How to become a cartoonist

We all love cartoons, be it Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Suppandi, Mowgli and many more. These are created by cartoonists. Here is all that you need to know to pursue a career in this field.

A cartoonist's work is to draw cartoons for newspapers, magazines and digital mediums and entertain, create awareness, and educate people.  They draw political, corporate, advertising, comic and sports cartoons. Cartoonists can work with those who write stories and captions or can write them all themselves. Cartoons can be designed with a pen, pencil, charcoal, or computer software. So, if you are talented and enjoy making caricatures to amuse people, this is a good career option.

Skills needed

Creativity, attention to detail and a good understanding of the art world are crucial to become a cartoonist. Other qualities required are the ability to draw humans/animals etc and a fair amount of sense of humour to keep the drawings enjoyable.

“One must possess the flair to depict things in their distinctive style. A keen interest in a variety of topics is required to form your own opinion and ideas. Imaginative power to come up with concepts, ideas, and themes and of course, enthusiasm to read, write, listen, and learn,” states cartoonist Satish Acharya.

Cartoonist Nagendra Babu adds. “One must practise a lot to produce original visual content regularly. Self-learning and continuous upgrading is the key to success. Cartoonists are expected to find humour in everyday things surrounding them, so practise drawing human expressions and behaviours, common scenes of the market, station animals, furniture, etc. Learn to spin a personal comic strip of human idiosyncrasies.”

As with any other field, passion and dedication must stand by you for a long-term career.

 “To be successful, a cartoonist should always meet deadlines and clients may request cartoons at short notice. Develop your distinctive style that will help you in your career," says Nagendra Babu.

Academics

Many renowned Indian cartoonists such as R K Laxman, Mario Miranda, and many others are self-taught. Good drawing skills taught in art schools add value. However, going to college for a professional degree will give one excellent exposure. Today there are various diplomas, certificate courses and degrees that can help a cartoonist in their career. 

One can do a course in drawing, painting, illustration, cartooning, comic arts, graphic designing, fine arts or animation. Cartoonists who want to work in movies, video games or animated television programmes should pursue courses in animation, video, and/or films. Knowledge of graphic art and software is a must nowadays to be successful as a cartoonist.

The typical path is to first have a portfolio of your cartoons, across mediums and styles. Put them on your website, blog, or on a folder and then approach the kind of industry you are interested in.

Areas of employment

A cartoonist can work as an editorial cartoonist, a caricaturist or a comic book artist. You can work full-time or part-time but most employers allow you to freelance so you can network and get more assignments once you have a steady base.

A cartoonist can also design posters, graphic novels, T-shirts, greeting cards, etc. An editorial cartoonist is employed in newspapers and magazines. But today there are plenty of opportunities in the field of advertising, animation, and multimedia. Textbooks also require cartoons for refreshing relief or to illustrate a point better.

The demand for cartoonists in India is growing due to the progress of animation and multimedia. Cartoonists are needed for TV channels, web portals, social media marketing firms, cinemas, etc. Storyboarding is one area where cartoonists have an edge with their ability to visualise perspectives as well as layouts.

“Today media is mostly about the audio-visual experience, be it print where graphics/visuals occupy a huge space to tell a story, or TV/cinema, OTT or social media. With the popularity of AI-generated visuals, the individual style/strength of an artist is highly valued. There is a huge opportunity, though the journey is more challenging than ever. Patience, persistence and hard work can take you far,” concludes Acharya.