get to do the Cartoon deals. Right now, that limited edition Mr Cartoondesigned Sidekick, which is no longer available through T-Mobile, sells on eBay for upwards of $300, new in the box. Cartoon came up in an era of Hip Hop when “keep it real” actually meant something. He doesn’t take ideas from anyone else no matter how hot they are and focuses on what means something to him. He has evolved from an artist into a business man. He feels the business comes down to originality and not biting other people’s shit. He expands on
his theory by sharing some of the things that have led to his success. “Loyalty. Don’t cut the next man’s throat over dough. Let people know the real. Be honest. They don’t teach morals and ethics in high school. That’s maybe one of the benefits from being from a gang. You learn that type of thinking. Paint a picture of yourself in your ultimate life—see yourself doing it, surround yourself with winners who think like you. If you want to get there ten times faster, don’t be smoking weed and getting high and drinking every day. That’s what they want us to do. They want us to be half there and half retarded and not achieve our goals. Take direction from older people. Don’t waste time judging and hating on others, critiquing everything you see on TV. Go out there and do something. You can sit there all day and talk shit about rappers but what have you done this week? What have you accomplished? People critique so much that they aren’t getting anything done. Do you have a skill? Are you needed? If I lose everything, I can go back to painting store windows because I have a skill. If you are dope, you’ll get there.” Cartoon’s interest was the business side of tattooing, not just the artistic side. He realized that he was building a brand, not just inking skin. He’s changing the perception that tattoo artists are not business minded. He’s also changing the perception that tattooing is not a valuable art form. He locked down a three picture deal with Brian Glazer (8 Mile, Davinci Code, Beautiful Mind) because he felt they excel at telling personal stories. He worked on this process three years. His idea started years ago as an idea for a documentary about tattooing and grew into his life story at Imagine Films. He says it won’t be “a Mexican 8 Mile, though.” For three years he had doors slammed in his face about making the movie, until Brian Glazer saw the vision. “It’s about my life in my early 20s, but it’s really about my family and my team. I say ‘I’ in my interviews, but it’s really ‘we.’ It’s about my life which involves everyone.” With a graphic novel about to drop through Time Warner books, Cartoon says “it’ll be hard to follow the company’s last release, Sin City, but I’m looking forward to getting our story out there.” It’s the story of a young Japanese kid who comes to America because he’s in love with our culture, but he witnesses a murder and his dream kinda becomes a nightmare. Cartoon also has an action figure coming that was replicated from one of his tattoo characters. It’s a collector’s item. As I am leaving his tattoo shop, I can’t help but think to myself that everything Cartoon creates is a collector’s item, especially those unique stylized Cartoon tattoos. Unique to each collector, whether a soccer mom or a huge international Superstar. //
To hear pieces of the actual Cartoon interview, go to www.22LBS.com or www.ozonemag.com OZONE WEST // 19