Cartoons without words are not easy

Good cartoons that is. Purely visual cartoons are much harder to come up with.  We all use language to communicate every day. Communicating without language takes some thought. Imagine buying buy groceries in China when you don’t speak Chinese.  You can do it, but you have to use different strategies to get the message across. In this case some kind of mime is required, in the case of cartoons you have to use strong visual techniques too.

Cartoonists routinely use a kind of visual shorthand to “make” the gag in a limited space, and with limited time available to peruse it. We might use a lab coat to denote a scientist, just the suggestion of a helmet will make a police officer instantly recognisable, and there are all manner of little lines that denote motion, speed, surprise, etc. When crafting a wordless cartoon, you have to rely much more heavily on the visual conventions.

Some kinds of humour won’t work if you can’t use words – puns for instance, and anything to do with familiar sayings or catch phrases.

Visual humour is not universal

An English person will be able to buy groceries in China because the language of buying and selling is pretty universal. You get across what you want, and how much, and they tell you what it is going to cost. Similarly, safety leaflets for aeroplane passengers can be completely described in pictures, and everyone can understand them.

Humour however, has a very pronounced cultural element. Using pictures you can tell anyone how to get out of a burning plane, but it’s difficult to make people from a different culture laugh, with or without words. You can get a joke across to someone who speaks a different language by using pictures only – but you still have to understand what amuses them.

Will a cartoon without words work faster?

That is, will the reader get the joke more quickly? It depends entirely how you create the cartoon, and to what ends. If there is a lot to look at, and/or the joke is subtle, the reader may want to take a while to enjoy the drawing. On the other hand you can make a big statement, fast by using a carefully drawn killer image.

Here’s a cartoon drawn to appeal to a scientific audience

There are no words in this cartoon but the reader must be familiar with some basic scientific notation to understand the joke. It is understated so that the reader has to carefully look at it to get the joke.  Conventionally graphs are always drawn with the x axis horizontal, and the y axis vertical. This cartoon has them the other way round, and the onlookers are struggling to understand what is going on – turning their heads in different ways to make sense of it.

This joke will unite English speaking scientists from whatever background, as it calls on a ubiquitous and shared aspect of their profession.

Where would you use a cartoon without words?

I like Cartoons without words, they are elegant and they work anywhere. If your audience has a shared background or interest (e.g.  nationality, profession, mechanical engineering, dog breeding) but don’t necessarily all speak the same language this would be a good way to include them all.

Purely visual cartoons are more difficult to create, but good ones are generally very good indeed. I find that when I set out to create a wordless cartoon on a given subject I come up with lots of extra ideas that work with words, which is a nice bonus.

A fancy font?

Eyewatering colours?

You could seduce them with subtle shades.

A pretty picture might do it

Or an eye catching bouncy animation…

You get the idea.

There is a place for all these things, but are they going to be as helpful in persuading the customer to hang around as a cartoon?

Here’s an example:

I could have gone to town on this cartoon with a complicated backdrop and a cast of thousands – all sorts of onion characters enjoying the show, and engaging in sub plots in the background. I didn’t though. It was designed as a fast cartoon – get the message, enjoy the joke and move on.

What’s it about?

Well the gag is obvious – the analogy between a stick thin model on a fashion catwalk, compared to normal sized people in the admiring audience. There are several types of humour employed in this gag.

• Satire – parodying the unnatural thinness of the professional model
• Visual pun – thin spring onion as model, normal round bulbous onions as audience
• Surreal – Onions don’t normally parade on catwalks or watch fashion shows

Why does it work?

Employing more than one type of humour helps, the gag works on different levels.  It is topical and familiar. The debate on the size of models is on-going and looks likely to roll on for some time, and everyone will recognise onions. The cartoon even works without the caption.

This brings me to a side issue I will talk about at some length in another blog, the use of language in cartoons. The caption works in England where spring onions are sold as “spring onions” in every greengrocer’s shop and supermarket.  In other countries where they are known as scallions, green onions, salad onions, etc, it might not.

