Day 24

 

I tried to make each of the letters look like they were speaking their "sound". I don't know if I was successful or not but I tried. And that's what counts. Or letters. 

Day 23

 

 

As part of my quest to gain insight into being a professional cartoonist I have been "reading" lots of cartoons. My favourites tend to be panels that are some kind of visual pun. This is an example of that. I realised after I drew this that an lowercase "i" followed by any word looks like an advert for Apple Computers though. iTeam by Apple, the newest addition to the Mac family ruining sayings everywhere. Next month iCryoverspiltmilk will be available for the iPad mini. Cheers. 

Day 22

 

Today marks three weeks of a new(ish) cartoon everyday. Not so bad. Actually it hasn't been as much of a chore as I thought it would be and I have found some comfort in resuming sketching every day and with the added structure of posting the pictures for people to see I have also began to introduce the kind of pace I would need if I ever wanted to be a professional cartoonist. This is the final draft of an idea I had while on the cruise ship and I (obviously) think it's a riot. 

 

Day 21

 

It's amazing how quickly you start to run out of good ideas. Luckily though there are thousands of bads ones waiting to charge into that breach. Here is today's cartoon in all it's glory. Some days I guess you just have to drag something out onto the paper. In my head this was much funnier than it appears in print. Oh well!

 

Day 20

 

I drew this on board the Enchantment of the Seas during a Thanksgiving week cruise. I tried to draw a new cartoon every day while on board and then I submitted them to the on board daily t.v show. This was Thanksgiving Day's submission.

Day 19

 

This is the last day of recycled toons! Well...kind of. I've finally arrived back home from my cruise and I have a whole slew of cartoons I drew on the cruise that I want to upload. It feels different from re-cycling because I drew them after the start of the blog and the project and not in the years proceeding the decision to spend more time and focus on cartooning with the eventual goal of making a carear as a cartoonist.

Day 18

 

This was the first cartoon I almost sold. So close. It was also the first cartoon I ever drew that someone else "color filled" and I learned how important it is to close all of your lines so the person coloring your cartoons has an easier time of it. Though, I have been spending a lot of time reading the "funnies" lately and have noticed that there are many unfinished lines and perfect color. 

Day 17

 

If you think that I drew this one recently...we have a problem. This is a visual pun. I LOVE puns. I made a whole puppet show based around egg puns. It's a problem. But I'm not trying to get rid of it. If you never comment on any of my cartoons please comment here and leave your favourite pun. Or your own drawing of a pun. 

Day 16

 

Day 16! Can you believe it. I am still on board the ship. I may have died by now. Not literally, but in the way that comedians say that they've died. Though I am probably trying to spread the meme of comics "drowning" on a cruise ship stage. I LOVE this cartoon. I wish they were all this much fun to think up. This was the first cartoon I drew in clown school after a few year hiatus from sketching. 

 

Day 15

 

Again with the cheating. This is another, mostly forgotten, sketch from clown school. I should point out at some point that I've been drawing cartoons and doodling for a long time. Those of you 

creepy facebook friends can browse my pictures and find some paintings I did in High School when I thought I wanted to be an proper artist. Despite drawing cartoons for a long time, this is the first time I have done it every day with some kind of goal. I remember this time of my life well and I had just started to discover what I think is my "style" at that time.

Day 14

 

So this one is definitely cheating. I drew this years ago while I was in clown school. My wonderful wife named it "Pie a la Commode". Which I think is brilliant. My favourite part was (and is) the horrified plunger. Like it can't believe what's happening and is really worried about the next couple hours of its life. I remember drawing a face on the toilet paper at one point but deciding that it had crossed some kind of line. 

Day 13

 

This was just a sketch at the bottom of a page full of puzzle piece joke attempts. This one wouldn't have made the cut I think if I hadn't been forced to scrape the bottom of my creative barrel. Try not to think about what my creative barrel looks like. I bet you can't not think about it. Still a post every day not bad for a man out at sea. 

Day 12

 

I ran out of pre drawn ABC themed cartoons and panels so I started dipping into the sketchbooks non-letter themed doodles. I really really really like this one and if I hadn't mis-managed my project with working then I would have had to wait a long time to reveal this one. 

Day 11

 

Those avid and creepy followers of my Facebook know that I am on a cruise ship right now performing as a comedy juggler somewhere on the Ocean. I can't say which cruise line I am on but I can say that the fairy tale was wrong, instead of the frog turning into a Prince with her kiss, she instead turned into a giant cruise ship. Hint hint. I digress. I had to abandon the pursuit of the ellusive 3 panel series because I wouldn't have consistent internet access. I didn't want to miss a day so I had to find a solution. And that solution was pre-posting a bunch. Which meant that I had to dredge up some half finsihed ideas. This is one of them. 

