Information for Gag Writers

I encourage all gag writers to draw up their gags and submit them on their own to magazines.

In this humble cartoonist's opinion, if you have really good ideas, it really doesn't matter how well you draw.

In college I took a two credit art course and flunked it. My professor said all of my proportions were off--you might notice that my character's noses are drawn in proportion to my character's feet. "Picasso's proportions were off," I said to my professor "You're not Picasso," he replied. Yeah, but I bet more of my work currently appears on refrigerator doors, than his.

One of the most successful cartoonists in Oregon, my home state, is John Callahan, a quadriplegic. His art work is awful and looks like it's drawn by a . . . . well, by a quadriplegic. However, his ideas are good and his work has appeared in most major magazines. His autobiography, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, is a must read for anyone interested in cartooning.

I rarely use gag writers.
For one thing, I don't draw anything on spec. Everything I draw is commissioned. For another, the hardest part of cartooning for me is not coming up with ideas, but finding new markets.

My bread and butter are trade journals where I tailor my work to their specific audiences. I send them gag ideas, they pick which ones they like and draw those, and only those. That's because a cartoon tailored for a magazine whose readers are all anemic astronauts or Zen zoologists isn't likely to be marketable to any other publication.

If after all this, you'd prefer I draw up your stuff, Here's my current deal with gag writers: If you want to approach magazines on your own--magazines I don't currently draw for--convince an editor to buy a cartoon based on one of your gags, I'll draw it up, and you, the gag writer keeps 50% of whatever the magazine pays, and you send me the other 50%. To see a sample of my drawing style, you can direct editors to my web site: www.mchumor.com

If you'd prefer to send cartoons, instead of gags to editors, well, like I said, I don't draw anything on spec. For $25 (my usual minimum fee is $50 for a black and white 'toon) I'd be willing to draw up any gags you want to try and market. When and if you sell the cartoon, you can deduct the $25 from my share.

No matter what, best of luck with your writing!

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Like a cartoon on this web site, but wish the characters, setting and/or caption were different?
No problem. I can redraw it for you.

To see examples of how this works, check out my pages of
Cartoon Variations on a Theme & How To Use Them to Create Your Own Highly Targeted Humor

Have cartoon ideas of your own? I can draw those up, too.
email

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copyright by T. McCracken