Last updated 5-30-06
ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
How long have I been drawing cartoons?
How old am I?
What is my educational background?
Where do I get my ideas?
What materials do I use to draw FoxTrot?
What size do I draw my originals?
How long does it take me to draw a strip?
How do I color my Sunday strips?
How far in advance do I draw my strips?
Am I married? Do I have kids?
Are the Foxes based on my own parents and siblings?
What courses of study do I recommend for the aspiring cartoonist?
What is a syndicate?
How does one get syndicated?
Did I always want to be a cartoonist?
Which comic strips are my favorites?
Do I sell, donate or give away my originals?
Is there a list of all my books?
Is there a way to get a reprint of a particular strip?
How long have I been drawing cartoons?
I first started drawing cartoons for fun when I was about nine years old. I liked to draw frogs and dinosaurs, which may partly explain why I have an iguana in my strip. FoxTrot began running in newspapers April 10, 1988 when I was 25.
I was born in 1962. You can figure it out from that.
What is my educational background?
I have a Bachelor's degree in physics from Amherst College. Apart from a basic drawing class my senior year, I never really studied art. Some say it shows.
I think really, really, really hard. Seriously, there's no secret magic formula that I know of. It helps to have good characters to work with and to write about things I'm interested in, certainly. And the always looming do-or-die deadlines seem to help me, inexplicably.
What materials do I use to draw FoxTrot?
Currently I am using a combination of Micron Pigma permanent markers and Rapidograph pens on Strathmore 400 series smooth surface bristol board paper. I use a 2H pencil and a kneaded eraser to pencil the strips before I ink them.
If you are interested in creating your own strip, it's important that you choose materials that you're comfortable with and that work to enhance your personal drawing style. Just because I use a particular pen doesn't make it the "pen of choice." Many cartoonists use brushes, many use the old-fashioned crow quill sort of pen. What's important is that whatever you choose to use should yield a black line suitable for reproduction.
What size do I draw my originals?
The dailies are 3.75" x 12", which is roughly twice the size they appear in books and newspapers. The Sundays must obey a set of size/format rules that are fairly complicated. Basically, I do them in three rows of panels that altogether fill up a 9.125" x 13" rectangle. The top row must be expendable (some newspapers don't have the space). I believe Bill Watterson talks a bit about these format requirements in his Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Note that these are simply the sizes that I choose to do them. Original size varies from cartoonist to cartoonist. As long as the height-width ratio remains constant, you can draw them as big or small as you want.
How long does it take me to draw a strip?
Hard to say. I tend to write a week's worth of strips on one or two days and then spend the rest of the week drawing and inking them. If I had to guess, I'd say it takes me three to four hours to pencil and ink a daily strip after its been written, and eight to ten hours to draw and color a Sunday strip. Most cartoonists are faster than I am, I suspect.
How do I color my Sunday strips?
Most every Sunday newspaper comic strip is colored by the same company, located in upstate New York. Using the numbers from a color key that they provide, I take a photocopy of my black and white artwork and indicate what colors I want where. In the last few years, a number of cartoonists have begun coloring their strips themselves using Photoshop, or some other method, to give themselves a bit more control over the look of their art.
How far in advance do I draw my strips?
Not very, unfortunately. I tend to procrastinate more than I should, so I often turn my strips in to my syndicate roughly two weeks before they run in newspapers. My syndicate would prefer it if I had a lead time of four to six weeks. Because color must be added, my Sunday strips get turned in six or seven weeks in advance.
Yes and yes. My wife and I have two young children (one girl, one boy).
Are the Foxes based on my own parents and siblings?
Not deliberately, at least. I suppose I can't help but be influenced by my own experiences and observations growing up, but I do try to create the FoxTrot storylines from scratch, rather than base them on what might have happened in my family. I am the oldest of four children (three boys, one girl) and it's true that there was a lot of FoxTrot-like chaos, but I think in general my characters are more extensions of me than my siblings or parents.
What courses of study do I recommend for the aspiring cartoonist?
I recommend that the aspiring cartoonist obtain the best possible education he/she can in as broad a range of subjects as possible. Too many young cartoonists forget that what makes a comic strip work is much more than the ability to draw funny pictures. What sustains a strip, what makes it worth reading day after day, is the mind behind it.
A syndicate is a business that sells feature material such as cartoons to newspapers at a cost far less than that which the newspaper would have to pay were they to do the work themselves. This allows a cartoonist to have his/her work appear all over the country and allows even tiny newspapers the opportunity to run big-name comic strips.
There is a book titled Your Career in the Comics by Lee Nordling that is a good source of info on cartooning and the syndication process. Each syndicate has their own policy regarding how submissions should be sent and you might call or write them for their guidelines. It took me three years of submitting strips before Universal Press Syndicate offered me a contract in late 1987.
Did I always want to be a cartoonist?
Interestingly, no. I always wanted to make movies. Not that I have any regrets about my career choice. I find cartooning a wonderfully challenging, unique and personal means of creative expression. And I have a level of control over my fictional universe that I could never have as a film director.
Which comic strips are my favorites?
Generally, the funny ones where there is an interesting and distinctive voice. Strips with generic humor have never really appealed to me as much as the more quirky ones. Bloom County, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were all favorites of mine before they ended.
Do I sell, donate or give away my originals?
No.
Is there a list of all my books?
So far I've done 29 FoxTrot books, which boggles my mind, frankly. Here are the titles, in chronological order:
FoxTrot
Pass the Loot
FoxTrot: The Works (anthology)
Black Bart Says Draw
Eight Yards, Down and Out
FoxTrot en masse (anthology)
Bury My Heart at Fun-Fun mountain
Say Hello to Cactus Flats
Enormously FoxTrot (anthology)
May the Force Be with Us, Please
Take Us to Your Mall
Wildly FoxTrot (anthology)
The Return of the Lone Iguana
At Least This Place Sells T-Shirts
FoxTrot Beyond a Doubt (anthology)
Come Closer, Roger, There's a Mosquito on Your Nose
Welcome to Jasorassic Park
Camp FoxTrot (anthology)
I'm Flying, Jack...I Mean, Roger
Think iFruity
Assorted FoxTrot (anthology)
Death By Field Trip
Encyclopedias Brown and White
His Code Name Was The Fox
FoxTrot: Assembled with Care (anthology)
Your Momma Thinks Square Roots Are Vegetables
Who's Up for Some Bonding?
Am I a Mutant, or What!
FoxTrotius Maximus (anthology)
Orlando Bloom Has Ruined Everything
My Hot Dog Went Out, Can I Have Another?
How Come I'm Always Luigi?
Note that the anthology books are basically the two previous smaller books combined and with color Sundays*. They cost less than the individual books would together, so for building a library from scratch, they're the best way to go, I think.
*Beginning with FoxTrot: Assembled with Care, the anthologies are made up of the three previous books combined.
Is there a way to get a reprint of a particular strip?
Yes, my syndicate offers suitable-for-framing reproductions for sale. Contact Mary Suggett at Universal Press Syndicate for pricing and options at (816) 932-6600 or by e-mail at msuggett@amuniversal.com.
Additional questions? Concerns? You'll probably just get an auto-response, but if that's ok, you can e-mail me here.
