I am the world’s biggest fan of cartoonists, the cartoon industry and cartoons. I just got my most recent issue of Mad — which I’ve read each month (only missing it during the five years where I wrote for newspapers from India and Spain) since I was 6. I had my birthday on November 30 and I won’t say how old I am but let’s just say that when I was a kid McDonald’s had signs reading: “Dozens Sold.”
So here is NIRVANA for cartoon fans. Daryl Cagle shares some of his sketches that show the development of his cartoons. His lead in:
By popular demand I’ve been posting my messy pencil sketches. There have been lots of cartoons about the fiscal cliff, which is an ideal and flexible metaphor for cartoons. Obama seems willing to go off the cliff; this cartoon says, “if we go off the cliff, we all go off the cliff.”
I know this cartoon won’t get reprinted widely, just because it is in a vertical format; but some newspapers will take advantage of the cartoon and do some interesting layouts, nesting type in the space at the bottom right. I like to mix up layouts – that’s one of the freedoms of not having an editor and a fixed hole to fill in print every day.
Here’s my messy sketch in pencil, hard pencil for a light layout and soft pencil for darker details.
GO TO THE LINK where he also shares a second cartoon.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.