Diary Comics #5
Coming up With Single-Panel Cartoons
Yesterday I went to my local coffee shop to people-watch and think about single-panel ideas.
I still haven’t really figured out the best way to do this.
All I know is that I need to be away from the Internet and be patient with myself.
(The latter being the most challenging part of the entire process)
I tell myself I don’t have to come up with a good idea.
Instead, I try to focus on allowing my mind to loosen up.
My current process stems from this video I watched years ago on Liana Finck’s methods for idea generation.
Liana: “I find I draw bad things for 2 hours…”
This line really helped me to realize I’m not being patient enough with myself.
Liana is prolific as hell, so to think she stares at a page of “bad drawings” for two hours before getting anywhere really helped me to rein in my self-judgment.
As usual, I am reminded that making great art is less “talent” and more hard work.
So here I sit, vacillating between mindless doodles and observing my environment.
“Parking meters… gotta be a joke in there… Meters are like taxes, they disincentivize… put a meter on a … person? To disincentivize… being talked at for too long?… No…”
An hour has passed and I’ve only made one cartoon idea.
Normally I would feel ashamed about this, but I remember Liana’s video, which makes me feel like a completely normal artist! Thanks, Liana!
I flip through my ideas notebook to see if any old drawings inspire me.
Wait a second! I have, like 5 mostly realized ideas in here I just forgot about!
Ok, now I know what to do— edit these ideas into something nice and I’ll have several ideas to submit to Emma this Tuesday! Hooray!
Comments (Let’s Chat!):
Do you struggle to be patient with yourself?
If not, do you have any advice for me?
How often do you find/give yourself the space to be creative in a café?
Is it not the best?
What do you think of Liana’s process/ video?
Listening to:
Single panels have always been a challenge for me as well. Dialing in that combo of concise editing of humor and image to arrive at a perfect encapsulation takes way more time than banging out a multi-panel comic. Sam Gross was one the masters at this. But even for the thousands of successful cartoons he created, he drew god knows how many concepts before honing in on his finals.
You like this interview: https://www.tcj.com/sam-gross/
And yes I struggle to be patient with myself. I’m trying to remember to create more time in my life to get better at the things I want to get better at. Doing them consistently after a while will help.
I don’t ever find or give myself the space to create in a cafe. Maybe I should start.