Assuming you were blessed from birth with perfect design sense, and have spent years honing your cartooning craft, it really doesn’t have to be as complicated as all the above examples. A simple, perfectly constructed character will suffice. Thirty or so exquisitely placed lines. Watch Chester Brown work:
art: Chester Brown book: Louis Riel publisher: Drawn and Quarterly © Chester Brown
art: Chester Brown book: Louis Riel publisher: Drawn and Quarterly © Chester Brown
Is that God complaining about Mounties? So awesome!
In this work, Brown’s cartooning mastery cannot be ignored. These character designs combine The Yellow Submarine with the monumentality of Diego Rivera’s mural figures. The latter is perhaps not as left field as it seems: Louis Riel was a real-life revolutionary, so the larger-than-life quality of Rivera’s Communist Manifestos is fitting. Put this comic at the top of your read pile and you’ll find yourself wondering why all your superheroes seem so wussy and frail. Viva la Revolution! Rethink what you know!
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