New Books To Enjoy

Besides all the reading I do to get material for single-panel gag cartoons (for example, newspapers, magazines, online news and features, books, flyers and anything else that comes in the mail), I try to get my hands on new cartoon collections. Several new books featuring cartoons have recently been published and I look forward to reading all of them. They are:

* "Have I Got A Cartoon For You! The Moment Magazine Book of Jewish Cartoons," edited by Bob Mankoff.

* "Senior Moments. Older But No Wiser," by Tim Whyatt.

* "The Peanuts Papers," by Andrew Blauner.

* "Everyone's A Critic. The Ultimate Cartoon Book," edited by Bob Eckstein.

I just picked up a copy of "The Peanuts Papers" today and hope to begin reading it tonight. The others I will hunt down.

One of the ways I come up with cartoon ideas, besides finding words and phrases that can be used in my captions plus observing the world around me, is to go through cartoon collections for inspiration. I always seem to be able to come up with new ideas for cartoons by immersing myself in published cartoons. Studying cartoons in "New Yorker" since its inception helped me teach myself how to become a gag writer.

I hope you get a chance to read some of these cartoon collections. I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Any questions or comments? Email me at: gagsbyhelene@gmail.com.

Making Presentations...A New Career?

I spoke to a group of approximately 60 people recently about my journey to becoming a cartoon gag writer. It was the first time I was the only speaker on a program and the group was not in the cartooning business, although a few members of the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonist Society attended! I think it went okay! I started off telling the group which syndicated cartoons I write for currently and in the past, and which publications have bought cartoons where the idea and caption were mine.

I then gave the audience a timeline, starting with writing news and features for my high school and college newspapers, and how I got into selling print advertising for weekly and daily newspapers, which became my career. Then I told them how I started writing jokes on the side while working full time for newspapers, and how it evolved into coming up with ideas and captions for cartoons. The people in the audience knew me, were friends of mine, some knew I was a writer, but most had no idea what I actually did.

I guess a lot of people were intrigued because, after the talk, the overwhelming comment to me was, "Who knew?" Other wonderful comments were, "I really enjoyed your talk" and "You are a role model for other women."

I enjoyed talking to the group. It was fun and an important thing for me to do. From that one talk I've had offers to speak to other groups. I just have to refine my microphone skills and become somewhat more computer-literate.

What can I say? We writers work alone. It was freeing to speak about what I do. In all honestly,  I consider myself a ghostwriter.