Daily Cartoon
Entries Tagged as 'school'
School Cartoons
Wow, the summer is really winding down quickly. And while I'm trying to cram as much relaxation in as possible before the new school year begins, like most families we're also busily stockpiling pencils, notebooks & glue sticks.
So to ease us in more gently, here's a few fun school cartoons:
I had a lot of fun imagining what a philosophy student might look like for this cartoon. Plaid shirt, long hair, scruffy stubble.. And the professor has the requisite elbow patches. But now that I look at it the office could be a lot messier, and someone definitely needs some glasses. To paraphrase what someone once said about writing (I think...), you never so much finish a cartoon as you do abandon it.
This is probably one of my most popular school cartoons. I like the joke, and the art turned out fine, but what ended up being the hard part of this was coming up with a simple sentence for the joke to hinge on. My wife was an English minor and I ran tons of possibilities past her until we hit on this one.
It took me years and years and years before I finally figured out how to draw a dog's back legs correctly. Sure, it look simple, but it never really clicked for me until this year. Funny how that works sometimes.
OK, this is a bit of a nerdy tech joke about people hating, and I mean deeply hating, Comic Sans. For years I saw it as a pleasant enough font, but now even I have to admit that it's pretty lame.
This also came out of examining my son's handwriting, which apparently they don't teach anymore in school. As someone who worked consciously for years on writing not just legibly but kind of artistically, I'm a little disappointed that this basic skill is being put on the back burner. Sigh...
OK, well that's it for this little sampling. Feel free to check out all of my school cartoons here!
Teacher Cartoons
You know it's not too much longer and summer's going to be over and parents everywhere will alternately cry and dance for joy as their kids head back to school.
It's especially dramatic at my house because my wife is a teacher. So one day the house is filled with family, and the next it's crickets chirping.
Anyway, with school just over the horizon I thought I'd share some of my favorite teacher cartoons! Enjoy:
I don't know exactly how apples apparently became the preferred bribe for educators everywhere, but I'm betting that they've lost their luster. BTW, for those students of my wife, here's a hint: forget the coffee and go the chocolate route. Works like a charm!
I remember meeting with my kids preschool teachers a ways back and examining their scissors skills. I had no idea there even was such a thing! I've heard my wife discuss fine and gross motor skills, but I had no idea that I'd be looking closely at partially hacked construction paper with other adults and creating a cutting improvement strategy.
Anyway, I'm also a bit of a tech nerd, so this cartoon wasn't far behind.
I know for a fact that this cartoon is very popular with teachers, but none of them will ever admit it.
Again with the apples! To be fair this cartoon isn't really a stretch to get to, but I did put a lot of thought into the look of the classroom. (This is where having a teacher for a wife really comes in handy!) There's the alphabet strip above the whiteboard, the curvy corrugated border on the bulletin board, the calendar... None of which are strictly necessary, and I normally try to imply backgrounds more, but it was too much fun to resist.
Well, there you go. Just a few quick examples of my teacher cartoons. If you'd like to see more, feel free to click here and browse to your heart's content.
Bonus! Here's q short video of teacher cartoons I did a while back:
Supervillain School
Looking to polish your glower? Want to learn to better manager your minions? Evil laugh lacking?
Then head to any one of these terrific supervillain schools and you'll be screaming "I SHALL RULE THE WORLD" with confidence before you can say "CURSE YOU!"
(Thanks, io9!) School Cartoons
It's just about back-to-school time and, there’s tons of A+ school cartoons here at Andertoons!
(BTW, you can embed cartoons on your blog too!)
Cartooning Q & A (To Mr. Sergi’s Class)
Recently I received an email from 5th grade art teacher, Mr. Sergi. He said he does a unit on cartoons and his students are curious about tools of the trade, career info, publishing norms, etc...
I've actually meant to do a post like this for a while, so for kids out there interested in cartooning as a career, here's the quick and dirty on my process and experience:
Materials
Every artist is different and I recommend that you play with as many pencils, pens, papers, or whatever as much as you can. It probably took me a good two years to find the tools I use now, but putting in that time is part of finding your style. I know cartoonists using pencil, crayon, ink & pen, and ball point on papers ranging from watercolor to copier quality.
But, since you asked, I use Faber-Castell Pitt brush pens and Prismacolor cool gray markers on Borden & Riley bleedproof marker paper. I still do all of the art the old fashioned way, but of course I use my computer for scanning, cleanup, and playing Hordes of Orcs.
Writing
You of course need to be a decent artist to be a cartoonist, but even more important is the writing. Good writing can carry bad art, but not the other way around. Study comedy and figure out how it works. And once you've done that, edit yourself well. Brevity is wit.
Dimensions
"How big should I draw my cartoons?" is a question every beginning cartoonist asks. If you're looking to be a comic strip cartoonist, you'll want to look at the dimensions of current strips and size that up as needed. For gag cartooning (what I do), or web cartooning, there's really no preset dimensions to worry about. Just draw as much or as little as you need to get the joke across.
Art
Everyone's style is going to be different, and I don't think you necessarily need to go to art school to be a cartoonist, but you do need to draw well enough so your cartoon reads quickly and effectively. The best advice I can give is to draw constantly; it doesn't get any simpler than that. The more you draw, the more happy accidents occur and your individual style emerges. Draw, draw, draw, eat a sandwich, then keep drawing.
Markets
Newspapers are having a rough time of it, and magazines aren't doing a lot better. Where I used to make most of my living selling to traditional print, most of my income now comes from selling my cartoons online. Where will cartoonists earn their livings in the near future? It's hard to say, but don't believe anyone who tells you you can't earn a living at it. Do good work, do a lot of it, and keep an open mind.
So that's cartooning in a nutshell for me. I hope you and your teacher get something you can use out of this, and I wish you all kinds of luck cartooning. I can't think of a job that's better than drawing funny pictures all day.
