Cartooning

Cartooning is the art of telling jokes, stories, and opinions with simplified or exaggerated drawings. It combines drawing, writing, and timing, and it is a practical way to build visual communication skills. This page gives a plain overview of the craft, a starter toolkit, a 30-day practice plan, and realistic notes on publishing and careers.

What cartooning is

A cartoon is a drawing in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style, usually made to entertain, to comment on events, or to explain an idea. The word first described a satirical drawing in 1843, when the magazine Punch used it for a published sketch.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics describes cartoonists as artists who create simplified or exaggerated drawings to convey political, advertising, comic, or sports ideas, and notes that most have humorous, critical, or dramatic talent in addition to drawing skill.

A short history

Political cartoons

The political cartoon developed in England in the late 18th century, led by London artists such as James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson. In the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin published Join, or Die in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754 to argue that the colonies needed to unite during the French and Indian War. In the 19th century, Thomas Nast drew for Harper's Weekly from 1862 until 1886 and helped popularize the elephant as a symbol of the Republican Party. The Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning was first awarded in 1922.

Comic strips

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings in related panels that delivers a short joke or a longer story, often with speech balloons and captions. The Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault first appeared in 1895 in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and was one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips. Charles Schulz drew Peanuts from October 2, 1950 to February 13, 2000, and the strip ran in more than 2,600 newspapers at the time of his death.

Animation

Emile Cohl made Fantasmagorie in 1908, and film historians consider it the first animated cartoon. Winsor McCay released Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914 and showed that a drawn character could have personality. Steamboat Willie reached audiences in November 1928 as one of the first fully synchronized sound cartoons.

The internet era

Eric Millikin uploaded the first comics shared online to CompuServe in 1985. Korean portals launched webtoon services in the early 2000s, and Naver Webtoon began in 2004.

Main types of cartooning

• Editorial cartoons comment on news and public issues, usually in a single image with a clear argument.
• Gag cartoons are single-panel jokes, often with a caption, that run in magazines and newspapers.
• Comic strips tell a joke or a story across a few panels and often feature returning characters.
• Webcomics are published online and may be a strip, a page, or a long vertical scroll.
• Animation shows drawn characters in motion, from short loops to full films. See the 2D animation process for a production overview.
• Caricature shows the features of a subject in a simplified or exaggerated way. It can be funny, complimentary, or political.

Fundamentals

Simple shapes

Almost every cartoon character starts with circles, squares, and triangles. Round shapes feel friendly and soft, square shapes feel strong and stable, and triangles feel sharp or energetic. A simple shape is easier to repeat from panel to panel, which keeps a character consistent.

Character design

A strong character can be recognized from its silhouette alone. Give each character one clear shape, one or two signature features, and a simple color or pattern. Draw a model sheet that shows the character from the front, side, and three-quarter view, along with a few poses.

Expressions and body language

Expression carries most of the humor in a cartoon. Practice a set of core emotions: happy, sad, angry, surprised, afraid, and confused. Change the eyebrows and mouth first, since small changes make a large difference. Then match the body to the face.

Composition

Decide where the reader should look first and place that subject clearly. Use size, contrast, and empty space to guide the eye. Keep the background simple so that the characters stay easy to read.

Panel layout

Panels control time. A wide panel feels slow, a narrow panel feels quick, and a row of identical panels creates a steady rhythm. Read in the usual direction for your audience, from left to right and top to bottom for English. Scott McCloud explores these ideas in Understanding Comics, first published in 1993, which is itself a comic about how comics work.

Lettering

Keep lettering clear and consistent. Use ruled guide lines, draw balloons around the words instead of the other way around, and place the balloons so that the reading order is obvious. Short sentences work best.

Storytelling and humor

Most cartoon jokes follow a simple pattern: a setup, a turn, and a payoff. Exaggeration, surprise, and a relatable situation drive many jokes. Good creativity also depends on revision, so draw several thumbnail versions before choosing one.

Tools for beginners

You can start with very little.

• Pencil, eraser, and paper. Plain printer paper is enough for the first weeks. Add a fine black pen when you want clean final lines.
• Krita. A free and open source painting program made by artists, suitable for inking, coloring, and comic pages. The Krita manual also includes a section on animation.
• Inkscape. A free vector drawing program, useful for clean shapes, logos, and characters that must scale to any size.
• OpenToonz. Open source software for 2D animation production that is free for commercial and non-commercial projects.
• Blender. Free and open source 3D creation software that can also support 2D and mixed-style animation. See Blender 3D for more.

A drawing tablet helps with digital work, but a mouse is enough to begin. Learn one tool well before adding another.

A 30-day practice plan

Spend 20 to 30 minutes a day. Keep every page, because the early pages show how far you have come.

