Brooke McEldowney – Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio

This week’s Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio guest is 9 Chickwwed Lane and Pigborn creator, Brooke McEldowney!

Let’s get right to the questions!

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

Pibgorn. It would star Claudia Black as Drusilla, Shawnee Smith as Pibgorn, and I think I could be convinced to play Geoff.

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

My Favorite Vasectomy.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

An equal sign, which would designate an abrupt shift from a Nietschean weltanschauung to something a little more Kierkegaardian.

Thanks a bunch Brooke! And stay tuned for my new strip “My Favorite Vasectomy” coming soon to a newspaper near you!

Check out 9 Chickweed Lane and Pigborn!

See you next week for our next installment of Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio!

Greg Cravens – Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio

This week’s Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio features Greg Cravens of “The Buckets”! Here are Greg’s answers:

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

The movie would be Of Mice And Men. it would star Milo Bloom and Norm Drabble as the main characters. Other parts would be played by Crankshaft, Larry Bucket, and Brandy from ‘Liberty Meadows’. We’d need a dog, too, that nobody minded shooting during the movie. That’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

The worst title of a comic strip would be ‘Speculations on the Evolution of the Bicameral Mind’.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

The best new cartooning icon ever will someday be a tiny frog glyph that denotes that a character has passed gas. It’ll have a great following, expecially amongst the younger crowd. It’s cultural universality and popularity will be hailed as a sign that comic strips are moving out of the rigid nineteenth century ideals that they were founded on, and will save comic strips as a viable career for decades.

Thanks a bunch Greg! Let’s all hope that frog glyph takes off real soon!

Check out The Buckets! You can also see more of Greg’s work at www.midsouthcartoonists.com, as well as at his wonderful cartoon/illustration portfolio site!

Thanks again, and check back next week for more goofy answers!

New Feature! – Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio

We’ve got a brand new feature here at the Andertoons blog that I’m really excited about – “Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio!”

Here’s how it works – I’ve been emailing professional cartoonists three goofy questions and asking them to answer in any way they see fit.  Some are thoughtful, some are funny, and some are thoughtfully funny.

Here are the questions:

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

(OK, so technically that last one isn’t technically a question, but you get the idea.)

I’ll be trying to post a new set of responses every week, so check back often!

Our first cartoonist is Mark Heath who creates the delightful “Spot the Frog”!  Here are his answers:

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

This is the sort of question that knocks a hole in the back of my head, and my brain rolls out like a stale nut. I like movies, but for some reason I’ve never thought to myself, “If I could cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters…” One that comes to mind has already been done, and done perfectly. One Froggy Evening by Chuck Jones. Along with Peanuts and B.C., that bit of animation made me a cartoonist. The expressions are so minimal and so precise. As for something that remains to be made, I’d like to see A Christmas Carol. There are already a thousand adaptions, but there can never be too many. The kids from Soup to Nutz could collectively play the Ghost of Christmas Present (or in their case, Presents.) Monty could play a feckless Marley. Christmas Past could be the fairy godfather from the Barnaby strip. Steve Dallas would be Scrooge. Spot would be the pet frog Dickens forgot to mention. And Robotman appears as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

Judging from the dozen submissions I showed the syndicates before Spot the Frog, I’ll have to assume that Karl the Carrot, Moveable Feast, Idiots, Winslow, and several others I offered were the worst. Other titles I didn’t use but would probably fare as well: Dick’s Dysentery; You’re Too Stupid To Like This Strip; Peanuts.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

This question demands someone more clever than I am. I’m trying to think of an icon I use that’s unique to me, and most that come to mind are borrowed from other cartoonists. One of my favorites is the word sigh, bracketed by asterisks. Schulz did this. I paraphrase it (I omit the word sigh and settle for a single asterisk.) I also like the Bushmiller approach, where punctuation says it all (an exclamation point over the head, for example.) If I had to think of a new icon, off the cuff, I’d say a speech balloon that resembles a fist. But even as I say that, I’m not sure that I like it (picture a speech balloon in the shape of a hand, thumb pointing down, over my head.)

Thanks Mark for being our first participant!

Check out “Spot the Frog”!  It’s one of my new favorite comics!  Try Mark’s Frog Blog too!  The “Spot the Frog” website has lots of good info and fun stuff!

Well, that about wraps it up for “Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio!”  Check back next week when we’ll be posting more answers to goofy questions!

Calvin Creator Bill Watterson Interview

Here’s a interview with Calvin and Hobbes creator, Bill Watterson.

Watterson is usually very private so this interview is an amazing insight into his work! Check it out!

Here’s a small excerpt:

Christie: Is there a Calvin?

Watterson: A real one? No.

Christie: Is he in some way autobiographical?

Watterson: Not really. Hobbes might be a little closer to me in terms of personality, with Calvin being more energetic, brash, always looking for life on the edge. He lives entirely in the present, and whatever he can do to make that moment more exciting he’ll just let fly…and I’m really not like that at all.

Christie: You manage a lot of complex shifts between fantasy and reality; between Hobbes as a stuffed tiger and a real-life playmate. He’s frequently involved in what is apparently the real world, doing real things together with Calvin that he couldn’t possibly be doing. Do you think that kind of thing out in advance or does it just come to you when the gag calls for it?

Watterson: Could you name something specifically? I’m not sure I follow.

Christie: Well, when they’re driving down the mountain in their wagon and flying all over the place. You think, after reading the first few strips, that you’ve got the idea; that this is a stuffed tiger and when he and Calvin are alone he becomes real–to Calvin–but then, obviously, when they’re doing things like that in the real world, he has to be more than fantasy.

Watterson: Yeah, it’s a strange metamorphosis. I hate to subject it to too much analysis, but one thing I have fun with is the rarity of things being shown from an adult’s perspective. When Hobbes is a stuffed toy in one panel and alive in the next, I’m juxtaposing the “grown-up” version of reality with Calvin’s version, and inviting the reader to decide which is truer. Most of the time, the strip is drawn simply from Calvin’s perspective, and Hobbes is as real as anyone. So when Calvin is careening down the hillside, I don’t feel compelled to insert reminders that Hobbes is a stuffed toy. I try to get the reader completely swept up into Calvin’s world by ignoring adult perspective. Hobbes, therefore, isn’t just a cute gimmick. I’m not making the strip revolve around the transformation. The viewpoint of the strip fluctuates, and this allows Hobbes to be a “real” character.