The use of colour is minimal, and used to draw attention only to the parts needed to make the gag.  These are the orange colour of the onions, and the distinctive green of the spring onions. I was tempted to make the dress a fetching pink but it didn’t add anything and I took the colour out again.

The shape of the catwalk, and the shading was carefully designed to bring the eye through the audience to they key figure, and back out through more of the audience.

Cartoons, should they be simple or complicated?

Both types work in corporate cartooning, it depends what you are trying to accomplish.  Simple can be very effective if you put some thought into it. If you need to cut through the clutter of today’s information rich society, you can’t do better than use a well crafted cartoon.

What is a pun?

First let’s look at the anatomy of a pun.  A pun is a play on words, where you use one word (or group of words) that sounds like another, but has a different meaning. The English language is stuffed with such word pairs such as:

• place, plaice
• sun, son
• stationery, stationary
• time, thyme
• seafood, see food

And sometimes there are more than two words that fit the bill, such as: pair, pear, pare

You can create a pun when you have one word with several different meanings.  Examples are:

• Patient:  A person under medical care, tolerant
• Sound: Trustworthy, a large body of water, a noise, to measure the depth of water, etc.

Then there are words that almost sound the same, such as prawn and pawn. I could go on, at some length, but I don’t want to put anyone to sleep.  You get the idea.

So why are puns held in such disregard?

You’ve probably all heard the old joke “I’m on a seafood diet, I see food and I eat it!” Now even I groaned when I typed that. That’s because it’s old, it’s boring, everyone has heard it, and it’s been done to death. This is why puns have a bad name. We start to hear and use them as kids, and by the time we’re all grown up we’ve had enough, and moved on to more “sophisticated” forms of humour.

To make a good gag for a cartoon using a pun you have to insert the element of surprise and use wordplay that hasn’t been heard before. If I tried to use the seafood pun in a cartoon for a client I’d have to think up something amazingly innovative, or it would be rejected, and I’d be unlikely to work for them again. However, the familiarity with the words used in the pun can work well for some corporate cartooning situations.

If you are selling a commodity, such as soap, your audience will be the great unwashed (sorry) and the language you have to use to communicate is general, all purpose English. In this situation it is going to be difficult, but not impossible, to come up with a fresh pun. I know cartoonists who live and breathe puns, they raise it to a high art, and I have no doubt they could do it impressively.

Where to use puns

The best place to use puns is where you are using cartoons to communicate to a specialist audience.  As I said earlier, we’ve grown up with puns, we understand them and even though we groan when we hear or see one, they amuse us and we like them. What better vehicle to get across your company message?

Creating puns for a specialist audience is easy in that it’s wide open – few people have been there. A specialist pun, say based on the musical term “compound time”, won’t have been bandied about in the playground for the last 50 years. There could be some difficulty because you have to have some knowledge of the domain in order to come up with relevant puns. I don’t find this to be a problem. As a business analyst I’ve had a lot of experience getting into different technical domains very quickly, so getting enough understanding to create a good gag isn’t too hard.

Say you care, with a pun

The last and overwhelming argument for using a pun in a specialist domain is what it says to the reader, which is: We understand you. We understand you so well that we were able to amuse you in your own language.

I might groan with everyone else, but I like puns and find them effective. I have no qualms about keeping them in my portfolio of humorous techniques for corporate communication.

Here’s that very specific compound time gag.  Compound time being a time signature where each bar is divided into three parts (or a multiple of three) as opposed to simple time which is divided into two even parts (or a multiple of two).

Its a very simple gag, but a musician will appreciate it.

I can’t tell you where my ideas come from, they really do come from all over the place, but I can tell you how I get them, and I have a theory that all cartoonists come by their ideas in a similar way.

What makes a cartoon gag?

I’m a business analyst as well as a cartoonist, I enjoy analysing things, and anything that interests me is fair game. I have mentioned to other cartoonists that I like to analyse humour, and a few have recoiled in horror. To them this is heresy on a grand scale – if you analyse humour you’ll kill the magic! Thinking about humour hasn’t killed it for me though. I find that analysing gags has helped me create better cartoons, and it doesn’t impinge at all on my enjoyment of other people’s.

