8-18 Media

Brad Veley

Using cartoons to make sense of the world

Story by 8-18 Media

Have you ever been bored in class, and doodled your way through it? Did you draw a cartoon of your teacher with a thought bubble that said, “Blah, Blah Blah?” And then did you show it to your friends to make them laugh? Illustrating cartoons that make people laugh can happen in class, at home, or maybe you get so good at illustrating cartoons it becomes your career, and your cartoons are featured in magazines and publications around the world. Marquette resident and professional illustrator and cartoonist Brad Veley’s love for cartoons started very early on in his youth and grew from there.

“I just loved drawing, and I think I was about 7 years old when my mom brought home a book of New Yorker cartoons. It was one of the first collections of cartoons, from the New Yorker magazine. It’s a magazine that is still around and still has a lot of cartoons in it. I didn’t know how to read yet, it took me a while, I think I was 7 or 8 before I learned how to read really well, but I loved looking at those cartoons and it made me laugh, even though I couldn’t read the captions or make sense of them,” Veley said. “Some of the humor was adult, I knew that, but I just loved the way the cartoons looked, and that got me really. My mother was an artist and teacher. She was a painter and specialized in landscapes and portraits, and she taught art at the public school, and I was an only kid so I had a lot of time on my hands and I really like drawing as a way of entertaining myself, and I got a lot of encouragement from my mother and my father too.”

Veley takes advantage of modern-day technology to sell his cartoons and bring smiles to people.

“A lot of my cartoons these days are being sold online, so sometimes they pop up in publications in South Africa, New Zealand. I never know where they are going to show up until I get paid for them. There is a company that sells my cartoons for me. One of the things I found out that I’m not very good at is business, being a good business person. I am very happy to let a company take care of all of that: marketing, selling my cartoons, finding customers, and handling the business transactions. I’m really happy to let someone else take care of that. I started out drawing cartoons before there was the internet before there were really computers, where you had to send photocopies of your cartoons to editors. Things have changed dramatically since I started cartooning,” Veley said.

People might wonder, where does Veley get ideas for his cartoons? In a surprise twist, Veley said he is more of a

word person than an artist.

“When I think of something funny, it is usually by banging words together or coming up with a twist on a familiar phrase or saying. If it makes me laugh it is a possible good idea for a drawing a cartoon, and then an image comes after that,” Veley said. “I do a lot of reading and I stay up on current events so I know what’s going on in the world. I’m interested in a lot of different things. I consider myself a writer who doodles. I don’t walk through my day picking cartoon ideas off of trees like they are ripe fruit. I have friends who do that, and I’m real jealous of them. I have to work real hard at my ideas. For me, it involves carving out some time each day. Sitting at my desk, having a quiet space and reading usually — sometimes a magazine, sometimes a novel, sometimes non-fiction, or just daydream and start jotting down what I’m thinking about: it’s a word, it’s a phrase, it’s a quotation, maybe a cliché, something you have heard a thousand times and you don’t even think twice about it and you move some words around a little bit and it becomes funny.” Veley said the best part of cartooning is that the process isn’t very expensive. His supplies are very basic and affordable, and his studio is a little desk in a spare bedroom office that he shares with his wife. “I have a very old computer, which I do use, but some of my supplies are very old. This is probably a 20-yearold pen. It’s called a ball-dipped pen. I actually dip it into a bottle of black India ink. I have a bunch of these and you can pull off the metal tip when it wears out or gets dull and you can replace it with another one that costs about 50 cents each, it’s great I love that. Another really inexpensive tool I use is this eraser. I’m always erasing and changing my mind. “I also do a lot of drawing with brushes and ink. These are sable brushes that you dip into ink, and they produce a different, thicker kind of line. I come up with a cartoon idea, and I decide it’s good enough to do a cartoon about, I’ll do it on a piece of Bristol board. I draw the cartoon in pencil and then when I get it how I want it, I ink it in with the pen or the brush. And then I scan it into the computer and use photoshop to add shading and then I have a digital copy of it, and that is how it becomes a cartoon I send out to clients.”

How long does it take him to create and illustrate a cartoon?

“Sometimes not long. Other ones take an agonizing amount of time,” Veley said. “If I have to redraw them and have to go back and scrap the drawing and start it

Brad Veley is pictured here with a friend. Veley has been a cartoonist for decades, documenting

over…I’m never sure. The ones that I think are going to be easy are the ones that take three hours. I don’t know. It takes what it takes.”

Cartoons are supposed to make people laugh, but sometimes cartoons touch on serious subjects such as politics. Veley said some of his more serious cartoons have to do with environmental topics.

“It’s stuff I think about a lot. We have a lot of environmental problems we need to take care of. How do you talk about that and make it funny at the same time? That’s a challenge. Something that is kind of scary, but to make it funny so you get people talking and thinking about making positive changes. Those are the ones that are hard.

“Also, a lot of my characters are just kind of perplexed and baffled by life like I am a lot of time and maybe a little anxious or depressed or scared, so all of those topics are serious to me because I have experienced all of those myself. You may think, being an adult, you have all the answers, but I find I have more questions and the less sure I am about answers I have found.

“One of the ways I work things out for myself is through humor and drawing about it. Making something funny out of something serious. I guess a lot of my cartoons start out with serious topics, but when I’m done with the cartoon, people can chuckle with the laugh of recognition. I hope that my cartoons are never mean or make someone feel bad. If I make fun of something in a cartoon it is usually because it is something I have felt or done myself,” Veley said.

Veley offered advice to kids who might want to pursue illustrating and cartooning.

“Keep at it. Do it as often as you can. When I first started cartooning I spent most of my time copying cartoons that I loved. I loved Peanuts. That was hugely popular. I loved copying characters like Yogi Bear. I was really lucky because my mom would buy me cartoon books so I would copy characters I loved. Drawing Yosemite Sam just made me laugh. It made me happy.

“Take art classes. These days it’s pretty easy to get in touch with a cartoonist. Almost every cartoonist is on Facebook. If you fall in love with their work, you can send them a message. Most of the cartoonists I have met like hearing from young people and like sharing what they know with young people and encouraging young artists and cartoonists,” Veley explained.

Veley enjoys his job, but the best part is how his audience perceives his work and hearing from people who see his cartoons, and knowing he makes people smile.

Written by the FMCA 8-18 Media Bureau reporters: Ana Alexander, Eli Alexander, Amelia Capuana, Madalyn Croney, Solomon Gorsalitz, Lydia Gorsalitz, Isaac Hagle, Ethan Hagle, Margaret Holm, Morris Holm, Travis Link, Grace Matt, Lily Smigiel, and Victoria Turask