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Presents... 3 Check It Out! 4 Talking to a Cartoonist 6 Things to Do with Cartoons 7 Max & Gracie 8 Make a Flip Book 9 Clay Animation 10 10 Great Cartoon Settings 12 Puzzles 14 The Creator of Charlie Brown 15 How Cartoons Are Made 16 Cartoon on the Loose 20 How Much Does Your Hand Weigh? 21 Cartooning 22 Funny People Game 23 Make a Funny Face 24 Cartoon Fun 25 Family Portraits 26 10 Tips for Drawing Cartoons 28 Joe Hippo 29 Kids Corner 30 Puzzle Solutions 2
Do you enjoy a good chuckle? Maybe your friend told you a funny joke. Or maybe you read a favorite comic in the newspaper. Whatever it is that makes you laugh, cartoons are designed for that purpose. Do you like to make people laugh? Someday you might decide you want to be a cartoonist. This issue will tell you how. Imagine that you were reading a comic and the characters in the story come to life and were chasing you down the street! That sounds like a bad dream. Check out “Cartoon on the Loose.” If you’d like to learn how to draw cartoons or make funny faces, it’s all right here. Try making a flip book and bring your cartoon figure to life. Settle in someplace comfortable. Perhaps you might want to have a pad of paper and pencil or pen nearby. By the time you finish this new issue of Fun For Kidz, you might be on your way to becoming a cartoonist. Share your comics with us. We will publish them in a future issue of the magazine.
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Meet Chris Sabatino, the artist who creates the zany covers for Fun For Kidz! You also often see his cartoon stories in the magazine. Fun For Kidz: How did you get interested in cartooning? Chris: I had a great childhood! My family had a motorhome, and I used to draw cartoons while we traveled all summer. I developed a love for drawing and traveling! What other work do you do besides drawing for Fun For Kidz? I write and illustrate comic books, which is probably my favorite thing to do. I illustrate children’s books and magazines and create art for greeting cards, textbooks, and T-shirts. I’ve also created art for theaters and for stage sets! What’s your favorite thing to draw? I love to draw fun, chaotic scenes with many crazy characters! I’ve drawn scenes like that for Fun For Kidz covers. When I was a kid, I had a large poster filled edge-to-edge with cartoon characters. I used to stare at it for hours! What don’t you enjoy about being a cartoonist? I enjoy every part of what I do. But the hardest part for me is working alone at home every day. It’s a bit lonely. So, I try to get outside and be around people whenever I can. I’ve gotten involved with community theaters, and I’ve volunteered for different groups. I also have a great wife and kids I get to spend time with! Was your cartoon style influenced by other cartoonists? I think my biggest influence was Saturday morning cartoons! When I was a kid, there were wonderful cartoons on TV from early Saturday morning until lunchtime on all three stations (that’s all we had back then). I loved to watch them and tried to draw all the characters. I now have most of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons on DVD’s and enjoy them all the time! If kids are interested in becoming a cartoonist someday, what can they do to prepare? If you want to become a cartoonist, you have to LOVE to draw! Draw all the time, like I did. Carry a small sketchbook and doodle. Create your own comic strip about your life! A cartoonist is also a writer, so learn to see the humor in the world, even when things go wrong! The more you draw, the more you’ll love creating, and the better artist you’ll become! Would you encourage kids to become cartoonists? I’ve said this before: If you want to become a cartoonist (or anything else), always remember that you CAN! Work hard, love what you do, practice, and take classes. Surround yourself with people who support you. Everyone is an artist. The weird ones become cartoonists!
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by Chris Sabatino
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Portland, OR 1:20 PM
There’s a nip in the air, but otherwise it’s all clear! Max and Gracie and their owners, Linda, Craig, and their seven-year-old son, Ed, are driving the back roads of America. Perhaps you have seen Max and Gracie with their heads out the window. If not, here is a letter describing their most recent adventure.
ival. It was a lot of fun. We Gracie, and I went to a snow fest Ed, a, Lind k, wor to t wen ig Cra While most deliciously fragrant food. sts, games, and booths with the arti t pain face res, lptu scu ice saw ed like her, except for the big cature of her. The drawing look cari a draw st arti an had a Lind blubbery lips he gave her. lips,” Gracie barked. “She doesn’t have big blubbery s a feature.” re is when an artist exaggerate “Of course not,” I said. “A caricatu and Ed immediately for a free caricature, and Linda sit ld cou I and cie Gra if d aske The artist said, “Yes.” ryone laughed when e, a big crowd had gathered. Eve plet com was re catu cari our e By the tim me a humongous nose. had given Gracie a long neck and they saw the picture. The artist look at it. “Is it? Is it that crossing my eyes to get a good cie, Gra d aske I ” big? that e “Is my nos er when I crossed my eyes. big?” Everyone laughed even hard bed the picture. whined. She jumped up and grab “I hate that huge neck,” Gracie “HEY,” the artist yelled. h the artwork firmly in her between festivalgoers’ legs. Wit Gracie took off running, weaving mouth, she made her escape. be seen. her, the picture was nowhere to When we finally caught up with ld smell it. d, sniffing the air in hopes I cou “What did you do with it?” I aske me with her as she walked past Linda, Ed, and “Don’t be nosey!” Gracie barked, . neck extended and head held high
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Make a Flip Book by Rebecca J. Gomez • illustrated by Pamela Harden
If you can draw a stick person, then you can make your very own animated flip book. All you need is a small Post-it® pad and a pencil! Post-it pads work great because you can easily flip through the pages. If you can’t get a Post-it pad, try any pad of blank paper.
Here’s what you do. Begin by drawing a standing stick person on the bottom left corner of the top page. See box 1. You are going to make your stick person look like he is jumping into the air, landing on his head, and standing back up again. You do this by creating a series of drawings – one drawing per page. On the second page, draw your stick person with his knees slightly bent. See box 2.
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Follow the drawings shown in the remaining illustrations to make your person jump. For steps 7 and beyond, remember to move each drawing a little closer to the right side of the page until he is at the bottom right corner in step 20. This will make it look like your person is flying through the air. When you are done, use your thumb to quickly flip through the pages, and see your stick person come to life.
More Flip Book Ideas Try making a stick person run across the page or do jumping jacks. Or try something else, like a stick dog chasing a bouncing ball. Be creative and have fun!
by Erica Elmer
Have you ever seen an animated movie or TV show that looks like everything has been made out of clay? This technique using clay figurines and objects is called Claymation, or stop-motion animation. Movies like Chicken Run and The Nightmare Before Christmas used this technique. Making a film like this is almost like drawing a flip book. If you were to draw a flip book of a person waving her hand, there would be only slight changes in the position of the hand on each page. When the pages are flipped through in one simultaneous motion, it looks like the character is raising her hand to wave hello. The techniques behind stop-motion film are very similar, except filmmakers will often use figures made entirely of clay. They use a camera instead of pencil and paper to capture their footage. First they come up with an idea for a film. Then they mold their characters and the entire world of the film using clay. As they shoot their film, they create the illusion of movement. Each figure is moved just a bit and then recorded on film. After shooting one or two frames of film,
the camera is paused. The objects are moved again. The movement is almost invisible to the eye. Objects are moved just slightly to create fluid, realistic movements. They are moved more to create swifter, jerkier movements. It’s a slow process. Sometimes making a Claymation film can take years! The Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco, California, has an Animation Studio. There, visitors of all ages can make their own clay animation film. What kind of clay characters would you create and bring to life on film?
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