how to be a professional cartoonist

Apr 22, 2010

1. Get yourself a body of work and a large audience who want to give you money.

2. Move to a small town in West Texas and live a quietly, cheaply, simply and reclusively.

3. Wake up early in the morning, head straight to the studio and crank stuff out relentlessly, every frickin’ day, until supper time.

4. Abandon all hope of every finding any magic tricks or shortcuts. There aren’t any.

5. Don’t expect any of this stuff to be even remotely glamorous…

21 Comments

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Kristen Miller

14 years ago

ha! how about a small remote town in Michigan for step 2?

Lar

14 years ago

You nailed it sir! 🙂 Thank you.

Jonathan

14 years ago

Hugh, I just got tears in my eyes reading the quote at the bottom of the moleskine. I love this.

Steve Ferretti

14 years ago

Isn’t the life of a dedicated creative wonderful. Like you, I hope, I would not have it any other way. Keep up your great work and thanks for being out there.

Peter Crowell

14 years ago

Love it! All but the parts of #3 after the word relentlessly. I’ve got a one-year-old and a mortgage.

Doing what I can for as long as it takes.

Thanks for the post and all the terrific work!

Peter

Jason

14 years ago

Heh. I remember you writing a while back that you couldn’t see being a cartoonist full-time, because the isolationist lifestyle of a cartoonist would drive you nuts (I’m paraphrasing).

But it all seems to work out in the end. 🙂

Editor

Hugh MacLeod

14 years ago

Reply to Jason

Jason, yeah, it called “growing older” 😉

Jbow

14 years ago

6. Leverage loner artist image to get laid

Scott Aleric

14 years ago

True words indeed. The biggest step that most people get hung up on is step 1.

🙂

Peter Cooper

14 years ago

I think it’s glamorous to a lot of us, in a sort of earthy, blue skies way. It might not be cocktails, yachts, and black tie dinners, but I dare say I’m not the only one to kindly envy your dedication to a craft and how it’s all panned out 🙂

14 years ago

that’s all I ever wanted.

Joe

14 years ago

I don’t remember what chapter that was but I swear in your book somewhere you said that getting girls was easy when you decided to do your own thing instead of hanging out with the mainstream crowd. Correct me if I am wrong? So how come you say now it is not glamorous at all?

Editor

Hugh MacLeod

14 years ago

Reply to Joe

Joe, just because other people may find what you do glamorous, doesn’t mean you find it glamorous as well.

Because if you’re lucky, you’ll be too busy worrying about the work to really care….

ochuko

14 years ago

You’re just one hell of a fucking amazing Waker.
The 5 points you laid out here are very hard, serious hardwork, especially number one through five. Lol.
You make things look easy.

Michal Paluchowski

14 years ago

How about moving to New Zealand? Or Lapland? Or Alaska? Or anywhere else remote? 🙂 Kidding of course, but an environment stripped of distractions is a powerful one for creativity.

And I only recently came to value getting up early and getting straight to work. The outcomes are usually fantastic and the energy gained invaluable.

Mike

14 years ago

I have thought about getting into this. I wish there was a place where “amateurs” could get their name out there. I found a cool idea about that at http://bit.ly/al1Vhv. It’d be awesome if there was a place like this where up and coming artists could have a legitimate marketplace.

Editor

Hugh MacLeod

14 years ago

Reply to Mike

I hear ya. Though IMHO the Internet has made the job of the artist a LOT easier, it’s still a hard business….

Cecil Ohrt

14 years ago

Great site man Thanks

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[…] how to be a professional *anything* April 23, 2010 Todd Lohenry Leave a comment Go to comments via gapingvoid.com […]

Marketing Automation

12 years ago

Pat on the back…

Thanks a great deal, you have made my day….

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