THE IDEA
The drawing is only half of a cartoon, perhaps less. The rest is the ‘idea’.
Where do ideas come from?
Albania, Turkey, Mars ? Who knows. It comes with practice, and this practice can be learnt.
Take a topic. At this stage keep it basic. Eg it may be a word, which you will sit and focus on thinking of situations that may be amusing. Don’t at the moment try to make a ‘joke’. Just visualize amusing situations, then scribble down the idea in pencil or felt-nib.
For example, these few desert island scenes:
- Take a word, describing a characteristic eg nervous, sad, embarrassed, sleepy, drunk, in love, impatient, scared, envious, clumsy, nosey, boastful….etc and combine it with a thing or place or situation; eg cricket, shopping, cooking, golf, toys, TV, work, the computer, a party, travel…etc.
- Just concentrate on the subject, and you’ll usually find ideas will ‘pop up’. If you go blank, move on.
- Make up your own subjects.
- Try putting subjects in odd situations.
- Try setting a scene eg cricket, in the past – like caveman days , or in the future.
- Have fish talking about TV, or the stock market or school, etc.
- Turning these situations into ‘jokes’ with words is quite easy once you’ve taught yourself to create odd situation combinations.
- If you’re using words, keep them simple and to a minimum.
GOOD LUCK