A Career As A Cartoonist

by dcmaster

A cartoonist is an artist, who specializes in cartooning. The job of a cartoonist is to create comic characters and objects to put into books, manga, anime, and editorial cartoons. They participate in comic strip creation as well as animated movies. A cartoonist has a talent for sketching, caricaturing or making replica images. They love to draw, roughly in pencil first, then in ink and colors. They can put their thought on a paper at any point of time. Cartoonists work for print media, electronics and web media.

Now, to get an actual job, as a cartoonist, you’re going to need to do several things. It helps, if you’ve ever had your work published before. It doesn’t have to be anything too special, in fact it can be something as simple as a community newsletter or church newspaper. Just having this type of work will upgrade your status in the eyes of the newspaper editor and make it seem like you know what you’re doing.

It also helps to put together a portfolio.

Gather a collection of your best work in a nicely laid out binder. Bring this to an interview with a newspaper editor or wherever you applying for a cartoonist job. You’re trying to show off your very best work here, so put your highest quality material up front.

As you prepare your portfolio for your cartoonist career, write and illustrate the things that you think about and observe. Especially those things that make you laugh. And the things that make you cry. Or that make you angry. Consider your sketchbook a sort of brain dump where you unload everything you’re thinking about. It doesn’t always have to be funny at this point – that can come later in Cartoon Brainstorming sessions. The things you record don’t even have to make sense to anyone, but you (and they don’t even have to make sense to you!). They are just going to be there, waiting to spark an idea when you go back through your work.

And be sure to date the pages occasionally. That makes it nice when you go back through them over the years and can pinpoint the day when you were thinking this and that.

The start-up cost is extremely minimal. Chances are you can launch your career with stuff you already have in your house, or can easily steal from the office (just kidding). You’ll need some drawing paper and a pen. Add some large manila envelopes for mailing in submissions and a few bucks for postage, and that’s really all the investment you absolutely have to make.

If you really want to splurge, you could buy some pencils for doing up roughs, and maybe some page-sized cardboard inserts to help prevent your submission packages from getting bent up in the mail, but those luxuries should be considered optional.

Read about international study programs, and also read about portfolio of graphic designer and flash designing career.

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The History of the Cartoon

A cartoon is described in the dictionary as being a ‘simple drawing showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated way’. Cartoons have evolved from their origins as preparatory drawings to satirical sketches in newspapers and periodicals in the 1800s, and more recently to an exaggerated representation of human life as shown by modern examples such as The Simpsons.

Although the satirical types of cartoons sketches still exist, with controversy often surrounding the artist and subject matter, the term cartoon has evolved massively in the last 150 years. A cartoon means something completely different today as TV shows, films, advertisements and comics rely heavily on cartoon characters and the art of illustration in place of realistic drawings or life-like art.

Cartoons, as humorous drawings, originated in 1843 when satirist magazine, Punch, used the term to describe the sketches by artist John Leech. Leech’s Cartoon no. 1: Substance and Shadow, shows the first use of the term cartoon in relation to a humorous drawing or satirical sketch. The political or humorous cartoon had been used for years previously, but Leech was the first to coin the phrase.

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As early as 1754, Benjamin Franklin created the drawing of a snake in various pieces with the caption ‘Join, or Die’ to encourage unity amongst the colonies prior to the French and Indian War. The use of editorial cartoons to promote a specific message originated in the early 1700s.

The Use of Strap-lines

Cartoons were often used to promote political or social awareness, as they would appeal to people of all levels of education with a simple message. An easy-to-understand message (the strap-line) would prove invaluable as a persuasive tool and so posters and editorial cartoons would use cartoons with a strap-line to create a brief, concise meaning.

The Franklin cartoon was the clever use of an iconic image with a single line to portray a strong message. This type of cartoon became regularly used in the 1900s when gag cartoons would be published in popular magazines including Punch and the New Yorker.

One of the key artists, Peter Arno, is widely credited for inventing the gag cartoon when working for New Yorker magazine.

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As well as the single-caption gag cartoon, comic strips became popular around this time. Comic Strips originated in the late 19th century in American newspapers. The difference between comic strips and the gag cartoons of the same era, is primarily that of length. The comic strip will tell a story in a series of images with text attached in speech-bubbles or captions.

