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Cartooning For Dummies...and Very Smart People

Author: RickLondon
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"They" say you have to be funny and artistic to be a cartoonist. I beg to differ.

Though the jury is still out whether I am funny, I know for a fact that I cannot draw a straight line. So I felt certainly given the advice I was given, no matter how many funny concepts and concepts I'd written, I would probably never be a contender. Then I met the late Marc Cohen online, a close friend of Peanut's creator Charles Schulz who advised me that many cartoons were done by teams of artists and writers. As I researched this even further, this was confirmed by top single-panel syndicated cartoonists Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Leigh Rubin (Rubes) and John McPherson (Close To Home). Oddly enough, it was the bigger cartoonists, the one's who were "superstars" who spent their generous time talking to me about the business. By the time I finished learning from them, my confidence was up. That was April of 1997.

Starting even the most socially acceptable stable business can be difficult. Imagine a 44 year old who couldn't do much else well deciding cartooning would be his way up the corporate ladder, so to speak. That is the beginning of my story. It goes downhill from there.

I also can't tell you how many times I nearly "threw in the towel". A day did not go by that I was not certain I could never do this again. In 2001, I suffered a major heart attack, and was for certain I would never create again. Oddly enough, the opposite happened. I was more productive than ever after that event.

No neon light went on that said, "You've made it. Artists will start seeking you out now. They simply did. It was a process. It was slow. But it happened.

I can draw but not well. I wanted a well-drawn cartoon. I found artists who were good at that. Many are still with me. You can do it too if you don't mind some rejection at the start.

Being funny is very much about extreme self-editing; saying in a few words what many say in several hundred words. Shakespeaere had cartooning right when he said "Brevity is the soul of wit".

One does not have to stop with a cartoon site. There are ways to produce revenue from them, such as making Ecards, creating a membership site, or selling the cartoons to magazines and newspapers, but the big money is in merchandising and licensing, that is, creating products, or letting others do it, with permission to use your cartoon images.

Planning, studying, researching, and finally doing, That is really all there is to it. When you hit obstacles and challenges, and you will, don't be afraid to act even if it means making mistakes. Because if you learn from those mistakes, you will do it right, or at least better next time.

I have framed so many letters from New York agents whom I mailed early on. Some were form rejection letters and some were downright nasty. I can remember one, "What do I need with another failed cartoonist"? I am so glad I kept that one.

I highly suggest buying a domain name and use it to brand yourself. You can point it to your server where your cartoons are parked, do a bit of promotion, and you are in business!

One day, in 2005, I got a call from a newspaper publisher wanting to know if he could run my cartoons. He said he saw my website was the 67,000th most popular site on the Internet according to Alexa.com (Amazon.com's analytical site). I had no idea. I thought we were still getting a few hundred visitors a day. We were getting 4000 hits an hour, and to date have had over 7.5 million hits since early 2005. I am still astonished.

All this is due to persistence. And now we have Ezines, blogs and other media available to us that Charles Schulz did not.

Like my mom, a former schoolteacher, words, and the turning of a phrase was important. Mom was right. More right than I knew at the time

Where you don't have money, use talent. If you have both, use both. If you only have money, hire talent. There simply is no excuse not to (finally) succeed if you work hard and long enough.

To me, cartooning and journalism is watching the U.S. Constitution in action. Nothing could be more pure than this sort of freedom of expression by the people. Our founding fathers were beyond brilliant, don't you think? Whatever your goals, I wish you the best of luck and a prosperous New Year.

About the Author

4.5 million visitors click on Londons Times Cartoons by Rick London each year at offbeat cartoons and his new unique comic merchandise gift shop, Londons Times Superstore, and new designer clothing line store Rick Londonwear. He launched his venture in an old warehouse in Ms. in 1997.