Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising. Throughout the 20th century, cartoons were widely published in print media of various kinds, featured in magazines such as The New Yorker and Punch and distributed to newspapers through such organization as King Features Syndicate. Today, both original and vintage cartoons can be found online.

Cartoonists may work in many different formats: animation, booklets, comic strips, comic books, editorial cartoons, graphic novels, manuals, single-panel gag cartoons or video game packaging. A cartoonist traditionally developed rough sketches into finished pencil drawings and then, for reproduction purposes, completed the artwork in black India ink, using either a brush or a metal-nibbed pen. Traditionally, cartoonists often used a Winsor & Newton #3, Series 7 brush in combination with a crowquill pen. Today, many cartoonists work with Micron pens, which are made in six different sizes, from .20 mm to .50 mm.

Cartoonists increasingly work in digital media. To illustrate the Blondie comic strip, the cartoonist John Marshall works directly on a Wacom tablet connected to his Macintosh computer. In some cases, cartoonists work on properties created by their forebears.