
Mark Anderson

The coffee table

My first sale

My first website

Embarassing childhood photo
In 1997, having graduated with a music degree, Mark Anderson moved, married his college sweetheart, and landed his first real job selling screws. Finding a music career impractical, and the business world uninspiring, he began drawing cartoons at the living room coffee table in his spare time.
He had always loved cartoons, and had contributed to his high school and college newspapers. The creative outlet was exactly what he was looking for, and he began submitting cartoons to magazines.
It was a rough start, but Anderson refined his talents and soon sold his first cartoon. Seeing himself in print, and check in hand, Anderson set about reinventing himself as a cartoonist.
Over the years, his day jobs changed, but his cartoon routine stayed the same. Working early mornings, lunch hours, and late into the night, he continued drawing, submitting, and building his website, Andertoons.com. After their first child was born, Mark quit his day job to become a stay-at-home dad and draw cartoons full time.
Mark now runs Andertoons from his studio, where he sits at a drafting table. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife, son, daughter, dog, cats, and one well-used coffee table.
Cartoonist Mark Anderson lives in the Chicago area with his wife, their children, two cats, a dog and several dust bunnies.
Having Mark's cartoons on every blog post has literally transformed the traffic on my blog. Around the time I started using cartoons, my per-article average Twitter RTs doubled and my RSS subscriber count grew at a visibly higher rate.
Now, with over 33,000 RSS subscribers and often getting 100s of RTs, I can't imagine not using them, and people comment all the time about them.Jason Cohen
A Smart Bear