How I create a cartoon

Today's example is "Crazy Kari"

When I decide to draw a subject I let the idea percolate.

The joy of being retired is no longer having to rush to meet a deadline. I can draw for pleasure at a leisurely pace. Such as with this cartoon:

I began by doodling on countless sheets of typing paper clipped to a clipboard while watching the news, sitting on my porch, wandering the hacienda. If nothing gels I’ll go for a long walk. Walking, getting the blood flowing to my brain, always helps me come up with a bunch of ideas.

In this instance I was still unhappy with the 327 concepts I came up with that afternoon so I did what every cartoonist does. I slept on it.

That usually does the trick. I woke up at 5AM with the concept of crazy Kari in a padded cell.

I have no explanation how that works.

Fuel

I grabbed my cup of coffee. I make enough for three cups. By 9AM I am buzzing like a killer bee ready to ink with my s-s-s-stinger.

I set to sketching

I went online and collected images of my subject’s face and printed them up to stick on my drawing board and then began to sketch a likeness with a mechanical pencil because I like the fine crisp line.

And then I unholster my weapon, take aim and ink.

It was a great cartoonist who once said, ”I ink therefore I am.”

The Tool

I use “Pentel Fude Touch Sign” pens. They’re a Japanese product that produces a rich, dark, water-based black ink that flows beautifully. The Pentel pens have flexible nibs which allows an inkslinger to render a beautiful brush-like line without the hassle of using an actual brush or messy archival ink.

After asking my fellow cartoonists what they used and experimenting with many other markers on the market I found my ideal pen on Amazon. Manga artists use them. Here’s a link to buy the pens I use:

Where to buy the pens I use

Refining the image again and again and again

As I doodled I thought I didn’t need to spell out the padded cell. She wears a lot of makeup so it wasn’t a huge free associative leap to go from makeup to lipstick to crazy to The Joker. The Joker! Perfect.

Says it all.

And the more I looked at it I thought what would be more logical than scrawling rants and ravings on your cell wall with your lipstick? Below was the doodle I settled on. Face first. Then body.

After refining the image, I placed the head on the body, scaled it and scanned it.

From the scanner to the computer to the drawing board and back again

I scanned my crude sketch because that’s the quick way to enlarge it for the final inking. I returned to the drawing board with the scaled up version printed up and started tracing it using my light table, inking the finished clean drawing onto fresh typing paper. And then I returned to my computer to scan the finished drawing. It took me 6-minutes to ink it.

Using Photoshop and my Wacom tablet pen I colored the art to my liking, which you can see below. It took me about 2-weeks to feel comfortable and competent with the Wacom pen when I first got it a decade ago and now I wouldn’t use anything else. It’s remarkably responsive.

The Finished Art

And there it is. Finished. Ready to post. “Crazy Kari”. Three hours from concept floating in the ether between my ears to completion in the digital realm.

The act of drawing

After a lifetime of drawing 11,000 cartoons I stopped creating cartoons, gave up the syndication and retired from the grind of deadlines. As I wrote when I retired “my pen had become as heavy as a boulder.” I was done. After 40-years at my drawing board there was nothing left to be inked.

I didn’t want to go out like Johnny Hart, the cartoonist behind the comic strip “B.C.” who died, hunched over his drawing board. I was done with the sedentary life.

I was happy with my decision. Joyful. Liberated. My delight with my freedom perplexed some fans who missed my work.

I recently enjoyed a two part documentary about Steve Martin that resonated. After Martin had become the most successful comedian of all time, selling out arenas and touring non-stop he suddenly quit performing standup.

He was exhausted. And bored. And he had done it all and performing the same material over and over was no longer a source of joy.

Martin gave himself the gift of a second life, choosing a different medium for expression, film acting, a craft which he found invigorating and joyful.

Martin said something to the documentarian that struck me. “I realized the first half of my life I was riddled with anixiety. Now that I’m an old man I have never been happier.” Martin has returned to performing from time to time, with his friend Martin Short, simply for pleasure.

I get it. Now that I’m an old man I have never been happier as well. Done with the anxiety of public performing and deadlines.

I am so very grateful to have discovered writing late in my life, a different medium of expression that I find profoundly rewarding and joyful.

Today I rarely draw, only picking up the pen when I feel inspired. And thus it is a joy. I hope you enjoyed seeing this example of my work and seeing my method as much as I enjoy creating it.

Happy doodling.

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