So You Want To Be a Cartoonist
Photo by Herb Rich People are always asking me how I became a cartoonist(meaning a print cartoonist, not an animator, which is a field I know nothing about). This is understandable--cartooning is one of those jobs you fantasize about as a little kid, like being a cowboy or a race car driver. Usually right around puberty, most people realize these are childish daydreams and turn their attention to more realistic pursuits, like becoming a tax lawyer or a manufacturer of auto parts. The notion that one can support oneself at all, let alone maintain a typically middle class lifestyle, by sketching doodles not unlike those commonly found in the margins of a high school notebooks is, when you think about it, absurd. Yet, some people do.
Probably no one becomes a cartoonist in precisely the same way, though it's safe to say that most wanted it very badly and for a long time. For me the itch set in around the time I learned to talk. After having a fairly typical proto-cartoonist childhood(obsessive love of and identification with comic strips, contributions to school publications, being known throughout educational career as "the kid who draws") I studied graphic design in college and then, after graduating, went around Ann Arbor, Michigan with a portfolio of illustrations I'd made for the purpose. I was lucky to find a friendly editor at the late, lamented Ann Arbor News who told me they were looking for political cartoons on local issues. I drew up a few ideas and they bought them; in a few months I was selling enough to basically support myself. A career was launched.
The thing is, it's actually pretty simple to become a cartoonist. All you have to do is draw up some cartoons and have someone publish them or publish them yourself. Get someone to pay you for them and you're a professional. You don't need a degree, you don't need much money, you don't even know how to draw. Just your brain, your hand and something that makes a line.
But of course, if it really was that easy, there would be as many cartoonists as there are, say, people who mow lawns. The technical barriers to cartoonist-hood are low, but the psychological ones are high, and it's safe to say that no one should attempt to enter the profession unless they feel that doing anything else would result in either insanity or suicide. It's so much easier to get a regular job that pays the rent and leaves at least a little time for the spouse, kids and home repairs that only the most obsessed and driven self-flagellating nutcases are willing to endure the psychic trauma and financial nightmares that inevitably accompany a serious stab at professional cartooning. If that's not you, pour your ink down the crapper and thank your lucky stars.
But if that is you, well, you're stuck. No way to go but forward. In that spirit, comrade, here are some small scraps of wisdom earned from many years spent toiling in the paneled trenches of cartoonland:
