Rick London On Cartooning
Over the past decade, a good many people ask me how to get into cartooning, or some similar artistic endeavor, especially if, like me, art is not their strongest skill. Before I entered “the trade”, I too, was curious about how a number seemed to “sneak in” these so called “glamor-fields” and many couldn’t even draw a straight line.
Yves St. Laurent, also not an artist, never drew one of his designs and was the only major designer not to do so, yet remains a household word even after retirement. Walt Disney was a fair artist but knew others were better so farmed that out. Disney was also so broke when he conceived his Magic Kingdom idea, he couldn’t even afford art supplies, but he could afford paper clips and “molded Mickey, Donald, Goofy and the gang out of them.
Obstacles and disappointments will become your “friends”. Unless you won the lottery or your uncle as rich as Bill Gates left you the entire empire, you are going to be relying on your own resourcefulness, blood, sweat, tears, and surrounding yourself with talents bigger than yours, who believe in your vision. Disney had a disdain for bankers and wrote about it often. I can see his side of the story, but on the other hand, can see the banker’s point of view.
If a man walked into my bank off the street asking for a couple million to launch a Magic Kingdom run by a mouse named “Mickey” I might have thought twice as well. The reality is, unless very well-established, art projects and banking do not mix very well. This is just a sad reality, and blood, sweat, and tears, are more often than not your financiers.
There is no one correct one path in entering cartooning or any other artistic field. There are some “good weaponry of preparedness” that might help see you through it. Of course education is number one, either from an institution or books. Though it seems formal education is the better instructor, I have seen successful people get it from books. Find a mentor or mentors and get as much information as possible. Don’t know someone who has been in the field? Google names of famous people in your field. You would be surprised how many of the biggest of the big, are the friendliest and most helpful.
Snoopy creator Charles Schulz was tremendously spent his valuable time with me. So several other single-panel offbeat cartoon creators such as “Rubes” creator Leigh Rubin, “Speed Bump” creator Dave Coverly, and creator of “Close To Home”, Jon McPherson.
Feeling trepidation about calling on the masters? Contact the S.B.A. (Small Business Administration) and they will put you in touch with a SCORE mentor or mentors. They have some of the best. I did a bit of both, utilizing the SBA resources after I decided to get into product manufacturing of cartoon gifts and collectibles.
The bottom line is this. You may not become “an overnight success”. It surely did not happen to me. I can’t even begin to list all the obstacles, challenges, learning experiences, strange jobs I had to hold, etc. to keep me, and Londons Times Cartoons afloat while in the learning process. I can look back a decade, and decidedly say, “It was not only worth it, I would do it again in a a split second.
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