Chewing Pencils

In all the excitement with the Easter Drawing Project, I almost forgot that there was one last installment in the “Storytelling” series I have been working through. The complete series can be found by clicking here but basically we’ve covered character development, setting and plot. In this post I want to finish by talking about […]

Establishing a Plot
Single gag cartoonists can take a bit of a break here. While many will say the single gag cartoonist has lost the plot anyway (grin) an ongoing story line is not something they need to worry about. Establishing a plot, however, is a major thing for comic book and comic strip artists.
The dictionary […]

Developing Characters
Stories only become stories when characters live them out. The Scriptural writings common to Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, commonly known as the Old Testament in the Western world, is a book full of stories. Although it forms the basis for entire belief systems, it is not a series of rules or instructions, […]

The Importance of Setting
The setting of a cartoon is quite simply when and where the story is unfolding. This includes the geographical location, whether the location is inside or outside, what time in history it is, what time of the year and day it is and anything else that might help describe the unique […]

The first of my ‘Top Ten Tips for Becoming a Professional Cartoonist’ took a few people by surprise. We naturally think of cartoonists as people who draw. Whether it be a single panel gag, a cartoon strip or full length comic book, a cartoonists is one who puts pencil to paper and creates a cartoon […]