Lesson 1: Making editorial cartoons is much more personal that I originally thought.
I realise that every cartoonist and/or comic artist out there has their own political viewpoints and styles of humour. It's fantastic and it makes for really exciting reading. I've got my favourites that I like to check and get inspired by. But I've also realised that when I'm making my own cartoons, I've got to be sure that it's going to make me laugh. Or effect me in some way. From the initial idea through to completion, I need to have a personal connection with everything that I make; otherwise it becomes bland and uninteresting. And following a dull idea through to a final product can be torturous for me.
Here's an example from last week: At 3:30am, the night before I had to make this cartoon, my wife Briony had to be rushed to the emergency room. Everything is alright now, both with Briony and the little kidlet. (No need to worry.) But that day, we were both sleep deprived and really worried. I sat with her in her hospital room and tried to work on my cartoon. Japan had just had its first nuclear power plant explosion. At that moment, I felt a sort of connection with them. Not that our problems were anywhere near what they were facing. But I did feel like Queensland, Christchurch, Japan and even the two of us in that hospital room were putting on a brave face in the wake of something unexpected and scary.
All I wanted was for someone, a doctor, a midwife, a nurse, to tell us that everything was gonna be alright. Then I thought that Japan probably needed to hear something very similar; especially from someone else who had recently been through disaster. And that's how this cartoon came about.
Lesson 2: Proofreading isn't just for words.
Gaddafi is an evil bully. That's about as simple as I can put it. I wanted to do a cartoon on him, but never had a good hook until this video went viral in the news about a schoolkid in Sydney unleashing all hell back on a little bully that was picking on him. (I'm not the only one to make this connection, either!)
I was pretty happy with this cartoon and sent it off to the newspaper. About an hour afterwards, I had Briony look at the cartoon and she noticed what looked like a hidden word. It was way too late to call the newspaper and change it.
I assure everyone out there that this was completely unintentional! I remember being taught in my illustration class in college to always check to make sure you haven't left any subliminal messages in the artwork.
I'm just glad no one seemed to notice on the day of publication. Really dodged a bullet with that one!
