I had promised to all you cartoon-lovers that he had offered to grace my blog another time. And even though it's his birthday, and the gift should be from me to him, he decided to defy tradition and send a gift my way in the form of this post.
I asked him if he'd like to share his thoughts about his art as he looks forward to the year ahead, and he very kindly sent me his words of wisdom. There's a lot to learn from what he says here. Read on and do visit his latest comic strip here!
After running into Toni for the second time in as many days, I began to think about the value of a picture. Knowing Toni is a photo buff at heart, I often wonder how she or any other photographer sees the world. As a cartoonist of ill-repute, my eyes are often my camera as I picture my comic layout in my head like a photog would. Framing, lighting, mood, expression, texture, all the things that make up a good picture.
But I have to add storylines, dialog and consecutive character positioning to build what could be a moving set of images. But it all starts with the pictures (and not the voices) inside my head. And the pictures are often the result of ideas that stem from random discussions. Like the one my wife and I had about clothing and seamstresses that led to me laughing out loud in the car as I cobbled together the dialog and frames for a new comic.So my advice to you if you are the creative type, take as inspiration the work of others, the words of others, and even the sounds of others, then shade them with your rose-colored glasses and go from there. You may produce great works, mediocre, and even questionable work, but at least you will have produced something, and not just consumed. You'll feel better for it. I know I do. Just look at my Stanko & Tibor comic to see over years worth of my highly unique humor.
Happy Birthday, Jon!
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