The best laid plans of mice & men..............

are comparable to an excellent dinner, at the best restaraunt you can think of. They, invariably, all turn to crap! Such is today. I settled in to draw about three hours ago........so I thought. The phone hasn't stopped ringing this afternoon. All but two calls were worthless. I've polished off a vat of coffee. For all of my efforts, I've a couple of gags sketched out that I have decided to trash. Cartoonist's block, barren imagination, or feeling a bit lethargic from being off the real job this week, could be any or all. Why lie, it's all.! Who would think that coming up with a few one frame gags would be so hard. Time to go through the newspaper, there's always something to pick apart. Then again, I could always snoop through a few blogs? Until my next rambling....cheers!

Today is.....................

one of those days when the brain & imagination went on a holiday without me ! Last night's cough medicine, infused with codine, has left me more than a bit out of sorts. I might be wrong, but I think my preference is a dram, or a few, of single malt Scotch. At least after a few, I won't think about this plague I've been saddled with. Given my prescription plan co-payment, a bottle of Glenfiddich is cheaper! There's a marketing programme for the world's distillers. I can see the billboards along the freeways, adverts in all of the glossy magazines and on the sides of Transit System buses, "Forget the prescriptions, and really drink to your health !" On that note, cheers!

Blogging.........

is a very interesting thing. From one point of view, the world looks nuts! From another, one is terrified at what one reads. With some, you want to doze. Then there is me........I'm zipping along, looking for material to work from. Not taking any event or description, it's simply that something I read can spark the imagination. Two blogs that I have posted to, have nothing to fear (I don't think that was worded correctly, but who cares!). I will not pull any material from their blogs, for the purpose of creating any cartoons. After all, they have allowed my off centre sense of humour into their world. For that, I owe them something in return........unless they say otherwise.
My run back home for lunch was worth it....sort of. In the mail, I rec'd one turn down (what a surprise, only one!), one returned/damaged envelope of destroyed drawing (copies happily). I would do cartoons about the Post Office, but right now I can't think of anything humourous about them!. And one we are going to keep you on file, and " By the way, could you do something like..........., for next week!" I had to tele the editor and ask, "Did you expect me to say, NO?". Let's see, rough ideas on coffee stained napkins done (I wonder how many other people do roughs on napkins?), lunch hour over. Damn, time for my return to making myself mad as the hatter, aka work!

In the begining........

I had a few ideas, a desire to draw, and a stack of pristine, white, blank, drawing paper. Soon, I had too many ideas, few leads to sell them to, and not enough drawings done. I will never rival Picasso, Monet, etc., and I will not try. What I enjoy doing are gag cartoons. Simple, to the point, one frame drawings. The tough ones where you have to make the drawing work with the punchline in one shot. Hence, the title "Ramblings of a Mad Cartoonist". To endure the stress, countless mistakes, redraws, rewrites, and turn downs,....."I must truly be mad" (or some kind of masochist ?).

I know that I will use this blog to hear myself think, criticize myself, and rarely praise myself. I'm rarely 100% pleased with anything that I draw. I always look at it thinking that I could have done better. It makes things tough, espescially when the client on the other end of the phone is saying," It's perfect !" Enough rambling for today. Pneumonia has me laid up, can't really draw well, and the thought proceess is a bit fuddled. The down time is good to organize the ideas & rough sketches. Most importantly, I've got time to layout the design for the drawing table. Imagine that, a real place to work, not the postage stamp sized area on the desk !
Enough for now.