Do you ever find yourself doodling when you should be doing something important like managing the core shutdown at the nuclear plant? Maybe you’re always getting in trouble for daydreaming when you should be concentrating on landing that plane. Are you plagued by feelings of failure because you just don’t fit in with corporate America? If this sounds like you, maybe you should consider a career change. It could be that your subconscious mind is trying to tell you that you are meant to be a cartoonist. The single panel gag caricature is an excellent career choice for a number of reasons.
no heavy lifting
In fact, the hardest part of the job is coming up with ideas. Now, I do not intend to minimize this task. Generating effective cartoon ideas is not easy and many people give up after a few short brainstorming sessions. The one thing that will set you apart from the crowd is your tenacity. If you set a weekly or monthly quota for yourself and stick to it, you’ll soon see your work in print. A good goal for the part-timer is to set up seven full single-panel vignettes a week. For those who struggle with math (and what cartoonist doesn’t?), that’s one a day. At the end of the week, submit your work to publications that accept independent submissions. There are loads of them – invest in a copy of The artists’ market to find which ones are best suited for your job.
start immediately
You don’t have to complete a long and expensive course to get started. You can start by writing down all the funny things that have been going through your head for as long as you can remember. Then see if there’s a way to condense it into a single panel gag that the general population “understands”. Remember, if you think it’s funny, there are probably a lot of other people who think so too. You will probably come up with a lot of stupid and unfunny nonsense. If so, welcome to the club! We all do. Every day. But the more you do it, the more you’ll develop your skills and begin to produce quality humor.
start part time
The initial cost is extremely minimal. Most likely, you can start your career with things that you already have in your house or that you can easily steal from the office. You will need drawing paper and a pen. Throw in a few large manila envelopes for mailing presentations and a few dollars for postage, and that’s really all the investment you have to make. If you really want to splurge, you can buy some pencils to make erasers, and maybe some page-sized cardboard inserts to help keep your presentation packages from bending in the mail, but those luxuries should be considered optional.
You don’t have to be a world class artist
Note that I have yet to mention the drawing. That’s because drawing is not the most important skill a cartoonist must possess. It is not the event the second most important skill. Writing and developing ideas are the most important. If you’re letting his less-than-stellar artistic skills hold you back, remember the old cartoon adage: Good writing makes up for bad art; good art will never make up for bad writing.
Cartooning is a great hobby, and with the right amount of hard work and insatiable desire, it can turn into a lucrative career.
