Forgive the Delay, Part II, How To Cartoon

Cartooning often goes far beyond simply (ha!) writing and drawing a strip. The time involved in 'busy work' can be quite substantial, especially if you are drawing everyday. This does take away from your creative time, but like the paperwork of bills and taxes and other stuff, it's a necessary part of being a Cartoonist.




How I work right now:
When a new comic strip comes off of the drawing board, it is immediately scanned into Photoshop at high res, where I clean it up and make the image a true bitmap so that the blacks are black and the whites are white. I save the black and white bitmap in case I need a black and white comic strip for some project. I then color the strip in Photoshop, and save the color strip as a large high-res file, again, in case I need it for something. Once an image is finished, you are basically stuck at the current size and resolution. I've made that mistake in the past of creating images for the web only, and then finding myself redoing them from scratch when I needed them for print.

Cartoonist Tip#1: Do NOT try to make a book or other print project with low res images! This is not professional, and the end result will not look nice.

Anyway, in the current case of The Inquiring Minds, I then reduce the size of the color strip to the dimensions of the book I am working on, and save the strip a third time. THEN I reduce the strip to 72dpi (low res), increase the size slightly, add my byline and copyrite, and save it a fourth time for use on the web.

All of this takes a lot of time, but in the long run can save your butt. You never know when you may need a certain strip at a certain size, so plan ahead. Planning ahead is a smart way to run your business, and Cartooning is a business.

It may seem like a lot of work right now, but later on you'll be glad you have options. Reprint rights are a big part of a cartoonist's income, whether you sell the rights to someone else, or make a book of your collected works.

Cheers, JOHN :0)

Forgive the delay...

The Inquiring Minds' Summer Adventure continues... although at a slightly slower pace than originally schedules. Have no fear, and a lot of patience, please, as I move into one of my busiest months. However, the recent delay had nothing to do with time, believe it or not.


The latest cartoon in The Inquiring Minds' Big Summer Adventure

When I first thought of this Big Summer Adventure, it was going to be a large Sunday cartoon. Only when I started thinking about Imagineering, and the Disney theme parks, did it occur to me to make this a long adventure. Once the idea struck, though, it poured forth like water from a spigot, and I wrote out about 20 comic strips, to tell the rough story. I say rough because part of the fun of Cartooning, and especially story telling, is letting your characters chip in, and take the story where THEY want it to!

One advantage to storytelling in a comic strip is you may find time to make changes, corrections, or additions as the story goes on. If you've been following along with The Inquiring Minds, you've already met the gang. Iris was supposed to come in later, but I later decided that I wanted to introduce her earlier in the story. That change suddenly upset some of the dynamics of the storyline as written, and suddenly some of the strips appeared weaker. What to do?

I could have drawn the 3 strips and posted them as is, keeping up with my self imposed deadlines, but I didn't think that would be right. I risk losing you, the audience, by not posting frequently, but at the same time, are you going to stick around if the strips are just 'okay'? I don't think so.

So it took me two days to rearrange strips, and rewrite strips, and I'm still not back on track yet! Yes, Cartooning is harder than it looks, folks, and believe it or not, but the writing is just as much work as the art. That's why Artist/Writer partners usually get a 50/50 cut of comic strip profits, unless one is lucky enough to be 'hot' at the moment.

So when you toon in for our latest toon, and it ain't there, please don't fret... just come back again later, or the next day. I promise that even though my schedule is getting heavy, I have a commitment to finishing up The Inquiring Minds' Big Summer Adventure THIS summer. :0)

And it's gonna be good!

Cheers, JOHN :0)