How to Be a Cartoonist When You Grow Up
Let's start by telling you what this isn't. It isn't "how to draw a comic strip" or "how to sell your cartoons". Plenty of such resources exist elsewhere. Instead, these are my personal observations from pursing the art and business of cartooning from my childhood into adulthood. If you're still in school or getting started and dreaming of a life drawing cartoons or a comic strip, I'm writing this for you. If you've been at cartooning for 5 years or more after getting out on your own, maybe I have an interesting thought or two for you.
Invest in the tools. Ball point pens, Number 2 pencils and printer paper are not professional tools. Visit an art supply store. Buy Bristol board (like paper, only thicker), artist's pens and those cool fat black markers. The "how to draw" books will tell you exactly what you need. If you don't like the first tools you buy, go try different ones. Using better tools won't magically give you better art. However, using bad tools will give you bad art.
Get a sketchbook. While you're at that art supply store, pick up a good hardback sketchbook. It's not cheap, I know. Do it anyway. Carry that book around everywhere you go. Doodle in it. Write down ideas. Sketch what you see. Paste in things that inspire you: photocopies of your own work, other artists' work, photographs and anything else flat enough to paste on a page. Do it consistently and soon you'll have this amazing record of your creativity. Do it for years and you'll have your own small library. You'll impress yourself later with the "new" ideas and inspiration you left behind.
Test your work. Find one, two or a few trusted people to show proof sketches of your cartoon ideas to. Say nothing and casually watch their reaction to your work. Do they smile? Laugh out loud? Look confused? Pretend to laugh? Ask a few questions about what they think the cartoon said. But don't explain what you were "trying to do" to them. If they didn't "get it", guess what? It's your problem, not theirs. Your cartoon is not a puzzle for your readers to figure out. Go back to the drawing board, make some adjustments based on what you learned or sketch another idea, and try again. It is amazing how this process will improve your writing and concepts.
Get published. In high school? Get in the school paper. Join the staff, even. In college? Get in your college paper. Is there a newsweekly or magazine in your town? You get the idea. Maybe it will pay cash or maybe not. Get published first. It means your cartoons meet the approval of someone other than you, an editor. Be bold in seeking out and talking to these people. The pressure of a publishing deadline will magically keep you drawing. Then you'll get better and get published more. Enjoy the minor fame of picking up a paper and pointing out your work in it to people you just met. They'll say, "Oh, that's you? Wow." Smile.
Quit drawing your pet character. You fell in love with the little guy, girl or critter back when. The thing has been the subject of your idle doodling for years. You've built a comic strip concept around it. Yet the strip doesn't seem to be going anywhere despite your fabulous favorite character. Maybe you could build another idea around him and it will do better, right? Wrong. It's time to put the character away in a box in the closet with all your other old beloved toys. Go do something new.
Make sure you're a cartoonist. Cartoonists have something to say as well as something to draw. Cartoonists are writers. Some "cartoonists" are actually illustrators deep down. They love to draw. They love the art. The picture may have a message but it's a picture first. If you first want to make people laugh, make them think or tell a story, you're a cartoonist. If the image alone inspires you to create, you're an illustrator.
Love your day job. Accept this now: full time work in cartooning is rare. Very rare. If you do get there, it will likely be many years down a long road. Or the success you find early on may only be decent part-time income. You've got to eat and perhaps raise a family in the meantime. Find a day job and make peace with it. Let cartooning be this incredibly cool thing you do in your off time. Enjoy what you're doing as if "hitting the big time" will never come. You might even enjoy a career in a field that will give you some skills that will enhance your work. (Try graphic design, advertising, publishing, printing or web development.)
Grow up. Do you do your own laundry yet? Do you pay for your own rent? I'm going to pick on you if you're still in high school or college. You've just started, kid. Don't be too cocky. I'm sure you do great work right now. But you'll get better. You've got a lot to say right now. You'll have more and better things to say later. The older you will look back on the younger you and say, "I sure did make some crap back then." But the older you needs the younger you if his or her career is going to go anywhere. Experience is a good thing and your odds of succeeding get better as you get more of it.
Keep going! Push yourself to improve your cartooning. Regularly ask "what can I do to get better"? Have more than one good idea. Try more than one idea. Don't give up. Your motivation to produce your art will come and go. Every so often, you'll doubt yourself and ask, "Am I any good? Am I just wasting my time?" Then if you keep at it, you'll lose that feeling and start to get excited again. Next time your enthusiasm wanes, you'll recognize the feeling and know to plow on through it. You won't quit, you'll keep drawing and writing, and, by golly, you'll be a cartoonist.
Tom Briscoe is a cartoonist.