Andertoons Cartoon Blog

Not Quite Peachy Keane

I don't remember how I came across these recaptioned Family Circus, but they're disturbingly funny. (I wonder if anyone's done this with New Yorker stuff yet?)

Technorati Tags: cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, comic strips, Flickr

My Gag Reflex

One of the disturbing things about being a cartoonist is you never really stop being on the lookout for gags.

Often my wife and I will be discussing our days and she'll notice I'm drifting off into what she calls "cartoon land." What's happened is she's said something that triggered my joke reflex (not to be confused with joke reflux, which I'm glad to say there's now medication for), and I'm working out the joke.

I'm sure it's gotta be annoying, but, God love 'er, she puts up with it.

Anyway, the other day I was talking with someone about a recent death. They said that the doctor had given the person three months to live.

And my mind was off...

Doctor holding shotgun to patient - "I said you had three months to live, and, by God, I meant it."

Kinda macabre, and I feel weird about the circumstances in which it came about, but I like the gag.

Welcome to the inside of my weird little noggin.

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

Chocolate Cartoon - Part 4

OK, I think this is the final final version. (Let's hope!)

I'm gonna consider this finished. But I really enjoyed all of the input!

Of course, "cartooning by committee" like this wouldn't be prudent normally, but it was a lot of fun to see so many different ideas!

While this is the last of the design/art phase blogs, this is by no means the end of the blogs about this. Stay tuned!

And thanks again everyone!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

Andertoons Radio

A while ago I was contacted by a company asking if I were interested in advertising on radio.

To be honest, I'm not sure it would work well, and it's probably cost prohibitive, but the guy offered to send me over a spec spot to listen to:

Click here to listen!

LOL! Isn't that goofy?!

Not the ad itself, that's actually very well made, but it's weird hearing an Andertoons commercial.

And, is it just me, or does the end part ("This is a good place for an Andertoon!") sound like the guy is opening a refrigerator door?

Anyway, it'd be lousy of me to put this spec spot on my blog and not give a link to the folks who put it together for me.

Linky link link!

Technorati Tags: advertising, andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

Chocolate Cartoon - Part 3

On advice from a few readers, and my wife, I'm trying a slight change in the cartoon:

I took the face off the bar and just have text there now. I think it's an improvement.

But now that I look at it, it looks like it says "HERS" like one of those His/Hers towel sets you see on the old cartoons.

Maybe tighten the text to see more of the second "H"?

I dunno... Any thoughts? I think I'm thinking too much about this...

(BTW, here's Chocolate Cartoon Part 1 & Part 2)

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

No Wonder Ken Digs Her

This from Australia's Herald Sun:

A 1959 Barbie doll dressed in a zebra-print swimming costume and sunglasses sold for nearly £3000 ($7585) today at a British auction of about 4000 of the toys.

What does this have to with cartoons, you ask?

Barbie's looks were inspired by Bild Lilli, a 1950s comic strip prostitute created for German newspaper Bild.

Oh my...

Technorati Tags: cartoons, comic strips, toys

New York Flickr Set

Say, if you didn't see enough of my trip to New York, or you just want a closer look at some of the pics, I put up a Flickr set of about 55 pics.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, Flickr, New York

Things I Hate To Draw

I like to draw cartoons. And it's a good thing, because it's my bread and butter.

But even someone who loves to draw, and does a fair amount of it, finds some subjects they just hate.

Stuff I hate drawing:

1. Horses - Mine always look like sausages with stick legs.
2. Orchestras - I used to be a musician, so I get lost in the details. Plus there's a crapload to draw.
3. Cars - I always have to go out to the driveway, take a picture of the car, and work from that. And it still looks awful.
4. Wolves - It's had to find the right balance between a dog, and Wile E. Coyote.
5. Bananas - You have to get the curves and straight lines just right, or it looks like one of my horses without the stick legs.
6. Skeletons - I can do it, and make it look pretty good, but it's gotta be a really killer skeleton joke to justify the time.

I'm sure there's more, but that's some of the worst.

There's plenty of artists that read this blog. What about you guys? What do you hate to draw?

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

Chocolate Cartoon - Part 2

You might remember that last week I was working on a chocolate bar themed cartoon.

Here's the final art for it:

Normally I do my standard gray wash, but this one just needed to be line art.

I think the biggest issue for me on this one was the face on the chocolate bar. How much of the lettering to remove?

After about a half hour of playing with it, I think it came out OK. It''s there for anthropomorphic purposes, but the lettering is still clear.

I also normally crop a little closer to the characters, but there's a reason for that too.

Anyway, I'll have more to tell you about this cartoon later... Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons

Welcome!

Today I'm proud to be Typepad's featured blog. I'm on their homepage with a nice little write-up, and I'm assuming some new folks are stopping by to check me out. (Regular readers please make them feel welcome and be on your best behavior. I'm looking at you, Lynch.)

Anyway, for those of you just joining us, my name is Mark Anderson and I'm a gag cartoonist in the Chicago area.

Right now my work is in your local magazine rack in Forbes, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest. I also work with a number of greeting card companies.

I'll keep this short and get back to more substantive blogging, but before I go, please also check out my website, Andertoons.com. There's a ton of cartoons, as well as several different daily cartoon RSS feeds.

(Bonus for TypePad users - Add a daily cartoon to your blog sidebar with a few clicks. It's easy!)

Technorati Tags: andertoons, blogs, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, TypePad Daily Cartoon Widget