How can I become a successful cartoonist?

How can I become a successful cartoonist? This is a question I once asked myself, before I became a successful cartoonist. Many "professional" cartoonists will try to tell you how difficult it is to make a decent living from drawing cartoons of a hilarious nature, but they are wrong.

People of all ages love cartoons. Any cartoons. Any age. People of as young as 10 or 12 love cartoons, although these are technically children, they are still people. Sometimes older people love cartoons as well, unless they are a little old and doddery and don't really understand anything anymore, or perhaps they have just lost their glasses.

People who have lost their glasses don't generally like cartoons, but rest assured that once they find their glasses again, or get a new prescription they love them again.

As a cartoonist you can draw all sorts of cartoons. I like to create unique cartoons using a unique drawing method that other cartoonists don't use, as I don't want to be like other cartoonists with their swimming pools and helicopters - I want to be unique, I want to be me!

I could spend hours and hours learning how to copy drawer cartoons just like other cartoonist, but I want people to be able to look at one of my unique and universally hilarious cartoons and just know it's something I've inflicted on them. This is important to me, as I don't want people to have to read the cartoon and then read a signature of who drew it. People are busy, and if they have to read a signature, they might not have time to read the cartoon (or look at it, if it is a visual cartoon).

What would the point of just having time to look at a signature, and not having time to look at the cartoon, especially if you are in a dreadful hurry to get out of the house to buy some new glasses so you can then appreciate cartoons your mind goes to mush and then you can't.

So in summery, people love cartoons. It doesn't matter how you create them, they will buy them. With a bit of luck they might buy more cartoons in the future - but don't fall for the old cliche of old cartoonists with helicopters. They are just protecting their business. They don't want new people to become cartoonists, because they have swimming pools.

The meaning of life, and the naked washing up club.

I have often been asked what the point of it all is. Now I am no minstrel or smartie, but I do know that it's often the right course of action to do something different from time to time to challenge the spirit of the human being into doing something different.


I am of course talking about washing up in the nip. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, if you have a dishwasher they'd be little point - but we are not all middle class. Some of us don't even have a people carrier. Washing up with clothes on can be hazardous, especially when you are on your way out for an evenings entertainment at the local arts centre. Washing up in the nip can make things much better. It's a wonderful experience for everyone who isn't within sight of your scrubbing sponge.


Then there's having a dog. It's very important when you have a dog to walk it regularly. At least 5 times per day (depending on the size of it's legs). If you have a very small dog with short legs, then it might be better to walk it just once per day. Dogs cannot walk without you helping them, as they don't understand the concept of the green cross man, or how fast a Saab 900 Turbo is travelling through your estate (see, not middle class).


Well I hope that's helped many of you with the eternal struggle with the meaning of life and other big important questions. As usual I'd welcome any comments.

Salting Potato's.

I've been very busy these last few days with yet another fantastic commission that I can't tell you about for confidentiality reasons, and to be honest, the Girls Guides leader is quite intimidating.

Here's a cartoon I did to demonstrate how to subtlety do some hand shading that will impress your clients and customers. Look how the breast seem to be almost 3D. That can make the difference between a great cartoon and a very bad cartoon. 3D breasts.

This cartoon was  a rough draft for a customer that wanted some cartoons for his restaurant. Once I'd sent him the rough drafts, I never heard from him again. I expect his business was burnt to the ground by Animal Rights Activists or something. Pity. I'd drawn over 15 drawings like this. That's the trouble with being a cartoonist. You can spend 3 weeks working on something that comes nothing.

Drawing small cartoons is no fun at all.

I've decided that it was time that I decided to launch a highly successful strip cartoon series that will get published in many newspapers all over the world. I expect it will pay very well. At least £20 per day, per newspaper. Which could soon add up to a great deal of money.

The problem I have with drawing a newspaper strip every day for vast amounts of money, is that the size of the strips in newspapers, means it's quite difficult to draw at such a small size for newspapers comic strips.

It's not the humour or the drawing skills that is the problem. Just drawing something very small, with a very big brush pen. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was some sort of conspiracy to prevent people with large brush pens from selling cartoon comic strips for newspapers, and denying them a vast income of many £20 notes from each newspaper that would take the comic strip, if only they were drawn at a bigger size.

