Tag: Halloween

Halloween Cartoons – Witches

andertoons

Every year I get the standard Halloween costumes at my door. You’ve got your ninjas, your superheroes, your princesses, but my favorite is always the witch. Put a sweet little girl in a black robe and pointy hat and I’m shoveling out candy like there’s no tomorrow.

So, with trick or treating right around the corner, I thought I’d share a cauldron full of my favorite Halloween cartoons involving witches. Enjoy:

I tend to do a lot of tech humor, so when I made a list of Halloween topics to write about, a witch’s “spell” immediately suggested “spellcheck” to me. That being said, I have not idea how that would work. Does it involve the cauldron somehow? The stirrer? Some other device?

See, this is why its better not to think too long about cartoons.

Another cauldron comic. But this time our witch apparently has her own cooking show. Which kind of makes sense. Spells are always full of ingredients, instructions about cooking times and methods (bubbles and toil), they sound very much like recipes.

But for me the last sentence, “Tune in next week when I’ll be fattening and baking children I find in the forest,” makes this cartoon for me. I labored over those 16 words for a good long time. And I’m glad I did because they still make me laugh.

Again with the Halloween tech! Apparently my witches are quite modern.

The tricky part on this one is drawing something small and generic enough to not bring any particular device to mind, but recognizable enough to read visually quickly.

Its also a little punny, but just barely.

This cartoon is a good example of one of my favorite writing tricks. Take an oddball character and insert them into a very normal setting and see what happens.

The name “Helga” was the sticking point on this one. What’s a good witch name that’s not too jokey? Hazel? Too Warner Brothers. Esmerelda? Too long. Elphaba? Too showy.

I’m still not convinced that Helga is the absolute best choice, but, as the saying goes, sometimes you just have to name your witch and move on. Wait, that’s not a saying at all.

Well, that’s it. Be sure to check out all of my funny Halloween cartoons!

Awful Superhero Halloween Costumes I’d Love To See – Underwater Wonder Woman

andertoons1 Comment

What with all of the superhero flicks this past summer, there’s no shortage of comic book costumes for Halloween this year. But as omnipresent as they are, there’s still a few I’d like to see. I mean, heck if they made actual costumes from those DC Anime statuettes last year, maybe I got a chance!

So every Thursday this month I’m going to be suggesting some less inspired costumes of years past that I’d LOVE to see at my door asking for candy.

First up, Underwater Wonder Woman from the CBS series episode “The Bermuda Triangle Crisis”:

wonder woman water

Even all covered up, WW’s still got it.

Now, technically, unlike upcoming costumes, this is an actual real-life costume, but I want to see this mass-produced and for sale at my local Target!

Halloween Cartoons

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Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. You’ve got monsters, pumpkin carving, and forcing your neighbors to give you their candy under threat of reprisal. Plus, as a cartoonist, you get all sorts of fun stuff to draw! What’s not to like?

So here’s a small sampling of Halloween cartoons to get you in the mood. Enjoy:

You know, when you think about it, as long as kids have been trick-or-treating, I’m surprised that someone hasn’t tried to popularize a third option. Sure, you have that whole “…smell my feet, give me something good to eat” thing, but that’s pretty tired. You really should stick with alliteration here too, so “Text” maybe? “Tedium?” “Totalitarianism?”

I think every kid has heard the old “it’s just ketchup” explanation. But I must say that it sort of confused me as a kid. When I scraped my knee and it was blood instead of ketchup? Freak out!!

I also like how this Halloween cartoon is set in sort of your standard living room. No coffins, crypts, bats… Just your average middle class Nosferatu at home watching TV with the family. Nice.

I’m not sure what exactly it is about vacuums that scares dogs (it’s not just mine, right?), but I gotta say that as much as I have to vacuum because of our dog, that the ensuing canine hysterics are more than a tad annoying. That being said, it did give me the good idea for the above Halloween cartoon.

Of course it also presented the problem of drawing a number of various breed of dog dressed in an assortment of costumes attending a party. So there’s that.

I hope Frankenstein is earning a good living terrorizing villagers or whatever it is he does (maybe a sizable inheritance from his mad doc father?), because the Mrs.’ hair budget has got to be a killer. Sure, it’s cool, scary, iconic, but the upkeep with shampoo, conditioner, various styling products, and visits to the hairdresser must cost a fortune.

To be serious for just a second, I think, like the vampire comic above, the sort of nonchalantness of the scene really helps this work. A beginning cartoonist might be tempted to have a funny reaction on his face, or show lots of hairspray cans laying about to drive the point home, but the bland mundane quality of everything it what make this cartoon funny for me.

Well, hope you enjoyed this small sampling of monster mirth. Feel free to check out all of my funny Halloween cartoons & comics too!