THE WRATH OF JOHN

I just picked up a copy of Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice, by Ivan Brunetti today. I’m only a little of the way in, but already I can tell this is going to be a godsend for me. It is basically a classroom-in-a-book, teaching you how to be a better cartoonist. The book is subdivided into ‘weeks’, with exercises and homework. I’m going to do them, then post the results here. I’ve done a little bit of the first two exercises.

Exercise 1.1 is to draw familiar objects, like a car, a cat, and so forth. Each time you draw the subject, you have less and less time to do them. It’s about learning how to find the ‘essence’ of something, and how to think about cartooning as a language, not just a series of drawings with words around them.

Exercise 1.2 is to draw lots and lots of famous cartoon characters from memory. This one seems, to me, to build on the prior exercise of finding the essentials of a subject, but also to help one recognize the qualities one’s own style.

These are just brief surface impressions from me, and shouldn’t be seen as anything authoritative. If you’re serious about cartooning ( I know I sure as hell want to be ), just get yourself a copy of this book, and get to work.