Over the last decade, I’ve given up on a lot of things, things like sports fandom, calligraphy, and saxophone, but one thing I’ve stuck to like a leech is cartooning. That is, drawing silly little comics. The writing of stories and the drawing of pictures has been quite the pursuit. The only thing I know for certain after ten years is that, well, I might not know anything at all. OK, that might not be totally true, but the biggest piece of knowledge I’ve picked up so far is that there’s always more to learn.
For me as a cartoonist, I’ve worked on a lot of comics with varying lengths. But, personally, it’s the art of the comic strip that has captured both my heart and my imagination. If you’re of a certain age (and as I write this I’m thirty-three), there’s a good chance you have fond memories of sprawling out over the funny pages as a kid. In fact, one of the core memories of my being is when I opened The Columbus Dispatch and found the Sunday comics were in full color. The vivid tones popped off the page and swallowed me whole. I think that, on that day, something awakened inside of me, something that stuck around to this day.
At the time, and all throughout my childhood, I drew a lot. At one point, I even kept a daily page-long comic that I created running for a while. But then, one day, for some reason that I’m not entirely sure of, I pretty much stopped drawing altogether. It took me years to get back into the practice of drawing anything more than a doodle, but once I started writing comics, I knew I had to start drawing them too. Back then, I was pretty hesitant to try. I couldn’t draw very well. That’s not to say I’m the world’s greatest artist now, but I can certainly tell you I’ve improved. That’s what happens when you do something every day, you can’t get any worse.
However, it wasn’t until I started working at the local library that I rediscovered my love for comic strips. There I found collections of Popeye, Pogo, and many more that served as a gateway to dozens of new strips. I had read stuff like The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes in passing, but now that I had discovered whole collections of these strips in book form, I had something tangible to hold onto. It was through reading that I discovered my passion for the gag comic strip. That is the joke comic strip. The classic set up and pay off. Think Peanuts, Bloom County and Zits for example. There’s a lot of really good strips out there, and many of them came from the heyday of newspaper comic strips in the 20th century. Not to live in the past, but we didn’t know how good we had it when it came to comics strips.
Or maybe we did, I wasn’t in the 20th century for very long.
So now, with my this new discover of the sheer joy that newspaper strips brought me, I began to chase something that I hunt for all the time to this day: the gag. I have always enjoyed making people laugh, and now I wanted to do so with my words and pictures. And as comic book writer Harvey Pekar once said, “you can do anything with words and pictures,” and I’m inclined to believe that.
The pursuit of the perfect, ultimate, be all and end all gag is the goal of many a cartoonist; and I’ll be honest, I think that search alters the way your brain works. I know that, personally, I am always looking at ways to make connections between words, images, or both. Always looking for different ways that a situation might make someone laugh.
I think that a lot of people may consider this to be a simple task, simpler than it really is. I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back, but when you think of comic strips, or largely any art for that matter, there isn’t much thought put into the creative process. We’ll, it doesn’t feel like there is, anyway. And, these days, we consume our media quickly, and a comic strip is probably the quickest of the quick. It takes less than a minute to read a strip, a handful of seconds, really. And the joke either lands or it doesn’t. That’s a lot of pressure to put on an artist. But, as I said above, the brain of the cartoonist is altered by their constantly running down the gag. And that can be a good thing (it’s not all warping of the mind). What I mean is, the cartoonist, after sharpening their view of the world with an eye toward the gag, begins to know what will work and what won’t. Of course, that’s not a guarantee, I have have gags that fall flat still. And, sometimes, I find the blandest gags go over the best, while the ones I’m sure will stick the landing don’t land at all.
The creation of the comic strip is like any other art. It takes time, practice, more practice, and lots of failure. That’s right, failure is a key ingredient. More times than not, only by finding out what doesn’t work, do you find the good stuff. That’s how you hone your sense of humor and your drawing. And you want to shape these things that way you are unique. But the truth is, no two people see the world quite the same way, and you have to use that to your advantage. You have to show the world what it si you see, and sell it with your humor.
The other way to improve your skills as a cartoonist is to read, read, read. The only problem with this approach is that you can become a little too influenced. This is especially true for me. Every time I pick up Shulz or Watterson or Larson, I want to be them. I want to draw like them, write like them, and succeed like them. But of course, it’s not possible to be another artist, you have to be yourself, that’s the only way you’re going to succeed. So read, read, read, but learn to keep yourself at an arm’s length. Of course, it’s natural to imitate your heroes, but you have to make the conscious effort not to copy them outright.
In summation the best way to get better as a cartoonist, I’ve found, is to read, write, and draw all you can. And, once you have a kernel of an idea for a strip, hold onto it. And, like a pencil, you sharpen it until it’s just right. Too sharp and it will break, too dull and it won’t write. And when it’s time to move on, there’s another important thing; if the idea doesn’t end up working, it doesn’t work. Know when to let go as well as when to hold ong. There’s plenty of ideas out there to be had. But always be on the lookout. You never know where a good gag will come from.
The gag can be elusive, or the gag can present itself up front. And, I should mention, sometimes it starts with the writing (for example, a joke may employ verbal irony) or it could start with a drawing (maybe with visual irony). So, there’s really no one perfect way to start thinking about a gag. It can be presented in what your characters say, or in what they do. Keep the mind open. As this is a visual medium, you can’t solely rely on words, but at the same time, you can’t solely rely on pictures. It’s a tricky balance to strike.
Oh, and as a final tip, I think the gag should make you laugh. If you find it funny, it will come off as genuine, and the reader will feel it when they read the gag.
Anyone can be a cartoonist; it doesn’t matter if you don’t think you can draw. The only two things that you really need are a belief in yourself and a good, strong gag. When you have those two things, it’s time to pick up that pencil and start making them laugh.
If you spend enough time, you can track down the gag. Do your best and keep looing. The gag, like the truth, is out there.
The Scruffy Scribe 