• Days 1 to 5: shapes. Fill pages with circles, squares, and triangles. Turn each shape into a simple creature or object.
• Days 6 to 10: faces. Draw one character with six core expressions. Repeat with a second character.
• Days 11 to 15: bodies and poses. Draw your character walking, jumping, sitting, and pointing. Build each pose from basic shapes.
• Days 16 to 20: one-panel gags. Write five short jokes, thumbnail each one, and finish the best three with lettering.
• Days 21 to 25: a four-panel strip. Use a setup, a turn, and a payoff. Redraw it once to improve the timing.
• Days 26 to 29: polish. Ink one strip, scan or photograph it, and clean it up in Krita or Inkscape.
• Day 30: share and review. Show your best work to a friend or an online community, ask one question about it, and write down what to practice next month.

Publishing and audience

• Webcomic platforms. Sites such as WEBTOON offer a self-publishing area called CANVAS for independent creators. You can also host a comic on your own website, which gives you full control of the layout and the archive.
• Social media. Short strips and single panels travel well in image feeds. Post on a regular schedule, add a clear description, and keep your name or logo in the corner so that shared images lead back to you.
• Self-publishing. Collect your best strips into a zine or a book, and use print-on-demand services to avoid paying for a large print run.
• Building an audience. Consistency matters more than volume. A small number of readers who return each week is a better foundation than a burst of posts followed by silence. Reply to comments.

Careers and income paths

Educational only; no guaranteed income.

Cartooning pays in many ways, and few people earn a full living from one source.

• Freelance work. Illustration, spot art, and editorial cartoons for publications and businesses. Self-employed workers made up about 58 percent of craft and fine artists in the United States.
• Commissions. Custom portraits, caricatures, and character art for individual clients. Set a clear price list and a revision limit.
• Syndication. A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Openings are limited, and many creators now build an audience online first.
• Patreon-style support. Patreon, launched in 2013, lets creators run a membership for recurring income and sell digital products. Webcomic creators also use crowdfunding and sell merchandise or print collections.
• Animation. Studios hire artists for storyboards, character design, and production art.
• Teaching. Workshops, classes, and online lessons can add steady income alongside your own projects.

Honest expectations matter. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a median annual wage of $55,290 for craft and fine artists in May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $31,490 and the highest 10 percent earning more than $131,810. It also noted that many artists hold another job, and it projected a 1 percent decline in employment for the group from 2025 to 2035, with AI-generated illustrations expected to compete with some illustrators. Treat cartooning as a skill that you build over years, and keep other income while you grow.

Copyright basics

In the United States, copyright exists automatically in an original work once it is fixed in a lasting form, such as a drawing on paper or a digital file. Registration is optional, but it strengthens the protections available to the owner. Copyright protects expression and does not protect ideas, so a joke concept is free to use, while your exact drawing is yours.

For works created after January 1, 1978, protection generally lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Do not copy characters from other creators and publish them as your own. Fair use allows limited uses such as criticism, comment, teaching, and research, but courts judge each case on its own facts under four factors, and no fixed amount of copying is always safe. Ask for permission when you are unsure. Rules differ from country to country.

Cartoons as education and persuasion

Cartoons can explain a hard idea in a single image. Teachers use them to introduce a topic, to show a historical argument, or to help students remember a process. A good editorial cartoon uses symbols, labels, exaggeration, and irony to make a point quickly, which is why historical examples such as Join, or Die are still studied in history and political science classes. Because cartoons persuade, readers should ask who made the cartoon, what the artist wants, which facts are left out, and how the same message could be shown fairly. These habits build visual literacy, a useful skill for journalism, advertising, and everyday media use.

Learning value

Cartooning trains observation, planning, and clear communication. It also connects to many subjects: visual art, graphic design, writing, history, and publishing.

Wiki projects and resources

Learning materials and learning projects can be used by multiple departments. This wiki has adopted an applied model for education, and lessons should be centered around active learning. Select a descriptive name for each new link.

• Cartooning

Discussion questions, essay ideas, and learning related AI prompt ideas

Discussion questions

• Which type of cartoon do you find the most persuasive, and why?
• How does a simple shape change the way readers feel about a character?
• What makes a joke work in a single panel compared with a four-panel strip?

Essay ideas

• Compare the political cartoons of Thomas Nast with a modern editorial cartoon.
• Explain how the internet changed the way comics are made, shared, and paid for.
• Discuss the ethical limits of caricature and satire.

Learning related AI prompt ideas

• Explain the difference between a gag cartoon and an editorial cartoon, and give three examples of each.
• Create a one-week drawing plan for a beginner who has only a pencil and printer paper.
• Review my four-panel script and suggest a stronger punchline without changing the characters.
• Give me five questions to ask when analyzing a political cartoon from the 19th century.
• Summarize the basic rules of fair use for a student who wants to publish a parody comic.

See also

• Art
• Film making
• Media production
• Drawing
• Art pipeline
• 2D animation process
• About visual art
• About graphic design