It's quite clearly madness. But I shall continue to spend most of my time drawing at least 4,000 strips, and then I'll send them out to see what the market thinks.

Wonderful gifts.

Well it's that time of year again, when many people know someone who's going to have a birthday or maybe a divorce or something to celebrate, and nothing says a celebration better than a wonderful personalised gift.

These days there are many kinds of personalised gifts one can buy for money for a loved one, or special friend, or even a member of your own family relation. You could buy them a shopping bag, or a toaster with their name printed on it, but would that really make them happy, and make them get you an even more expensive gift when it's your turn to have something bought for your for your birthday or celebration?

Probably not. The thing is when buying personalised gifts for people that might buy you a more expensive gift in return, or even for your Birthday, is that the personalised gift must look tasteful and expensive, even if it was actually quite cheap.

Personalised cartoons can make wonderful gifts that people will treasure for years to come, probably display on their walls or office walls if they are the sort of person that works in an office, or maybe their bathroom wall if they are unemployed lay-a-bouts (you may not want to buy anything for an unemployed lay-a-bout as it's highly unlikely they will ever buy you a gift in return and that would be a waste of money! No one likes out of date Hula-Hoops bought from the pound shop).

Finding a cartoonist to make you a personalised cartoon gift used to be quite difficult, but since the invention of the internet it's now easier than ever. All you have to do is open Google, or some such like search engine and search for "Leonard Gubbins Cartoonist" or a (very) similar phrase and you will find a cartoonist that will create something very special for as little as £20.

Try it. You may be pleasently surprised when you get something worth having back from the person that you bought the personalised cartoon back.

It's health & safety gone mad.

The other day I was walking down the street when I noticed that there was some signs that I should cross the road and start walking on the other side of the road, pavement. The sign was an effing great big hole in the road that some jobs worth had dug up apparently. But this wasn't enough. Alongside this natural 'sign' was a red & white barrier a flashing light or two and some traffic cones. How insulted I felt. The local council or whoever it was who dug the hole had decided for me that I wasn't intelligent enough to avoid a huge hole in the ground, and decided to make it bloody obvious that there was a great hole in the footpath.

Clearly all this health and safety nonesense had also prevented the workmen from gaining access to the hole, as no work was taking place that Sunday afternoon. Anything could have happened to that hole the whole time it was just left there, inviting vandals to perhaps fill it in, or throw some elderly people into it that they had just mugged, and because of all the warning signs and health and safety  - everyone would have been walking on the other side of the street and wouldn't have noticed the mountain of dead pensioners inside the hole.

I take great pride in my civic pride, so I was compelled to make a small physical protest to all this crazy health and safety nonsense. I removed one of the flashing amber lights, and I now use it in my back garden to warn the postman not to stand on the gravel where the dog likes to do his business. If I have prevented just one pensioner from being left in a hole for a whole weekend then my effort will have been worth it.

How to make people laugh at your business.

Business is a serious business and nothing more so now that business is in declining from the recession created by Gordon Brown in his last budget. I have some experience of business management and franchise operations ( over 8 months at Burger King alone!) so I feel well placed to advise business people about their businesses.

Firstly, it's important to understand why your business isn't doing so well. Could it be that what you are selling, or the service you are offering isn't suitable for the current ecomonic climate that we all find ourselves in right now? Perhaps you are a luxury goods provider, and people can't afford your luxury goods at the moment, because they have just lost their jobs. Maybe you should think of opening a pound shop on your premises until things pick up a bit?

Pound shops can be an excellent place to conduct business when people haven't got enough money and they need a cheap car cleaning spong and a multipack of hula hoops to see them through the dark days of the worst recession we've ever seen since the last one.

Changing your business is just one step you can take to avoid having to live like a common or garden chav, but while you are busy 'downsizing' your business to something more suited to the economic reality of life these days in post Soviet Britain, you also need to consider that no business can go from high class watch makers and jewellers, to a pound shop without some excellent publicity materials and promotion.

If someone in Angola wants to find a pound shop in Sheffield for instance, you want to get the very best possible search result in Google. It's no good having meta tags or keywords for Sheffield Pound Shop - as all the other pound shops in Sheffield will have gone for that obvious tag. No, what you need is something more specific, like for instances thus this, if your name is David Groat, then what you need is to be number 1 for the search term "david groat, no longer a high class watch maker and jeweller, but now a pound shop until things pick up a bit"

Using this sytem will guarantee you the number 1 spot for anyone anywhere in the whole world who wants to know where the best pound shop is in northern Britain. and searches for that term!