The thing you do when creating a gag is you make connections. There are many types of humour, but at the root of them all is at least one humorous connection. All cartoonists work differently, but what all of them do at a fundamental level, is present their brain with material from which they can pull or recognise these connections. Some refer to lists of useful words and phrases, some scribble notes, others doodle, or they might have a muse they bounce ideas off. This list is not exhaustive, but whatever method they use, they are all trying to identify humorous connections.

How to come up with a cartoon idea

Sometimes when I need to write a cartoon on a specific subject, a great idea will just come into my head. When this doesn’t happen immediately, I start to brainstorm. I tend to think in the form of mind maps so I get a pen or I might use mind mapping software, and I start to write down all the things associated with the subject and the audience. While I’m doing that I might also write down apparently un-associated things that come into my head, as the element of surprise is a key component of humour.

Here’s an example:

I needed to draw a cartoon with this caption: “Say, what’s that funny smell” so I sat down and took a few minutes to draw out all sorts of things associated with smell. This train of thought was a dead end:

…after a short while then I tried another tack and hit the winning train of thought:

That was it. The football world cup was taking place, England were playing, and in a flash I had my connection. It didn’t take long to get there, and there was much more on the mind map. It may come in useful in the future as I never throw them away, and glance over them every so often.

Where else do I look for cartoon inspiration?

I generally start with a mind map when I have to draw a cartoon on an unusual subject (packaging materials for instance), as I need to get to know the subject matter.  Sometimes I talk ideas out with the client. I worked on a set of cartoons for a book with some great people at the Open University, and this process was productive, and very enjoyable. Other times I will get out a sketchbook, and a several good gags will fall out of a page of sketches.

Ultimately I get my ideas, the humorous connections, from all sorts of places, but I put in some effort up front to give my mind useful information to work with. The key to writing funny cartoons is how you get the ideas, not where they come from. Humour really is all around.

Here’s a cartoon I drew this week after Defence Secretary Liam Fox called for an end to fantasy spending on defence projects.

This is what spot colour is all about.  You can add a little colour anywhere to make a cartoon visually more interesting, but if the colour also adds to the story it really enhances the attraction. That’s what a cartoon is about, attracting attention and sending a message.

The RAF roundel is iconic, most people in Britain will know what it is. It draws the eye to the cartoon, and it gives a bit more information to make the gag – the RAF is about to give Star Wars’ Princess Leia an IOU for a starfighter. Without the roundel, the reader might not recognise an air force officer quickly enough to get the joke before moving on.

Even in simple cartoons, the layout is always carefully constructed. Without the coloured roundel in this one, the X-Wing fighter would be a large complex object that might confuse the eye.  With the roundel the eye is drawn to this first, and then quickly to the two characters. The joke is made quickly and the composition is effective and pleasing to the eye.

A cartoon using spot colour will work in full colour, and in predominantly black and white publications. It gives you a an eye catching piece of artwork, and the colour gives you another tool to get the message across.

There are some sectors that seem to be inherently funny, such as the leisure, food and drink industry. They have a history of using humour very effectively in advertising. Red bull had their “Red Bull gives you wings” campaign in print and on TV, and household goods are given this treatment too. The humble toilet roll goes humorous with the exploits of the Charmin bear.

This isn’t a modern phenomenon. In the 1920s  and 30s W Heath Robinson was extolling the virtues of leather in cartoon adverts in the 1920s. He also drew cartoons to sell a host of other thing including, toffee, breakfast cereal and whisky.

Some sectors are not obviously funny, and if you use humour here it can draw attention, and really differentiate your product in the marketplace.

I had to think hard when drawing cartoons for a building materials magazine. These weren’t for advertising purposes, but to amuse, and strike a chord with the readers – commercial purveyors of building materials.  I don’t think building materials are the least amusing subject on the planet, but they’re sort of close. Once you do a little research though, and get to understand the subject and the mindset of the customer, ideas flow. Thus prepared, I took the featured subject of “roofing materials” in my stride.

