If you seem to find yourself out of step with the cartoons as of yesterday, it may be because I’m uploading extras, which makes the schedule more random.
In other words, you might want to look at the previous cartoon or two and make sure you’re all caught up.
Well!
That was a nice week off!
I’m really happy to be back to it. I was able to write two weeks worth of scripts I’m happy with in a single happy sitting.
Time to fill in all your extra strips.
My own self image isn’t anything like the man in the mirror. When I have horrific dreams of being chased by monsters through endless dank hallways, I wake up thinking “I had hair.” and the dream seems all the better for it.
Teaching is pretty cool.
I occasionally teach cartooning classes, and they go about like the cartoon above. Nobody wants to hear that they’re starting at the basics, but they’re usually startled by what the basics ARE. Typically, the basics are the ‘secrets’ they’ve shown up to learn.
Just a hint for ya- the biggest, baddest, meaning thing to learn about cartooning? You create them in reverse order than you read them. No kidding.
The average student (not just kids, but adults too) will do this weird default thing when you ask them to doodle up a cartoon. They draw a box, draw a character in it, then go “Hmmmmm” while they try to figure out what the character will say. Once that panel’s done, they’ll start on the next panel. I guess they assume (I started to say “I guess they think…” but there’s not much thinking going into it yet) that they’ll draw a third and fourth panel like this and somehow a gag will happen by the fourth panel (or by the last page, if they’re comic book enthusiasts)
But starting at the first panel and advancing along with no idea what’s coming next is how you READ a comic strip. Why it’s also how we instinctively try to create one is anyone’s guess.
To create a comic strip (or comic book) you have to know what the theme, the idea, and the script are FIRST. Then you can decide how many panels (or pages) your comic has to be, and you can lay out all the panels or pages, letter it all, then draw the balloons, bubbles and boxes, then draw the characters and backgrounds. See? Backward to the way you’d assume it should be.
I love teaching those classes and seeing the light come on in one or two students’ eyes. You know they’ve taken another step along a path toward being a cartoonist, one of the ones that’ll never say “Oh, yeah, I used to draw pretty good when I was a kid…” but will continue to draw and doodle and entertain themselves and others for their whole lives.
Let that be a lesson to you.
The lesson being, I suppose, don’t give your chicken biscuit to your neighbor who’s slept on the floor of your business after he’s broken through your roof and been arrested for…
No, that can’t be it.
Never make a kindly gesture to sociopathic men who have camped in your outdoor store with…
No, that doesn’t sound right either.
It’s something profound, though. I know that much.
It’s weird, going to the skatepark at unfamiliar times.
I’ve only occasionally gone during what most people consider normal hours, and the number of people- skating, waiting, standing, visiting, talking, smoking, whatever- is astonishing to me or anyone else accustomed to going at daybreak when you rarely have to watch out for incoming skaters, and can exhaust yourself completely making run after run with no one to complain that you’re old and in the way.
I can do the ‘wait your turn’ thing pretty effectively, but it’s nerve wracking.
Plus, if you fall down while there are lots of other folks waiting their turn, you feel like you have to pop straight back up and get out of the way. I prefer the morning when I can lie there and make pain angels if I feel like it.
Don’t you love it? “Every time I’ve been to the skate park, it’s been way too crowded. They should do something!”
“So, when do you go?”
“Same time every day- right after work.”
“Could you go a different time of day?”
“Why?”
I have a LOT of obsolete stuff in my house, in the storage shed, in my studio… I’m a LITTLE concerned that I might be one of the things that’s obsolete. Obviously, my knees are out of date, anyhow.
Me? I’d be fine with their skatepark. I don’t do aerial stuff. I’m pretty comfy down in the bowl, scooting around, keeping my head down…
