Concepting

The concept is the most important part of cartooning. Nice drawing technique is good, but if you have nothing to draw you are in trouble. The same goes for starting to draw with hopes that you will think of something before you finish. I have a box full of unfinished cartoons thanks to this method.
It’s hard to give advice in this area. From what I have found, there is no school, no book, nothing that can teach how to be funny. Humor is a very personal thing and what works for someone may not for the next person. I think it bakes down to: life experience, good editing, faith, and a little bit of common sense.
Realistically, what a cartoonist needs is fame. As lame as that may be, it’s true. For a cartoon to be successful, a person has to be able to relate to it. I figured this out when I was reading a book about writing songs. The author said “write about love: good love, bad love, lost love, love love love. Why? Because everyone on earth can relate to love.” Your market is huge. If you write songs about obscure stuff that no one can relate to, then you have just limited your market to a select few. That wisdom translates to writing cartoons.
Another helpful bit of wisdom I can offer would be to write stuff down immediately. You will forget! Sleep with a notebook close at hand. Even if you know it is a bad concept, write it down, it may evolve. My concepts either hit me the night, I draw them, or they have been percolating in my head for a few months.
Draw out the frames and actually write the copy. There is a big difference between an Idea for a strip and a worked out concept.
The other thing I can say is stick with it, don’t get discouraged. Just like anything else, practice makes perfect. Learn to accept rejection, most strips were reinvented a few times before being syndicated. The odds are about 6,000 to one for being picked up. Have faith in yourself, lick your wounds and get back to the drawing board. This will be my third time submitting.

Character Development

First you have to be able to draw your characters from multiple angles, close up and from afar and have them look like the same character. You have to find a system that allows you to convey any expression happy, sad, surprise, anger etc. A character's expression is a powerful tool for communication. To limit your character to just one expression would be shortsighted. The perfect expression can be the subtle nuance that makes a cartoon classic. The tools you use to draw will define your style and what your characters look like. As far as that goes my only advice would be - The more rules you subject yourself to, the more you limit yourself. Like: I always draw with a sharpie marker because that’s my style. That’s great and all, Sharpies have a great line but sometimes it’s like trying to perform surgery with a chainsaw. On that note, you have to be willing to evolve. If it means starting at square one. If it will make your strip better you have to be willing to make sacrifices in the name of progress.
Second, you have to know these characters like they were real. You have to know everything about their entire world, their life, mannerisms, create a stereotype of them. When you stick a well developed character in a certain situation, the story writes its-self. You know how that character would react. With my strip, the dad is a mixture of me, and my father. I knew someday I would be bald like my dad. I didn't want to have to reinvent my character when that happened, so I made him bald from the start. The body language, his posture, the ADD, that’s all me. The kids I draw from my own children. In the old days my strip had two boys like I do, but that was inconvenient so I merged them into one. The girl is a gem and was from the start. The wife I struggled with the most. I am finally happy with how I draw her after four years. It’s all an evolution. The pug is still in flux. These characters are just interchangeable tools or vehicles I can use to deliver a joke.

Pencil Sketch

The pencil sketch is the most time consuming part of creating the strip. The reason being, this is the time to solve all the design problems, typography and copy writing. More often than not, this is when you discover your concept was riddled with holes. Having a thorough pencil sketch allows you to be whimsical and carefree when you are inking. To get a good pencil sketch you must be willing to erase everything if something is not working, this can be very hard to do. It is so easy to fall in love with part of a drawing and waste time trying to conform the rest of the piece to work with that sacred part. To have confidence and know you can recreate anything lifts a tremendous burden from your shoulders and this will show in your drawings.
As far as materials go, at this point I can not afford to be picky with what paper I use. luckily I like to use a number two pencil, which is handy because I can steel them from my kid's backpacks. I use a kneaded eraser and a Staedler white plastic eraser.
Draw the parameter you intend to work in. This will force you to consider all the cropping aspects of your design before you start inking the piece.
It is helpful to know that if your drawing gets lost in a spider web of marks, you can trace over the lines you want to keep with a harder pencil and erase with a kneaded eraser. The softer lines will erase first leaving behind a faint line where the harder pencil was used. You can then retrace that line.
To keep my drawing clean, I use a sharp pencil and I stick a post-it note to the heal of my hand so I won’t smear my drawings.

Inking

To ink my drawings I lay tracing paper over my sketch and tape it down with artist tape; allowing me to mess up and start over without wrecking my sketch. Artist tape will not leave sticky residue on your paper or tear the paper when removed. I use a post-it note stuck to the heal of my hand, this time to protect the paper from the oils in my skin. The oil from your hand will resist ink leaving light patches in that will not scan well.
When tracing the pencil lines with ink don’t simply trace the lines but use it as a map and draw again with the ink. Draw, trace - same thing right? Yes, but no. This mind set will be the difference between a bland line drawing and a drawing with exciting line qualities and emotion.
I used to draw with a sharpie because it was quick and had a whimsical quality. I later figured out it was the opposite. I spent too much time fixing up my drawings with the computer and the lines were all the same. Here is a sample. Now I use a brush and ink.
I have a vat of ink that has to be twenty years old. I dump whatever ink I can find in it. If it gets too thick I add a little water. I draw with a cup of water on hand to clean my brush when I want a thin line. I keep a piece of scratch paper to sharpen my brush every time I dip it. I use the same brush for everything, I think it is a number two red sable. I rinse it with water and keep the ferrule clean. Most importantly, I hide it from my kids. A good brush can last a lifetime if you have a good hiding spot. I use a number four technical pen and a ruler for the frames. About half my drawings I will draw a few times before I get one I am satisfied with. Many drawings are a compilation of deferent drawings I will piece together in the computer.

Typography

The type on the web site is all drawn with a sharpie, just because I have not changed it. I like the lettering enough to leave it and I would rather work on new cartoons than the site. The type on the strips are done with a brush. I know there are programs that can set type and make perfect bubbles, but who wants that? Everyone uses that. I think of hand lettered type as an opportunity to set myself aside from the other cartoonists and be expressive at the same time - 'nuf said.

Computer

I am a proud Mac user. I scan my drawings, bring them straight into Illustrator, live trace and expand them. After deleting all the white, I tweak them with the eraser and pencil tools. To color my work I do not use live paint. I prefer to make a separate layer and draw some gray tones in with a pencil tool and a mouse. I have a pen tablet, but for some unknown reason I prefer a mouse. The drawings are exported from Illustrator as a psd. and saved for web in Photoshop. That’s all for now.

Thanks, -Reed.