Cartooning

    I got an email today from Charles Wiley, a friend that  I went to school with.  He sent me this cartoon that was drawn back in our high school days, and he wondered who drew it and asked if I did. 

    Yep, it was me.

    Back in elementary school I spent a lot of time reading Mad Magazine, and I especially admired one of their cartoonists--Don Martin.  I spent lots of hours copying the way that he drew his characters.  The “Don Martin” influence (particularly the face and shoes) are pretty obvious on the cartoon above.  Now that I think about it, maybe the flies are his too, but I don’t remember.  Little did I know that that my youthful copying of his cartoon characters would have any impact on my later life.

    Whenever I am introduced to anyone in our town, I am usually introduced as, “the person who draws the cartoons in the newspaper.”  Actually a few months ago, my cartooning workload doubled when I began to do cartoons for both of our local papers.  I have been doing the cartoons in the weekly paper regularly since the early 1980’s,  That is a lot of cartoons!  I also make a calendar every year that features my cartoons.

    Because I have been drawing cartoons for 45 years, the actual drawing doesn’t take me very long, its the coming up with ideas, that is the hard part.  I mostly do cartoons about things that local people can relate to--mosquitoes, weather, mice, etc., but every so often I get so mad at what is going on politically that I do a political cartoon.  

    I now draw the cartoon using a thin line marker, I scan the drawing into the computer where I put a box around it, write out the caption, and shade it.  I used have to submit the cartoon on paper, then later on a floppy disk, now I just send it as an attachment on an email.  Technology had made it all a lot simpler.

    It was nice to be reminded of my early attempts at cartooning.  Now it is a nice way to earn a bit of extra money.  Below is one of my present day cartoons.

View my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca