drawing for newspapers

ruskin

anyone here know how one might go about submitting drawings/caricatures to a newspaper or how to get involved in this area of work? (You know the drawings i mean, the satirical political ones)

ztoical

ruskin wrote:

anyone here know how one might go about submitting drawings/caricatures to a newspaper or how to get involved in this area of work? (You know the drawings i mean, the satirical political ones)

You would do up a portfilio of 15 - 20 pieces and submit it to the art director for the newspaper magazine. Some of them have portfilio drop off days but I'm not sure if any of the ones in ireland do - I know the Village Voice and the new york times do. Make sure to have some tear sheets in the portfilio that have clear contact information and if you can a website.

The other option is to print up some postcards with your work on it and a website on the back and post it to as many art directors as you can. Sit in Easons for a couple of hours and write down their names out of the papers/magazines. Most cartoonists/illustrators will do a postcard campign at least twice a year - even the most established ones. It might take time to get anything from this but it is the most effective way. starting off you could send 200 odd postcards and only hear back from one person but the next time you send 200 you'll hear back from 3 or 4 and so on.

Self publish - there are loads of print on demand places such as Lulu and comixpress that you can print up a nice book collecting your 15 - 20 portfilio pieces and send that to art directors - they would remember something like that more as its different and you put some thought and effort into it. Friend of mine who works as an editor at DC hired a guy to do some covers for the Flash a couple of years back [don't ask me his name couldnt think of it right now] because the guy had sent him a xmas card that was also a comic. My friend remembed it a few months late because it was different.

Remember no paper/magazine is to small - peanuts started in small regional paper - there are loads of free papers around dublin and plenty of provincail papers around the country. You might only get a paid a few bob but you have something in print that you can show art directors from bigger papers and aim for syndication to hit the big time

Also contact political/anarchy student groups and the like, they would put out flyer and things that you could illustrate something for - again it would be small money if not free to start but its good practise and to an art director it reads that you are motivated.

there are magazines that print just political comics like world war three illustrated but they tend to print more socail/political stuff and less satirical

ruskin

ztoical wrote:

You would do up a portfilio of 15 - 20 pieces and submit it to the art director for the newspaper magazine. Some of them have portfilio drop off days but I'm not sure if any of the ones in ireland do - I know the Village Voice and the new york times do. Make sure to have some tear sheets in the portfilio that have clear contact information and if you can a website.

The other option is to print up some postcards with your work on it and a website on the back and post it to as many art directors as you can. Sit in Easons for a couple of hours and write down their names out of the papers/magazines. Most cartoonists/illustrators will do a postcard campign at least twice a year - even the most established ones. It might take time to get anything from this but it is the most effective way. starting off you could send 200 odd postcards and only hear back from one person but the next time you send 200 you'll hear back from 3 or 4 and so on.

Self publish - there are loads of print on demand places such as Lulu and comixpress that you can print up a nice book collecting your 15 - 20 portfilio pieces and send that to art directors - they would remember something like that more as its different and you put some thought and effort into it. Friend of mine who works as an editor at DC hired a guy to do some covers for the Flash a couple of years back [don't ask me his name couldnt think of it right now] because the guy had sent him a xmas card that was also a comic. My friend remembed it a few months late because it was different.

Remember no paper/magazine is to small - peanuts started in small regional paper - there are loads of free papers around dublin and plenty of provincail papers around the country. You might only get a paid a few bob but you have something in print that you can show art directors from bigger papers and aim for syndication to hit the big time

Also contact political/anarchy student groups and the like, they would put out flyer and things that you could illustrate something for - again it would be small money if not free to start but its good practise and to an art director it reads that you are motivated.

there are magazines that print just political comics like world war three illustrated but they tend to print more socail/political stuff and less satirical

thanks, thats very good advice. its just that i never saw a newspaper advertise for a artist

ztoical

ruskin wrote:

thanks, thats very good advice. its just that i never saw a newspaper advertise for a artist

that wouldn't advertise in the paper/magazine its self - they would check some of the professional portfilio sites or an illustration guild or society [the one in ireland would be the IGI - Ilustrators guild of ireland] Art directors would get lots of invites to gallery shows or end of year shows for art schools. Also alot of art schools would print up a portfilio book of the best pieces for their graduating class and send it to a big list of art directors. There are a number of portfilio books that professional illustrators pay big bucks to get their stuff into and those again are sent to a huge list of art directors and ad agencies.

And on top that they'd have a ton of artists sending them stuff so usually they wouldn't need to advertise in the publication.