Mark Anderson’s work will be familiar to any TIRBD readers who have taken the time to explore the lefthand sidebar on this page.

Andertoons, which has been a feature on this page (and many, many others) for several months, offers a daily, topic-specific cartoon panel. Anderson draws cartoons about business, family and, in the case of what we run here, entertainment. These free, pop-up cartoons offered to blogs, is part of Anderson’s creative ways to spread word about his work and add a few chuckles to readers’ days.

Anderson has been an independent cartoonist for three years, having left his sales job with a company that sold hardware to pursue cartooning full time. He since has had cartoons published in Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review and elsewhere.

This Chicago-based cartoonist also keeps a blog where he writes about cartooning and, in a feature of interest to anyone fascinated by the creative process and how it (sometimes) dovetails with commercial pursuits, details how some of his cartoons evolve from an idea written on a scrap of paper to a finished cartoon appearing in a national publication.

For this Monday Interview, Anderson answered a few questions via e-mail about his work and the creative process.

TIRBD: You mentioned on your blog recently that it has been three years since you moved to self-employment. What were you doing before (did it involve cartooning?) and what led you to make the jump?

MA: I’ve been cartooning professionally for about eight years, but only full-time for three. And that's assuming by “full-time” you mean when I can fit it in between diapers, tantrums, Play-Doh and more diapers.

Before that I had a string of mostly sales-oriented jobs. I sold screws, metal and online advertising.

Cartooning full-time is as much about staying home with the kids for me as it is cartooning. My wife and I always felt strongly about having a parent at home with the kids; cartooning seemed to fit nicely within that schedule, and with my wife having the stability of tenure it all sorta fell into place.

How has that been going and what has it meant to your artwork to have a different set of constraints?

I love it! My editors, customers and readers are very kind to me.

As far as constraints, other than making sure I’m selling, I don’t really have any. I pretty much get to write and draw whatever I like. And with the web’s long tail effect, there’s probably someone out there looking for whatever I come up with.

Being a stay-at-home dad, do you find it more difficult to find source material for your work than when you were (presumably) in an office setting, or is it simply different?

In a way I sort of miss being immersed in the office culture – it gave me an awful lot of really true material. But I don't think I could ever go back. It's just too awful.

Where did you get the idea for your blog cartoon project and how many blogs use your cartoons now? What has been the response in terms of exposure and getting work?

There’s been a lot of self-syndicating web-based cartoonists, and when blogs took off it made sense to me to try to tap that as well. Honestly, I have no idea how many blogs use it, but it seems to be popular.

You blog about the status of certain cartoon submissions. What has that process been like for you in terms of having a record of your successes (and the sometimes long road to them)?

I like the whole blogging thing. And I think it's interesting to see a submission from beginning to end, successful or not. Honestly, I wish there’d been this sort of information when I was starting out.

I hope it reflects the real life of a working cartoonist – 95 percent of your material will be rejected by the magazines – suck it up and draw more cartoons. It’s not pretty, but if you’re persistent, fast and funny, you can make it.

Who are your favorite cartoonists, past and present?

Let's see... Peter Arno, Jack Ziegler, Charles Addams, Henry Martin and, of course, Schulz. Cartoonist friends that I’m insanely jealous of include Mike Lynch, Adam Koford and Mark Heath.

What is the state of cartooning today?

It’s an absolutely wonderful time to be a cartoonist. The globe is your market and you can sell to it from your laptop at the coffee shop. How great is that?

Next Monday: James Sallis

Labels: cartooning, Monday Interview