Alongside all of that there services which can be provided by any good popular SEO expert, you will need something eyecatching to attract people to your new pound shop (or whatever scummy type of business you decide to do until things pick up a bit). I suggest that something like a cartoon logo for your shop and publicity material would be a very good start.

Here is an few examples of the sort of cartoon logos that I can create for your business to see you through the recession, and avoid that sale of that much loved kidney.

I can be contacted for quotes for all such commissioned work via my normal contact email address (business email) leonard.gubbins@googlemail.com or HERE

I'm a poo stain advisor.

I'm often asked if there's any other special skills that I possess alongside all the wonderful talents that I also possess such as cartooning, sprititualism, drain and sink unblocker, search engine optimisation, world peace envoy, psychologist and drame coach. Well I'm also a fully qualified poo stain advisor. I'm thinking of setting up my own poo hot line to advise pet owners and those living with elderly relatives on the best approach to various stains and mis-haps on various floor surfaces.

Puppy poo is possibly the most common stain within the home. The best approach is to NOT PANIC. At the first signs of the puppy doing a poo it's very important to remove the puppy from the area (as the puppy might stand in the poo and spread it all over the house). I suggest that the puppy is taken outside and left there for some time to comtemplate it's actions. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: If you live in a 5th floor flat then DO NOT PUT THE PUPPY OUTSIDE. It will surely die, and while this will solve any future poo stain dramas, the sight of a five year old girl crying herself to sleep for months on end is not something I would want anyone else to go through.

Now to deal with the poo. How to deal with poo on carpet and how to deal with poo on a hard floor is entirely different. With one, you can sometimes just scrape, with the other you'll have to consider a commercially available cleaner.

What sort of poo is it? If it's a hard one then it might be possible to just pick it up and place it in a BIN OUTSIDE! This is very important. Do not place the poo in a waste paper basket in your office. You'll loose clients, take it from me! If it is a soft one then you might want to consider how well it matches the colour of the carpet before you start rubbing vigorously with your kitchen towel roll paper.

Well I hope that gives some hope to cartoonists having to deal with poo and other normal people who might have messy puppies. I can't go into detail about elderly relatives, as the wife has just informed me that my bath is ready, and "won't stay hot for very long".

Google is your friend.

I am often asked how I write such successful articles for the web/internet. Writing articles for the web is much easier than writing them for real life, as most of the readers do not have very high standards. It's a waste of time writing with proper grammers and spellings as no one will notice. A glut of spelling errors can actually enhance your prominance in Google, so sometimes it's benificial to spell well known words incorrectly, as then you'll be number #1 for that mis-spelled term within Google.

I have written many ghost articles and ghoul articles for other websites. If you are drifting around the web and you see a poorly written article on drain cleaning services, or mobility scooter hire, then it's probably written by me, or one of the team working here at Talent Free.

The most important consideration when writing for the web is how Google sees your article, and where it places it on the search results. Anything that appears more than 300 pages into a web search isn't going to get noticed at all, so there's no point to writing it.

If you have a web site and you'd like an article writing then I can help! My fees start from just £20 per hour, so as long as my computer doesn't crash, or I get chatting to Berol half way through working on it, a typical article on carpet warehouses could cost less than £50.

Contact me at leonard.gubbins@googlemail.com (business email address). There is no charge for sending an email.

The Cartoonist Club Of England.

People often ask me how they can get ahead in the highly competitive world of professional cartooning. Well, I have for some time being involved in the excellent CARTOON CLUB OF ENGLAND Which was established in February 2010 to help and support cartoonists, both amatuer and professional. It's a fun club (unlike some others that are stuffy and insist that you have some artistic capability). Even if you can't draw for toffee Then you are still welcome to join. The only joining requirement is the paying of the annual subscription of £20. For this, you get the right to display this splendid logo on your blog or website, regular FREE email newsletters, a twice yearly contest to win some Argos Vouchers (value depending on how many members we get) and of course advice and assistance to promote your work on this website.

Think of it as a bit like Rolfs Cartoon Club, but without the Austrailian. We will not allow Austrailians to ruin this club!

