The Concept Old and New Used in Cartooning

Now in cartoon writing, (which I love and that's how I started writing for about three years, strictly writing ideas for cartoonists) - there's a concept called Old and New. More used in cartooning than in any other area but you can use in sketches. You simply take an old situation and then you take new inventions, new concepts, new technology and you plug them into that old situation. You have a caveman painting something on the wall. That's the old picture. What are new concepts or technology or things associated with painting. You just run through the list. Wearing a French beret (humorous but not really a cartoon.) That doesn't really work. Painting with a paint brush doesn't work. Painting with a roller - so there's one concept. What else, spray painting. So you have a caveman spray painting the wall painting or using a Paint by Numbers set. So you've got the bison being 1, the sun being 2 - that's a simple basic technique.

When I understood the technique, I wasn't any funnier. I simply had a process of creating material. I did that for about three years. I have been published in every major publication for cartoons except the New Yorker. Oh, I used to love Charles Adams of the New Yorker and his macabre sense of humor. And I would send him stuff. And he fortunately loved my stuff but he couldn't get it past the editor - not once. That would have been a double header. If I sold him, I would have gotten a Charles Adams credit AND a New Yorker credit. Now one of my students is named Gary Gannt who has gone on to form the group the Looneys, teaches classes in cartoon writing and publishes cartoons. I think he has cracked the New Yorker 5 or 6 times. I have never been able to crack the New Yorker. But I have been in every other major publication including: The Wall Street Journal, Lady's Home Journal, Red Wolf, Saturday Evening Post, Reader Digest and no drawings - just the ideas.

So I started doing that for about three years. Trudy, The Lockhorns, Marmaduke - you just get a pay check. And marketing, sometimes you wait 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years for money - in the cartoon business.

Did cartoon writing for about 3 years because I saw George Lichty's cartoon at the end of 1969, early 70's and started writing cartoon ideas. After about 3 years I had ideas that I couldn't quite work into cartoons and I realized they were essentially more like one lines than actually cartoons and I got into writing jokes...

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