Essential Reading for Cartoonists
Published by Matt Glover February 6th, 2007 in Book Reviews
I’m off for some quiet retreat time this week as part of my preparation for the year. It gives me an opporuntity to make some plans and think through some ideas in a way in which the normal hectic schedule doesn’t allow for.
As art of my retreat time, I like to read. Which, along with a comment in the last post from Bee, got me wondering as to what sort of things should be essential reading for cartoonists.
So let’s compile a list. Leave a comment and let me know what YOU have read about that you think should be essential reading for others in the field. Note that it doesn’t have to be strictly about cartooning as such, but may be useful for an artist to know.
In your comment leave the name of the book and author and why you think I/we should read it.
Go for it!
To be honest, I haven’t read many books on cartooning (or business as a whole). However, I plan to change that this summer… Especially now that [hopefully] I’ll find out about more titles.
How To Be A Successful Cartoonist, by Randy Glasbergen. Although the book and the author are great, it’s only 128 pages–half of which are just cartoons (every other page features a cartoon from some famous cartoonist)… So it only comes down to 64 pages of tips, which I don’t think is enough to cover the entire aspect of cartooning. I guess it serves well as a “starter” book, like it did for me.
I started my career as it is writing gags for Jay Leno when he was the guest host on the Tonight Show. After a while I thought it might be a good idea to learn something about what I was supposed to be doing so I picked up Gene Perret’s book “Comedy Writing Step by Step” (http://writingcomedy.com/). It was very helpful in illustrating some of the basics of good comedy writing, and I see cartoon gag writing as the best comedy writing going on today. I also used to be able to get Writer’s Market books on comedy markets, but I guess they weren’t selling well because they haven’t been printing editions of this book for several years now. Those two books really helped me a lot, and I’d still buy the Comedy Writer’s Market book if they still published current market books. I’m on a road trip and won’t be home for a couple more weeks to look at my libratry. I try to buy anything on cartooning that looks like it’ll help my get better, but this website has proven to be one of the most helpful places to look for ideas on the techniques of cartooning. It has been a godsend to me. I think the information I’ve learned here on using the computer for cartooning has really improved the quality of the my toons. Thanks to all who share here.
Without doubt…the best book I’ve ever read on Cartooning is Mort Gerbergs ‘Cartooning the Art & the Business’…
An absolute gem of a Book…
Another ‘good-un’ is Robin Halls ‘Trade Secrets’
PS…Well done! On a very informative & interesting Website…I’m a regular visitor & think it’s Top Notch…