Dead convieniant.

As well as being a cartoonist, I also do 'fun' readings for the recently bereaved. Just send a cheque for £20, and a few back ground details and I'll send back a personal reading from a much missed dead relative*

If their death is also a funny story, I can also prepare a wonderful cartoon to treasure for years to come as a valuable momento of the dead relative (extra charge will apply)

* Please include as much detail as possible to make the reading look as authentic as possible for the recipient.

What to do if someone doesn't like your cartoons?

I am often asked how I deal with people who don't like my cartoons. Well this is a difficult question, because as any brilliant cartoonist like myself will tell you, just about everyone loves my cartoons. But in reality, and considering that my cartoons are available for the whole world to view and comment upon online, the world over and over (even people in West Yorkshire and Dunstable can see them!) there is bound to be a few people that don't like them.

My tactics for dealing with people that don't like my cartoons is to find out WHY, they don't like my cartoons, and the proceed to help them with their cartoon phobia problem. I like to psychologically assess the person I am dealing with. I think it's very important to understand why they are (criminally?) insane and as a good citizen attempt to help them like them.

Threatening them with legal action can be very effective. The cartoon liason officer at my local community outreach support network is excellent. Whenever I approach him to tell on someone who doesn't like my cartoons, he always assures me that "they are probably just jealous". I find this very comforting, but I do wish he'd buy one of my cartoons for his office wall. He assures me that his office wall is full of mugshots of Nigerian hookers (he's working on a top secret case, so can't tell me anymore) and therefor he cannot accept one of my wonderful caricatures of the Chief Constable.

Which Pencil?

I am often asked which type of pencil I use to draw my wonderful cartoons. Do I use a cheap HB pencil from the post office perhaps? Do I use some expensive pencils bought from a blind monk with a dodgy knee perhaps?


Of course not. Get away from me, you lunatic. Is often my reply. Why is it so hard to get somebody sectioned these days?


But I realise that for many aspiring cartoonist that read my website looking for brilliant advice on getting on in the easy game of drawing silly little pictures for large amounts of money the choice of pencil is very important. I personally don't use pencils for my artwork, as I think it's better to draw directly onto the paper (I read that in a book). Drawing with pencil is for spineless cowards, who quite frankly don't have the skill or balls to spend 5 hours on a complex drawing directly in ink. I'm a MAN, and I draw directly in INK! So what if sometimes my pictures don't turn out quite as I intended? Remember, it's NOT the outcome that's important. If you attempt to draw a dog, and it ends up looking more like a goat - it doesn't matter! That's what the experts call, a unique style. (it's also what I call it).


It's also worth remembering that your clients are paying £20 per hour, so to spend hours and hours re-drawing cartoons to make them look perfect is going to cost your client money, and in this difficult economic climate money is a rare thing. No. It's much better to be quick. Draw what you want to draw, and be done with it. If it's not looking right, at least it's going to be cheap - and that's very important these days.

Goodbat, Nightman

Goodbat, Nightman

by Roger McGough

 

God bless all policemen

and fighters of crime,

May thieves go to jail

for a very long time.

They’ve had a hard day


helping clean up the town,


Now they hang from the mantelpiece


upside down.


A glass of warm blood


and then straight up the stairs.


Batman and Robin


are saying their prayers.

They’ve locked all the doors

and they’ve put out the bat,


Put on their batjamas

(They like doing that)


They’ve filled their batwater-bottles


made their batbeds,


With two springy battresses


for sleepy batheads.


They’re closing red eyes

and they’re counting black sheep.


Batman and Robin


Are falling asleep.


I've had a great idea.

I have just had a brilliant idea. Now I'm sure that someone reading this will be in the airShow business. Well here's an idea of the type of cartoons that I could do to help your business sparkle like a big shiny diamond.

The Cartoonist Club Of England.

I have recently joined the Cartoonist Club Of England and I am proud to display the official logo on my website. You can also join the club by just paying me £20, then you can also have this prestigious logo for your blog. I can also design you a professional looking logo for your own website. Colours available are:

• Red with blue lettering (for social clubs, bingo halls etc)
• Blue with yellow lettering (for sailing societies and swedish restarrants)
• Yellow with black lettering (MOT stations, personal blogs, family picture albums)