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Calendars with T- McCracken's Cartoons

Need a cartoon on a specific topic?
Using my computer database of over 100,000 cross-indexed ideas, I'll send you some targeted whimsy, you pick out what makes you smirk, and I ship the drawings right off with no obligation on your part to buy anything. 
Index of Cartoons

POINT OUT ERRORS on this site and get a FREE signed print.

Rates?

Holy Rollers: Murder and Madness in Oregon's Love Cult published by Caxton Press is my first book of literary nonfiction. Learn more about cults and the Holy Rollers

Personalized Cartoons
A great CHEAP gift.

The perfect "gift from the gang"

Books of Cartoon Collections


Custom Cartoon Books

T-shirts, greeting cards, posters and matted-prints

Watercolor Paintings
 

How One Cartoonist's Mind Works

Information for Gag Writers

The Komic, a Graphic Novel in the Making

Rent a Naturalist

About the cartoonist, T. McCracken
890 North Bayview Loop
Waldport, Oregon 97394
(541) 563-3112

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Got comments and/or suggestions about this web page design? Contact me. I, a techno moron, designed it on an ancient, but much-loved Macintosh.

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All work on this page is copyright protected.
Reproduction via all means and all use is strictly prohibited without written permission of the artist.
Copyright by T. McCracken

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How One Cartoonist's Mind Works
by
T. McCracken

The Second Most Frequent Question Cartoonists Are Asked: "How do you come up with your ideas?" That's why this is a web site on how to come up with cartoon ideas, not on how to draw cartoons. In this humble cartoonist's opinion, if you have really good ideas, it really doesn't matter how well you draw.

So how can you, a normal, non-brain damaged individual, come up with great cartoon ideas? For several weeks I took careful note of what was happening when gag ideas came to me. Most just popped out of the cosmos whole cloth--or cartoon?--in my head, but others were prompted by external influences. I kept a sort of journal, recording not just the cartoon ideas, but what I was thinking about and doing when I came up with the idea. Perhaps following some of the same techniques will help you come up with a few jokes yourself.

I was surprised at how few cartoons I draw about events in my daily life. In fact, if you want to drive a cartoonist nuts say: "I bet you'll draw about this," whenever something you think is funny happens.

Most funny things that happen are funny only in context. Have you ever tried to tell someone about an incident, and upon realizing they're not laughing, you say: "I guess you had to be there."

A good cartoon has to be easily understood. A cartoonist has only five seconds to get her point across. Five seconds! Outside of parents trying to rescue a cookie that has dropped to the ground, there's hardly anyone else who has to succeed in so little time, so you don't have time to give a background story.

Here's a description of one of my July sessions and some of the cartoons it produced while I was listening to Christmas carols. Magazines lay out their seasonal issues six months ahead. Many cartoonists, myself included, do a lot of free associating, especially when I've been asked to draw a cartoon on a specific topic and I'm on deadline.

Me At My Drawing board
I often know nothing about the topics I'm drawing about. That's OK. Being unencumbered by knowledge makes the task easier. It's sort of like a vacuum. If I don't know anything about something, I make stuff up.

Baseball Cartoon 5387
Deer and other ungulates sure play a lot of games. Think about "Where the deer and antelope PLAY?" What games were THEY playing?
Hockey Cartoon 5044

 

Maybe they're Canadian deer and antelope.

Architecture Cartoon 4385
"Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam?" Yeah, right. Watch what you ask for.

CafePress or Zazzle can print any mchumor.com cartoon on demand on T-shirts and lots of other merchandise. I'll set up a link for you if you email me which cartoon you want on a shirt, poster or whatever--they even print things on thongs (I've yet to have a request for these yet, but you never know.)

 

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CafePress

Cafe Press

Zazzle

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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.
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***

Cartoon Index

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Copyright by T. McCracken
All work on this page is copyright protected.

If you wouldn't steal a newspaper from a blind vendor just because you could get away with it, please don't use a cartoon without permission just because you think you can get away with it. If you would steal a newspaper from a blind vendor, well, I hope you die laughing before you have a chance to steal my work.
Information on how to use my work legally.

Now some legalese my attorney insists I should include:
All cartoons throughout this website and the entirety of its content are copyrighted by www.mchumor.com 2010. All rights reserved. The cartoons are protected by copyright laws. You may not, except with my express written permission, remove, reproduce, distribute or commercially exploit the content via any means and all use is strictly prohibited without written permission of the artist. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system without the prior written permission of www.mchumor.com. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited unless you purchase the cartoon(s) or are granted permission to license a specific cartoon, first. It will be considered a copyright violation if any of the cartoons are removed. IP addresses can be recorded and copyright violators are aggressively pursued by Richard Newman, Internet Attorney and Internet Law Specialist - Hinch Newman LLP.

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