A cross selection of cartoonists have founded a new website called “The Cartoonist Studio” as a way to show off their work environment (and their work) and eventually sell stuff. The eight cartoonists are: Tom Batiuk (Funky Winkerbean), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Greg Evans (Luanne), Peter Guren (Ask Shagg), Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues), Mike Luckovich (editorial cartoonist/Atlanta Journal Constitution) and Jerry Scott (Baby Blues, Zits).
The site is described as:
We created The Cartoonist Studio as a way to bring us closer to the fans who enjoy our funny little drawings-those characters and scribbles that make our cartoons come to life. They live, breathe and occupy a place in our lives… kinda like our children or our pets or our alter egos (except the last one doesn’t need feeding or bathing). Our fans know our cartoons and now we want them to know us. In other words, The Cartoonist Studio provides one-stop shopping to get personally involved with all your favorite cartoonists and cartoons.
Let us know when there’s more to look at than just “coming soon”
Jason, did you try selecting their individual profiles? Looks pretty cool to me!!
The site is actually in its “soft launch” phase–basically public testing.
Is that an erasable ball point pen on Rick’s desk? Not cool. But the site is a great idea. Strength in numbers.
GOOD LUCK! This could be really great for the industry as well!!! Time us gag cartoonist got taken seriously… If you can take us seriously….
@Rodd
Don’t know what you’re looking at, but I don’t have any erasable ball point pens. At least none that I know of. Did you hover your mouse over it to see if there’s an explanation?
It’s the one with the purple finger bumper thingy, but looking at it again I think it might be a mechanical pencil with a thick lead.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Right, you are. It’s a Caran d’Ache pencil holder for 3mm graphite leads. I use graphite now for my daily finished drawings.
Erasable ballpoint….why I oughta’…
Nice website, and a great idea!
…and I thought my area was a mess.
Now that I know that “thingy” is a “Caran d?Ache pencil holder for 3mm graphite leads,” I can move on to bigger things and say I think this kind of site is a great idea because it should (besides promote these cartoonists) get the public more involved in the world of cartooning.
BUT I also hope it might at some point go beyond the cartoonists themselves and get into cartooning in general. These eight longtime pros could maybe explain the value of cartooning to the public, where it’s going, why it will survive, what it might become and should become. Eventually expanding beyond just eight cartoonists should add interest.
Good luck!
B.J.
I had to click through, if only just to see all the different desktops.
I didn’t see one crow quill! Very disappointed!
Where are the 3D modeling gloves? You know, the ones that you wear with the virtual reality glasses and use to model characters out of virtual putty?
It’s nice, but it suffers from some formatting problems. Easily fixed.
Tony- Once my page is up you’ll see plenty of crow quills and ink stains.
Thanks Tom, I highly approve!
I wanted Jeff Keane’s studio to be a giant circle. I was a little disappointed LOL.
I think this is a GREAT idea for a website! Aspiring
cartoonists like me enjoy seeing behing-the-scenes
stuff about professional cartoonists…..it’s fun, and
you never know if we might learn something helpful,
like about different pens to use or other technical
tips, or just learning about your creative process,
in general. So, thanks for creating this site!
I love the idea of letting us amateurs display our strips!!!
THANKS!!!!!
John Hambrock, Chuck Ayers, Jan Eliot, Tom Richmond, Jenny Campbell, and Brian Crane have all joined the group and their studio tour pages and bios are up.
http://www.thecartooniststudio.com/Default.aspx
Good luck. Every venture is one step closer to viable business models outside of just newspaper syndication!