Making your cartoons a bit more bizarre.
You may have heard of extreme ironing where people combine the the love of adventure sports with the desire for a freshly pressed shirt, but have you ever heard of extreme dish-washing, where folks combine daring with doing the dishes?
That certainly sounds a bit bizarre, and after looking at a few examples, we’ll look at some ways you can explore the wonderful world of the bizarre with your own cartoons.
Trans-Atlantic Scrubbing
Sally Squeegee took advantage of a trans-Atlantic crossing to do some dishes while helping to offset part of her fare. She was on the bring of setting a new mid-ocean pot cleaning record, when a passing porpoise pinched her washing-up sponge.
Desert Dish-washing Dashed
The Atacama desert in Chile has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world. Martin Gonzalez narrowly missed the annual rainfall due to over-sleeping, and this was unable to take advantage of this rare opportunity.
Waterfall Washing
Zara Azruddin ventured into the Alps to seek the purest water possible for her dishes.
High-Altitude Himalayan Household Chores
Pioneering aviatrix, Betty De Havilland and partner Chuck Flashley, were able to set a new record for the highiest alttude dish-washing when making a flight over the Himalayas in 1927.
So how can you apply this to your own cartoons?
Any subject can be made to be more bizarre. Ironing and dish-washing are both everyday activities made to be more unsual and amusing.
Let’s take a different activity, a business meeting and apply ‘thinking bizarre’ to it.
Here are a few questions.
What is the most unusual location you can think up for the meeting?
What bizarre characters could be attending the meeting. Think of different human personalities, animals, aliens etc.
What strange topic could be the focus of the meeting?
Anything else?
Over to you:
Now think of a topic of your own and apply some bizarre thinking to it. You can apply some of the above questions to it, or try to do an ‘extreme’ version of it.
What’s next?
I put out a Cartoon Newsletter, which contains a whole variety of characters, along with some bizarre events and occasional cartooning tips. Add your name and mail to the orange box below and I’ll wing a copy your way.