NateCreates.com

Only 361 Days to Go

On Monday when I started my political cartoons on PixelMarx.com, I felt pretty comfortable with what I’d done. However there’s something strange about posting a cartoon everyday - and that is you learn and improve. Now 4 days later (example above) , I’m tempted to delete my first attempt. It’s that bad.

This brings to question the impulse of a student to want to rush into the marketplace with their work. I’m as guilty as anyone in this area. What do other’s think? How do you know you’re there, or is it better to kick off, splash, and try to swim.

Lessons Learned

If you’re considering political cartooning yourself, I have a few keys I’ve learned in these 4 days (and I’m sure I’ll learn more over the next 361):

• Pay attention to the concept. This is where it all resides. My first attempt I just started drawing.

• Tell the whole story in one scene. This one’s tough, especially with political cartooning, as it usually requires the audience to bring an understanding of current events.
• Always try to do better. Listen to criticism even when it hurts.

This summer I enrolled in a graphic novel course to force myself to finish one of my long-time goals - to create a graphic novel. Unfortunately I’m finding I may not be as geared toward that sort of thing as I thought. However, I am enjoying the idea of producing a much shorter, serialized comic. I thought I’d share my first attempt, Monkey in the Machine [PDF 569K]..

It’s only 2 pages - which I’m finding is ideal - and it’s drawn entirely within Illustrator, which I’m hoping designers/illustrators can recognize, as that’s sort of the point.