Thomastoons Cartoon Blog

Celebrity Interview with Rob ThomasA Conversation with Cartoonist Jerry King

Award-winning cartoonist Jerry King is one of the most prolific, published and versatile cartoonists alive today. Cranking out a whopping 300 cartoons a month, he is able to juggle a client list that includes everything from Disney to Golf Digest to American Greetings.

Another of Jerry's great passions is boxing. Trained by famed trainer John Russell, who would also train World Heavy Weight Champion Buster Douglas, Jerry would win the golden gloves and represent his post boxing team in the Army. Fortunately for us, he decided not to go pro and plunged himself into a full-time career as a freelance cartoonist.

HERE'S A BRIEF INTERVIEW I RECENTLY HAD WITH JERRY.

Rob: Jerry, tell me a little about yourself.

Jerry: I live in Northeast Ohio. Married with 2 kids, 2 dogs and 1 bird. Fulltime, freelance cartoonist. I golf, but I suck.

Rob: Riddle me this, how and when did you get interested in cartooning?

Jerry: I started drawing before I could write. It was always cartoons.

Rob: Who were some of your earliest influences?

Jerry: I really didn't have any. There were a few cartoons I liked but nothing I really followed...until The Farside came along.

Rob: I think we can all relate to that. Tell me, what type of pen and paper do you use?

Jerry: I don't use pen or ink. I use a mechanical pencil on typing paper, then I scan in and use Photoshop.

Rob: Sneaky move. Sure looks like ink to me. Speaking of Photoshop, what are your thoughts about using the computer to color or edit your cartoons?

Jerry: The computer has made my life a lot easier! 99% of my cartoons are done in color, including the
cartoons I do for Playboy Magazine. I can't believe there are still cartoonists who won't embrace technology.
There's even cartoonists who still don't have websites.

Rob: So, what are you working on these days?

Jerry: I've been working on strips to send to the syndicates. I love rejections:O)

Rob: Any upcoming projects?

Jerry: I'm having a giant website made, offering thousands of my cartoons for sale. I'd like to start selling my
work on eBay.

Rob: Finally, in a nutshell, what is your philosophy on cartooning?

Jerry: I think the powers to be, syndicates and newspaper editors are idiots. Cartoonists think syndications is the end-all for a cartoonist, well, it's not. It's only one part of cartooning. I do cartoons for websites, newspapers, greeting card companies, magazines, newsletters, etc... But, for some reason, everyone thinks that ONLY syndicated cartoonists are REAL cartoonists. WRONG! It's the freelancer, in my opinion, who is the real cartoonist.

Rob: Not that you have an opinion. Finally, what's your most memorable experience in cartooning?

Jerry: President Bill Clinton mentioned one of my cartoons in a USA Today Article.

Rob: Thanks, Jerry.

Jerry: Can I go now?

Latest Techno Wonder from WacomBy Cartoonist Rob Thomas

Wacom has upped the ante once again with the unveiling of the new Cintiq 12wx, a new line of graphics tablet that marries the Cintiq interactive pen display with the portable goodness and size of the Intuos 3.

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Retailing at $999, it's definitely something to consider in 2008.

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Being a Wacom user myself, I can tell that these babies are not only miraculous time-savers, but excellent tools for drawing, coloring and editing artwork, especially cartoons.

Americas First CartoonBy Cartoonist Rob Thomas

The first cartoon published in America was a political cartoon created by Ben Franklin titled 'Join or Die'. It was first published in his Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9th, 1754 to support his plan for colonial union presented at the Albany Congress.



'Join or Die' is a woodcut showing a snake severed into 8 pieces, with each segment representing a British American colony or region. At the time, there was a superstition that a snake which had been cut into pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.

Also interesting it the fact that Ben Franklin also founded the Saturday Evening Post, America's oldest magazine, which is known for it's famous cartoons.

World's First Animated FilmBy Cartoonist Rob Thomas

If you've never heard of Emile Cohl before, you're in for a real treat.

Emile Cohl (1857-1938) was a French caricaturist, cartoonist, toy inventor and animator best known for creating the first fully animated film, fantasmagorie (1908).

A very entertaining, short film devised in a 'stream of consciousness' style, fantasmagorie was composed of 700 stick-figure drawings, each of which was double-exposed, and has a running time of nearly two minutes. Filmed with black lines on white paper, Cohl later reversed the negative in order to achieve the effect of white chalk on a blackboard.


The making of 'Fantasmagorie' was an arduous process, during which Cohl placed a drawing on a lightbox, photographed it, then traced it on the the next sheet with slight changes, and repeated the process until finished.

By the way, the title refers to the 'fantasmograph', which was a mid-nineteenth century lantern which projected ghostly images that floated across the walls.

Minorities in Cartoons, Part 1-The DrawingBy Cartoonist Rob Thomas

In recent years, I've been contacted by many magazine editors requesting that I add more minorities in my cartoons. I was immediately presented with a host of problems, and some serious challenges.

First of all, how does a magazine cartoonist draw a minority? It's one thing to create a detailed color illustration or portrait, where the artist can paint precise facial features and subtle skin tones, but magazine cartooning is basically art in shorthand and a cartoonist doesn't have the luxury of detail.

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Because of this lack of detail, magazine cartoonists have a long tradition of relying on visual props (often stereotypical) such as canes to depict the elderly, striped uniforms to denote prisoners, and lightbulbs overhead to display ideas.

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Let's take, for example, a Mexican. Yes, I could draw the obvious sombrero, poncho and mustache, but then I'd be accused of stereotyping (and rightly so), especially if the cartoon takes place in a setting other than Mexico (ie. a business meeting).

The same goes with an Indian (either kind), Middle Easterner or Jew. Ruling out stereotyping, drawing minorites is a somewhat difficult task. My solution is to embrace the stereotypes and not make a big deal out of them. Simply draw people from India wearing a sari, or a Middle Easterner sporting a head wrap, but don't make the joke about that.

I've been asked about the use of Asians in cartoons. Besides drawing the typical thin or slanted eyes, which can often be mistaken for squinting (see below), there's no real way to pull off an Asian likeness in cartooning. You're probably saying "Wait a minute, what about Anime? Those guys draw Asians all the time". That's true, but Anime is much closer to illustration than magazine cartooning, where most of us draw eyes as mere dots.

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My final example is the use of African Americans. Frankly, it's fairly easy to depict a black person simply because of the skin color and uniquely curled hair, which comes across well in cartoonland. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to accomplish unless the publication accepts cartoons in color or greywash.

This entire subject is an extremely sensitive one, and as a white guy I realize that I'm going out on a limb just addressing the very issue. Things were a lot easier when I could simply poke fun at white guys with impunity.

Now, I've got to poke fun at everyone, and that's going to be a real challenge. In fact, it's the subject of my next post.

Same Caption, Different CartoonBy Cartoonist Rob Thomas

You've probably heard of caption contests, such as the one offered by The New Yorker Magazine, where a captionless cartoon is published and readers compete to write the winning gagline.

Maybe they should offer the opposite - Publish the gagline first, and then allow cartoonists to compete by sending in the most appropriate drawing.

Hey, just a thought.
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