Oven baked roof panels are what you need these days!

The actuarial profession is sometimes seen to be rather dry and worthy, but actuaries can have a laugh too.

This cartoon was published in the in-house magazine of a company that employed enlightened actuarial professionals with the ability to enjoy the humour of their situation. The non-actuarial staff had a good laugh too.

Creating cartoons for a more general audience is rather easier. If you are advertising, trying to engage your publication and website readers, or talking to your staff there will be some amusing situations you can take advantage of. Think about it – there will be something very funny about your organisation.

Timing

To use topical cartoons successfully you have to carefully structure your approach. A topical cartoon takes a humorous look at some current event – and the word to stress is “current”. Once the event has passed the audience lose interest. The cartoon may still be humorous, but the edge has gone, and it won’t be well received.

Prompt publication is essential.  If the cartoon is going to remain topical, it must be published within the life of the event it is based on. It is not by accident that most topical cartoons are seen in daily newspapers, and fairly frequently published satirical and current affairs magazines such as Private Eye. If you are the editor of one of these publications you will have a finely honed publishing mechanism waiting to go. If you are not accustomed to publishing topical comment and cartoons, consider your publishing routine.  If it is smooth, trouble free, and always goes out on time you don’t have a problem.

Publishing topical cartoons can show you are on the ball / quick on the uptake / have your finger on the pulse / whatever, but if you don’t get the cartoon published in a timely manner you will have blown it.

Reader reaction

As always with corporate cartoons you have to carefully consider who is going to see them, and what their reaction is going to be. Take the cartoon above.  A popular chef (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) was featured in a series of TV programmes.  He was drawing attention to sea fishing, and the waste that results from regulations intended to preserve stocks of certain species. This cartoon is intended to draw attention to the debate, and not take sides. You can make a pointed comment with a topical cartoon, and this is often how they work. With a corporate cartoon you need to be aware that this is what you are doing, and know exactly what you want to achieve.

So, should you use them?

Topical cartoons are often satirical. This makes for great humour, but it can be difficult to incorporate in your company message.  There are also problems involved in accomplishing the following:

• Selecting the news you want to call attention to
• Creating a suitable cartoon idea
• Drawing the cartoon
• Getting the authorisation to publish
• Getting the cartoon published, and seen, before the news is no longer news

You can use topical cartoons for sending a corporate message, and in some cases it may be extremely useful.  It isn’t easy though and you might want to consider other types before jumping into this specialist arena.

What is political correctness?

To be politically correct you have to treat everyone the same way, without bias due to religious, political, sexual, age, gender, physical, or other differences. Some organisations have taken this to such extremes that they lose some of their ability to communicate effectively. It is particularly difficult because the definitions of what might cause offence vary according to the multitude of beholders, and these definitions vary over time.  What might have been offensive 10 years ago might now be OK, and vice versa.

Adhering to the politically correct, but shifting, rules can be taxing for illustrators, and particularly cartoonists. Sometimes, to show impartiality, a brief will state that you have to include a range of people with obvious differences in gender, nationality, race, disability, and anything else that might be perceived on a drawing.

What’s wrong with crafting politically correct illustrations?

There are two major problems.  These artificial rules seriously constrain your artistic freedom, and in so doing, seriously limit the effectiveness of the illustration as a communication device. Think of a picture as having bandwidth. Once you’ve communicated to the reader the fact that you are gender, race, religion, disability, and whatever else neutral, there isn’t much room to say what you wanted to say in the first place.

Drawing good communicative cartoons and illustrations can be a challenge, but when you start by considering the PC aspect first, you add a whole heap of problems before you even get to think about your communication requirements.

The rent-a-crowd problem

Say you are asked to represent different races in a cartoon. Once you’ve shoehorned them all into the cartoon, or even a series of cartoons, there really is no room for anything else.  It is not uncommon to be asked to represent disabled people too, maybe a person in a wheelchair. Ah, but there are so many disabilities you can depict… It’s impossible to represent them all, and very difficult to decide who to leave out. If you can eventually decide on an appropriate selection of people to represent, you then have to consider this: What exactly do you draw?

