Todays lesson is a follow-up on yesterdays lesson on how you too can be a cartoonist with out really trying. Today we’re going to learn from one well-paid, syndicate, award-winning cartoonist; Jeff Stahler.
Yesterday we learned how you can rip off Hollywood or Cnn when realise you don’t have a creative bone in your body. For those of you who are so insipid that you can’t even make a cartoon out of a movie poster we have the following technique. We’re going to call it the ‘Stahler’ because he does it more than anybody else but, keep in mind, every cartoonist on the planet does this, repeatedly. And they all hate it with a passion.
The idea is simple. If you can’t come up with an idea about a news story, just draw a cartoon of people reacting to the news. Most often this cartoon will be of two people, husband and wife, sipping coffee at the breakfast table reacting the newspaper in their hands. The cartoonist must draw the newspaper. No one knows for sure why, but it is a rule that is followed religiously. Subtle variations include: two people at a cafe; two people in front of the TV (in this instance the cartoonist must draw the remote control. Don’t ask why, just do it. It’s a rule.); two people reading a sign and so forth.
This approach forgoes any deep thinking that one would have to do to come up with something creative like, oh I don’t know, an actual metaphor. All one has to do is recreate his breakfast and call it a day!
All of these cartoons were done by Jeff Stahler within the past month. Our first cartoon is a perfect example of the ‘Stahler’. Take note of the easy to read headline for the reader who is, presumably, totally ignorant of recent news. Also note the coffee mug and the striking resemblance that the male figure bears to the cartoonist. He was so lazy that day he didn’t even bother to make up a stranger; he just drew himself.
Subtle variations on the ‘Stahler’ are below. There’s little thinking going on, just two people making a funny. There is no remote control in this cartoon but the man is holding a bowl of popcorn which is a substitution that is allowed as long as it is not a repeat offender.
There he is again! That’s the cartoonist in his own cartoon reacting to the show he watched with his wife the night before. Something tells me that SHE is the one who came up with the idea.
He’s really mixing it up in this one. We have both a TV and a newspaper. This newspaper serves the purpose of telling the reader what the joke is about because the cartoonist hasn’t thought of another way to do it. Soon cartoonist will resort to small captions that explain the purpose and punchline of a joke so that no thought is required on the part of the reader. Oh, wait.
Bigger TV, same cartoon.
This last one is a doozy. If you think this is a familiar cartoon, intrepid reader, you just might be right. It bears a striking resemblance to the first cartoon in this post. That’s right if you get desperate enough, you can do a ‘Stahler’ and plagiarise yourself.
I’ve overlaid the two cartoons so we can have a comparison (the red lines are the first cartoon, blue lines are the second). It appears that most of the cartoon was simply redrawn, so at least he didn’t trace himself, but the lines on his wife look suspicious. In either case, he was so short on ideas he took a cartoon that he did LESS THAN A MONTH AGO, changed the text and clocked in for a full days work. What? Has drawing yourself become too time consuming that you have to borrow a cartoon from yourself? Most cartoonists wait at least a quarter before they start to rehash their old ideas, but one month is pushing it. At least he remembered the mug
Well, dear reader, I hope this has been informative. For those of you who can’t draw, just focus on practicing a few things. Draw yourself, a mug, a newspaper, a TV and your significant other and you too can be a successful cartoonist!
