Month: February 2005

It’s been a few weeks since there’s been a new Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio, and I’m sure some of you are wondering what happened to it.

Well, it was a lot of fun, and I got some really creative and funny responses, but after a while it began to feel a bit tired.

I really liked the original concept and I’m so thankful to everyone who participated, but I found it growing stale and decided to just let it run out after the last entry.

So, I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, I know I did!

Thanks again to everyone who was kind enough to email over their answers! It was a hoot!

Dear Media,

I just finished reading another article on cartoons/cartoonists and I gotta tell you, I’m really tired of this stuff. Sure, it’s nice to see cartoonists get a little press, but it’s always the same old thing.

It seems if someone in the media is going to do something cartoon related it’s A) comic strips B) animation (especially gay overtones therein) or C) graphic novels. (OK, you get the occasional New Yorker thing, but even those have died down since their last media blitz to sell their latest book/cd offering.)

What no one ever talks about, however, are artists like myself – independent cartoonists that practice the craft full-time and ink out a living under the radar.

My particular genre is the venerable gag cartoon. My cartoons appear regularly in Harvard Business Review, Reader’s Digest, Good Housekeeping and other major publications. I also market my cartoons via my website to companies, presenters, ad agencies, smaller publications and the like.

(Hmm… Now that I look at it, I don’t seem that far under the radar after all.)

Come on you guys; give a piece on small independent cartoonists a chance. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised as how interesting we can be.

Sincerely,

Mark Anderson
Independent Cartoonist

“The question was floated at a comic jam not long ago by a cartoonist who’d been slipped a panel to complete. It showed an artist rubbing himself out. Sidestepping the picture’s metaphor, the cartoonist instead was racking himself for a sound effect to amplify the action. The other cartoonists sat at tables throughout the room, their noses burrowed in unfinished pages. ‘I know!’ someone at the back shouted…”

This article on conveying sounds in cartoons is a really interesting read. Check it out…