|
Writing Jokes For Cartoons - Formulas For Coming Up With Funny Cartoon Gags
|
Cartoonists seeking gagwriters and gagwriters seeking cartoonists.
Add your name to the list for Free.
How does a cartoonist come up with funny cartoon gags? There are
some common gag writing formulas that can make it easier to write cartoon ideas. Like riding a bike,
when you begin it seems hard but with practice writing cartoon gags becomes almost second nature.
Before we begin, let me give you a couple of general gag writing
tips:
Get Comfortable -
Years ago I read that if you place yourself in a reclining position when you are writing cartoon gags,
they come to you much more easily. I'm not sure how valid that technique is, but it seems
to work for me - unless I fall asleep. Cartoon gags do have a tendency to come when you are relaxed.
I create a lot of my funniest cartoon ideas while driving on a quiet road.
Keep A Notebook -
Good cartoon gags often come to you when you least expect them. You should keep a notebook handy,
so when an funny idea occurs to you, you can write it down. Otherwise by time you get around
to working with the gag you may have forgotten it.
Let Your Cartoon Gag Ideas Cool Off - After you've
written what you feel is a hilarious gag, let it sit for a few hours. When you look at a funny idea
later it may not seem as funny to you as when you wrote it. If you let it cool down and it
still seems funny, you probably have a winner.
Don't Get Discouraged - Rejection is part of this business
and you shouldn't take it personally. At times you will have cartoon gags you think are funny and
nobody agrees. Just admit they may be right, and try again. It's no shame to write
a stinker once in a while.
|
Formulas For Writing Funny Cartoon Gags
|
Play on Words - Possibly one of the most popular formulas.
You write a cartoon gag attaching a different meaning or additional meaning to a word. Puns are a
good example. In this cartoon we have substituted the word "kiss" for the word "kick", giving
a common expression a very different and humorous meaning.
Here's another example. In poker, if a player is nearly out of chips
in a tournament, there is an expression which is used to indicate he still has a chance. Players
say he still has "a chip and a chair." A funny gag idea might depict a poker player with
a chimpanzee sitting on his shoulder and the player says, "I have a chance. I still have a
chimp and a chair."
|
Reversal -One formula which can result in funny cartoon gags is to
take a common situation and reverse it. For example, let's take this cliche situation. You've
seen a lot of gags where an annoyed homeowner throws an old shoe out the window at a noisy
alley cat to quiet him down. If we reverse the cartoon idea so that the alley cat is throwing the shoe,
we might come up with a gag such as this one.
To write cartoon gags like this just think of any normal situation and then
look for a way to reverse it. See if you can come up with funny ideas about a cat chasing
a dog, for example, or a man carrying an umbrella on a sunny day, or any other situation that
is the reverse of what you expect it to be.
|
More formulas for writing cartoon gags
|
|