Cartooning: A Starter’s Guide
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to get into a creative groove may I suggest cartooning?
My friend and colleague Alec Longstreth and I designed a one-week comics course to help folks dive in, have fun, and experience that intoxicating blend of words and pictures. I’m posting part of the first lesson below. If you want the rest of the week’s lessons sign up at any time here. It’s free.
CREATE A FOUR-PANEL COMIC. It can be autobiographical, experimental, a collection of facts about something that interests you, or your day’s to-do list. Cartooning is about finding a sequential rhythm. Think of the four-panel comic as the haiku of cartooning.
Tips:
- You don’t have to wait to come up with a brilliant idea first. Draw you first panel and then react to that image in the next — don’t worry about writing a gag or coming up with the perfect punchline.
- Draw two random images in the first and last panel, then come up with the middle panels to connect the two.
- Think about your day. Did something memorable or poignant happen that you could convey in four panels? Go for it!
- Use index cards for panels.
INSPIRATION and EXAMPLES
- For three years CCS alumni Dakota McFadzean ’11 developed his chops by drawing a four-panel comic every day.
- The cartoonist Jen-Jen Rose draws an autobiographical webcomic called 4-Panel Life about funny moments from her day-to-day experiences.
- The 4Panel Project is an experimental webcomic curated by Mark Laliberte with a wide range of contributors who draw abstract or conceptual four-panel comics.
A WORD ABOUT ART SUPPLIES
Supplies should not be the primary concern — what matters most is that you start cartooning. So whether you use the most basic of office supplies (copy paper, ballpoint pen) or go digital (drawing tablet, smartphone), fearlessly making marks is all that counts.