Some of the most famous comic strips that use this traditional method are still in use today. From its beginning in 1950, the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz published a total of 17,897 strips before the death of Schulz signaled the end of the cartoon. The success of the Peanuts comic strip led to the four-panel gag strip becoming the industry standard for comic strips in the United States.

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Peanuts would be one of the pioneers of the cartoon transition from comic strip to television and film. Others that would make the move with varied success include Dennis the Menace, Dick Tracy, Andy Capp and Garfield. The motion picture would be the biggest step in the evolution of the cartoon, most famously made by the films of cartoon legend Walt Disney.

Disney’s first venture into animated film is shown in the Alice Comedies, a series of short films that combine a real girl with an animated cat, all set in front of an animated landscape. This technique was revolutionary and signaled the direction of future live-action/animations including Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Space Jam in the 1990s.

Disney would go on to create some of the most influential cartoons in history, including the most recognizable cartoon character of all – Mickey Mouse. Mickey was created in 1928, first appearing in the Plane Crazy cartoon with his long-term beau Minnie. Mickey went on to star in hundreds of cartoons and remains the most popular cartoon character that Disney ever created, ahead of the likes of Donald Duck, Dumbo and Pinocchio.

The change in media to animated film paved the way for some of the most influential cartoons of the 20th century. As well as the massive number of Disney films that would change the landscape of film forever, many other cartoons would light up the silver screen as the years passed. Warner Bros. cartoons began soon after Disney’s inception and would introduce the world to a number of amazing characters that remain popular to this day.

Bugs Bunny appeared for the first time on screen in the 1940 animation A Wild Hare. In 2002, Bugs Bunny was named by a popular television magazine as the greatest cartoon character of all time. Other popular Warner Bros. characters include Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.

Another popular company to produce animated cartoons was the American company, Hanna-Barbera. Responsible for some of the most respected cartoon series in the latter part of the 20th century, Hanna-Barbera produces classics including Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones. These animations would influence some of the biggest hits of the century, as cartoons began to mimic real-life and have more realistic characters instead of the animals or fantasy stories of Disney and Warner Bros.

As the animated film became the most common place to find cartoon characters, the style, themes and techniques changed dramatically. As situation comedies dominated TV schedules on both sides of the Atlantic, animators would look to recreate this style with cartoons as the main characters. Out of this concept, the most popular animated series of all time was born as the world was introduced to The Simpsons.

The Simpsons were as far removed from the likes of Walt Disney as could be possible. The fantasy, fairy-tale style that was so prevalent in Disney’s cartoons was replaced by crude, raw animations of a ‘normal’ American family. Launched in the late 1980s, the cartoon has remained immensely popular with over 400 episodes and a feature-length movie grossing almost 600 million dollars worldwide.

The Simpsons would be criticised by conservative sections of the US as they claimed it provided bad role-models in the forms of the lazy, incompetent Homer and the naughty, disruptive Bart. The Simpsons would show a normal, working-class family in some realistic and some unrealistic scenarios, yet the characters themselves were always believable and empathetic. The disruptive, anarchic style and often controversial episodes would pave the way for even more controversy and animators pushed the boundaries of acceptability in cartoons.

The most controversial cartoon series of the 20th century would follow The Simpsons with regressive cut-out animation, cartoon violence and satirical story-lines. South Park would parody popular culture and satirize current events, but would arrive amidst a storm of controversy for its toilet humour and offensive language.

174 episodes later, South Park has been running for twelve series and has achieved Academy Award nominations for its feature-length South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Despite its seemingly puerile beginnings, South Park would develop into a cutting social commentary, satirizing subjects as diverse as euthanasia, the church of scientology, sexuality and global terrorism.

The Simpsons and South Park represent the current crop of exciting, contemporary cartoons that will influence the cartoons of the future. There are already countless other cartoons that borrow style, themes and humor from these two pace-setters, with the likes of Family Guy, American Dad and Futurama continuing the trend.

However, Disney has been opting for computer animations with its most recent films including Ratatouille, Finding Nemo and WALL-E.

So is the art of the cartoon dying out in the modern cartoon’s home of Florida? With new film-makers, animators and artists always looking for the next-big-thing, cartoons will always be popular for creators and the viewers, so the cartoon will continue to go from strength to strength.

Patrick is an expert Research and Travel consultant. His interests include Luton airport parking, Airparks Luton and Pink Elephant Stansted.

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