July 19, 2005
Week 13 - Everybody's A Critic
Episode 2
Rantz talks with Harry.
“Let me make sure I’m not getting confused,” Harry says. “You’re the Circulation Director, right?”
“Yeah…” Rantz answers.
“That’s what I thought… So why are you, the Circulation Director, proposing a cover design? Isn’t that the Art Director’s job?”
“Because this is what I’ve been talking about!” Rantz points to a crude drawing on Harry’s desk. “I worked this up to show you the type of cover style we need.”
“You want our covers to be drawn by three year olds?”
“Ha ha… Every analysis I do shows the same thing. We need basic figures in front of simple backgrounds. Every time we do that, newsstand sales spike. Celeste’s abstract stuff is deadly.”
“This is supposed to be Coyote Man, right? Why is there a banana sticking out of his head?”
“That’s not a banana, that’s his snout… on his mask…”
“Looks like a banana…” He shrugs. “I’ll show it to Celeste when she gets in, but she won’t like it. She gets furious whenever anyone interferes with her creative decisions.”
“It’s almost noon. Where is she anyway?”
“She’s at the dentist… a teeth cleaning, I think.” He looks at the drawing. “There’s no way she’ll stand for this. She wouldn’t even do my Coyote Man vs. Batman design.”
“Listen… We have to increase sales in order to sell advertising, right? We could do it on the newsstand by changing the cover designs, and make a nice profit… or we could lose even more money than we already are, sending out junk mail to sell subscriptions... It’s your company… which would you prefer?”
“You really like to fight dirty, don’t you?”
“It’s just simple logic.”
“Celeste doesn’t understand simple logic… she’s more the convoluted syllogism type…”
“Like I said, it’s your company…”
“All right, all right…” He grabs the drawing. “When she gets in I’ll show her Banana Man and lay down the law… But she ain’t gonna like it…”