Coming Apart at the Themes

I'll bet just about everybody has at least one good cartoon in them.

After all, every now and then, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn.

But we're not blind squirrels, are we? We're cartoonists.

And that means we have to be nuts on a regular basis.

From my experience, I can tell you that it helps to have a theme to fall back on when the creativity fails to crackle.

Whether you're doing a dramatic longform comic or a gag-a-day strip, a theme that works for you can help you iron out the bumps between moments of creative genius. A good theme contains a number of touchstones that you can count on to get your own personal creativity kickstarted. It's the central engine of your comic.

This post describes the qualities of a good comics theme. It also discusses ways in which a theme can be used to generate ideas. Log in to read the entire post.