Monday, January 15, 2024

"How I Taught Myself To Write Gags for Single-Panel Cartoons

My full-time career was in print advertising sales. I worked for several newspapers over the years, mostly in advertising, but also in features, mostly writing calendar of events listings. Anyway, newspapers is where I was and still am the most comfortable.

At the same time, I was always interested in humor. About 25 or so years ago I started writing one-liners for comedians, broadcasters and public speakers in addition to my advertising job. After writing hundreds (or thousands) of these, one day I realized that this particular one-liner that I had just written could be illustrated and make a single-panel cartoon. Knowing that I can't draw, I knew I would have to collaborate with people who could. I started studying cartoons, specifically the ones in the New Yorker. 

I obtained New Yorker cartoon collections from the library, showing cartoons going back to 1925, the year the magazine started publishing. These collections became my textbooks. I found out what situations were common, such as the desert island, heaven's gatekeeper, jail, husband and wife (relationships), gurus on mountaintops, the Grim Reaper, the Desert Crawler. I also studied the tone of the cartoons, how sophisticated they were. I also learned how to write captions: short, sweet and to the point.

I wrote and still write a lot of business gags, so I also studied cartoons in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Harvard Business Review and Reader's Digest.

This is how I learned how to come up with ideas and captions for single-panel gag cartoons. Later on, I found out how to write multi-panel cartoons, such as "Dennis the Menace" on Sunday. (Start with a strong punchline, and work back).

I hope this gives you some idea of how my writing career evolved. I'm still learning.

Comments? Write to me at: gagsbyhelene@gmail.com.

Have a good week!




 



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