Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

This is a question cartoonists are asked more than anything related to technique. That is a pretty revealing statistic. I think it points to the idea being more important than the execution. Not that an ability to draw isn't important, but a marginally drawn funny concept can fly where an exceptionally drawn unfunny idea will take a nosedive.

Some cartoonists think visually, so their idea session will involve multiple doodles. Others think verbally, so they may jot down words or phrases. Some, like myself, do a little of both.

For gags developed visually, the punchline is usually the drawing that first comes to mind. The following strip is an example of a visual punchline...

Verbally developed gags can begin with a word or phrase as the punchline... Then, some gags are a combination of the two approaches...all images copyright J.Pittman, 2004

More to come on the steps in creating humor...

Don't Miss the Woods for the Trees

I just finished judging the magazine illustration categories for the Florida Magazine Association's 2008 Charlie Awards. I used their criteria for design, creativity, execution, etc., but also an important factor to me was how well the illustrations visually communicated the topic. That, after all, is the objective of magazine illustration.

My degree is in architecture, but a good part of my design school experience involved labs in visual communication. It's sometimes easy to get sidetracked from that objective when focusing too much on technique. Some of the entries I judged, while technically superior in rendering, did not communicate the essence of the article they were to illustrate.

I've found it helpful to allow a preliminary sketch to lie around for a day or so and then come back to it with a fresh eye to see if it conveys the message it's supposed to. A gag, particularly, can seem so logical to you when you're constructing it, because you know the visual punchline in advance. But sometimes a fresh look a day later can reveal that you've missed the proper set-up. What's really embarrassing is when you find out you not only missed the woods for the trees, but you weren't even in the forest!