Day 10

 

Series entry #2 an attempt at a continuation from series entry #1 or you may know it as it's alias "Day 9". I am fond of the idea of this one but I think I missed a logic step in it's execution. I'm making an effort to publish it first and critique it later because I tend to obsess and I would never post anything because I would change little things as they came up. This allows me to post something imperfect and think about it and make solid, informed decisions about what needs to change. Yay Day 10!  

Day 9

 

This is my first attempt at a series. I learned that I need to draw them bigger so they can be compressed to a smaller size rather than draw them actual size. Also I put the date in between the 2nd and 3rd panel like a true professional. The goal is for the next six days to be a continuation of this idea. I know I already posted the first panel so I only get 2/3rds credit for day but I really like the "f and u" idea best of everything I've come up with and it's where the inspiration for more strips was the strongest. 

Day 8

 

 

I survived a whole week! I managed to draw, edit, and "publish" one cartoon per day. I tried to draw this one every day. It was one of my first ideas but I couldn't find the right style or voice for the idea. I had the "n" looking at a poster of a marquee letter while eating a light bulb, "n" being chastised by it's mother about eating light bulbs in order to grow up to be a marquee like his father, and so on. But I liked this one enough to make it day 8. This next week I am going to start trying some 3 panel "series" in an attempt to challenge myself. 







Interlude

 

Yesterday I was walking past Tim Horton's (see: Canadian Starbucks) and a homeless man asked me for some spare change and I apologized because I didn't have any and then he asked me again if I could give him a looney (see: Canadian dollar coin) to buy a cup of coffee. I told him again I didn't have any and then he offered to draw me a cartoon for a cup of coffe. I said deal, gave him a piece of paper and a pen and went inside to buy a dollar cup of coffee with my credit card (He likes two sugars and three creams if you're wondering). He told me that he drew cartoons every day and was a cartoonist so I went back inside and bought him a sandwhich (see: wanted to feed future me).

Day 7

 

 

A weeks worth of cartoons. Nuts. I cannot believe that some people produce a daily 3 panel strip and then a larger, colour, 9 panel strip on Sunday. Every week. All year. I understand that some days they may come up with ten good strips that they then hoard and such but still, at the very least they are coming up with 365 publishable cartoons. Power to the professionals.

 

I find it really interesting that when dealing with letters you start to look for the word the letters are "supposed" to be. There (for me anyway) is a need for there to be a deeper or funnier meaning. And unfortunately there isn't. They're just letters. Looking back though "S"s friend should have been and "E" and she should have been saying, "Don't look, it's our ex". Oh well. 

Day 6

 

This is unbelievably corny and that is exactly why I like it. I wrote a bunch around the theme of "crossing your 'T's and dotting your 'I's" and this one was my favourite. The nice thing about picking a theme (ABC's) is that the jokes (or attempt at them) tend to write themselves. Anthropomorphising any well known saying is an easy way to write a joke and an even easier way to craft a single panel cartoon. 

 

Day 5

 

This one actually started as a joke I tried on Facebook: "Call me old fashioned but when I swear I like to use cursive". It din't get much response there but I still have faith in the idea. My wife Andrea suggested I make it into a three frame with the "A" crashing into a wall on his trike and turning into a cursive letter "A" and then reverting back to a standard "A" to call the tow truck. I really like the idea that the letters turn into other kinds of letters or fonts to express different emotions. 

Day 4

This one was inspired by my time in Germany. I loved how ingenious the German people were at hiding and disguising the umlaut's dots. One of the most common was making the whole thing into a smiley face. I discovered a lot drawing this cartoon, mainly that I need a ruler and a better way to get the images of the cartoons onto my computor. A scanner seems like the easiest solution but I much prefer my current method of taking a picture with my ipad and emailing it to myself. The email fails to send but somehow the image ends up in the failed delivery message where I copy it onto my laptop before uploading it onto Blogger. 

 

Day 3

I really like this one. It was a good lesson as well. In several of the rough drafts all of the letters had faces but I realized that it was getting confusing and only the characters who are directly involved in the action should have faces. This probably doesn't apply if you are drawing people. 

 

Day 2

 

      I've posted a new cartoon every day for two days! Such dedication. I had a lot of fun drawing this cartoon and got to experience the thrill of writing and re writing and re re writing the same eight words over and over again until I found what I thought was the right text.

     These things are all the same but seem different:

"My Mom says you're a bad influence"

"My Mom says I can't play with you anymore"

"My Mom says you're a bad influence and we can't hang out anymore"

    And about 10 more. I can't imagine the amount of drafts it takes a proper cartoonist to do a "Strip" cartoon instead of just a single panel.



I decided I wanted to try being a cartoon-eer. This is a hard thing to do so I've set my self a goal: Post one cartoon every day. I'm learning my ABC's of cartooning. Today I started with "X".