The Fractal Nature of Cartooning

~ Mark Heath ~ Leave a comment

mandelbrot mice gray small

I got the idea for this cartoon by stealing it. I try not to steal, at least this blatantly, but I was reading — not stealing — Paul Witcover’s post on the Inferior 4+1 blog — and I’ll confess that I was ready to be inspired, but no more than usual, just the default setting of any artist — when out of the blue, like a trap set for starving cartoonists who are always hungry for puns and punchlines — Paul Witcover described old papers as being damaged by Mandelbrot Mice.

He didn’t describe a situation that made me think of fanciful mice eating paper in an ever-reducing pattern. He did all the work of a cartoonist, short of drawing it. And I did all the work of a thief, short of selling it.*

Artists steal all the time. Not with the intent of plagiarism, but with the intent of connecting.

Punchlines lead to punchlines. Again and again, top to bottom to top.

*It ran at American Scientist Online, but gratis. If you’re reading this, Paul, you’re 30% is in the mail.

The Monk and the Pea

~ Mark Heath ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been working on this for years; off and on, not daily. The thought balloon doesn’t read smoothly. Not yet. Eventually it will. Probably. Grammar and I have an uneasy relationship, especially when I’m twisting words around to suit a punchline. I want the words to sound natural, to read easily. Right now the thought balloon hurts my brain like a hard pea pressed into my back.

UPDATE: a rewrite on the monk’s thought balloon:

“How can I sleep?
“It feels like I’m on top of theory that will forever change our understanding of heredity.”

Do the Twist

~ Mark Heath ~ 3 Comments

I need to draw the Twilight Tome title in the Twilight Zone manner — though I’ve watched enough episodes to know that the “classic” look wasn’t always used.

This is another in my series of fine caricatures that depend on my telling you who the subject is: Burgess Meredith, playing the clumsy misanthrope with the thick glasses.