How do you portray personal differences without giving offence?

This isn’t such problem in straight illustration, you just draw the person.  However, cartoon drawing styles are usually greatly simplified and they use a form of shorthand to get salient points across.  Portraying race or disability in a shorthand form is asking for trouble. Even with the best intentions this can cause the very offence you were trying to avoid in the first place. I know cartoonists who have had no complaints about their work until they tried in good faith, to portray ethnic diversity.  This caused people to look twice at the delivery of the cartoon, rather than the message, and the cartoonists caught some flack about how they represented ethnicity.

Is there a way to create PC cartoons?

There is one possibility that circumvents the problem so you (the commissioner and the cartoonist) don’t get caught up in endless debate, and you leave the way clear to use the cartoon for what you really want to say.

If drawing people is going to cause problems, just don’t draw people.

Draw animals, fish, inanimate objects, abstract shapes (which could even be vaguely people like). To be PC you have to be fair and neutral. To do this you can be inclusive and draw all types, which can be fraught, or not portray personal differences at all.

This solution may not be suitable for all occasions, but anthropomorphic cartoons can work very well.  If you don’t have to get bogged down in determining what you should and shouldn’t include to be politically correct, avoid the whole messy issue. Draw the cartoon you need, to get your message across.

Subjects to avoid

Right across the realm of corporate cartooning, it’s best to avoid the subjects of sex, politics and religion.  You may think up some side splittingly funny jokes around these topics, but it really isn’t worth the hassle. Having a horde of unhappy offended readers baying for blood will certainly get your cartoon noticed, and this ploy has been used in advertising, but it isn’t going to do much for workforce accord.

You can of course, go too far the other way and create a totally inoffensive and unfunny cartoon that interests no-one and doesn’t get read. The trick lies in finding subjects that hit a nerve, and introducing them sensitively.

Use cutting, biting, humour with care

I started to draw cartoons for the internal magazine of a large company.  My initial brief was to employ “cutting biting humour, like Dilbert. When I heard this, my heart sank. Dilbert is a great strip, and positively vitriolic, but throwing humour like that straight into a company magazine would cause problems. Dilbert is published in the public environment.  Using cartoons inside a company, needs care if you are not to alienate individuals, or even whole departments. It can be done, but you have to introduce it carefully.

Use shared experiences

For whatever group of employees you are planning to reach, and it could be all of them, you need to find shared experiences to use as subjects for the cartoons. In a large office environment, common subjects with great scope for humour are:

• Management (too slow, too restrictive, incomprehensible, etc.)
• The provision of services (too slow, too restrictive, incomprehensible, etc.)
• Interaction between departments (too slow, too restrictive, incomprehensible, completely bloody minded, etc.)

The problem with all of these subjects is that there are identifiable groups and individuals who could be upset if you suddenly poke fun at them without warning.  This would be counter productive and in most cases probably unfair too.

Involve the audience

For every situation in a company, there is someone who is ultimately responsible. If you can identify suitable situations on which to base a series of gags, and you can get those responsible for those situations to sign off on the gags, you’re on a winner.

The ability of a group to laugh at themselves is very valuable. On one occasion I had a heap of ideas for gags concerning several areas of a company. The ideas were funny and pertinent but the departments concerned wouldn’t sign off on them. They didn’t want their staff “made fun of” if the other departments weren’t involved too. Nobody wanted to be first.  Then an enlightened senior manager allowed me to base a cartoon on him personally. He wasn’t named, but his exuberant style and appearance were obvious in the cartoon. It was a hit and other departments saw that it was OK to be part of the humour thing, and followed suit.

Use cartooning as a serious and effective communication tool

The ultimate scenario is total involvement of the workforce in the cartooning, each group wanting to take part, possibly even contributing ideas for jokes. You can see this kind of thing on The Muppet Show where celebrities queue up to be the centre of attention and the focus of the humour.

With some thought, and a few enlightened trailblazing individuals, it is possible to create a high profile cartoon vehicle which can be used to unite the workforce, and to get information to them effectively.