![]() The cartoonist can begin to create these impressions even before adding the more obvious smiles or frowns, ears or noses, hair-do or costume. Exaggerating these elements creates the look of youth, or sadness or bewilderment. In the next step, the cartoonist "sharpens" and "assimilates" through the placement of facial features. The enormous complexities of the human physiognomy have been reduced to their bare essentials, but they are not distorted. In this figure the human face has been "leveled" to a circular shape, two eye dots, and a mouth line. These basic cartoon strategies can be most easily seen with simple demonstrations. Nevertheless if a cartoon "works" the reader forgives any manipulation involved because of the insight gained. While the cartoon code is a convenient shorthand, it is also a starting point for criticism of the cartoon as a form of popular communication: simplifying can lead to oversimplification sharpening can unfairly caricature exaggeration can become stereotype which perpetuates the worst racial, ethnic or sexist elements of popular culture. The dull person is made to look positively idiotic and the mean one becomes thoroughly villainous. Thus the square-jawed hero becomes even more firm of jaw. As wrinkles and minor features drop out, the expressive features of eyes, mouth and brows (features that move and are therefore the most informative in the human face) become more prominent.įinally, the cartoonist assimilates through exaggeration and interpolation so that the fantasy, while still make-believe, "makes sense" for the reader. As a cartoon body shrinks, the head expands. The figures stand out crisply from the background. In sharpening, some items drop out so that the remaining items gather in importance. If possible the cartoonist does not use two lines where one line will do. It is often black and white rather than full color, retaining the outline of a figure with only a hint of the form's texture, shade and shape.Įven the outline is usually simplified with the cartoonist dropping needless objects and details. The cartoon is 2-dimensional rather than 3-dimensional. The cartoonist radically "levels" what we usually see in our perceptual field. In the process of leveling, communication is simplified. ![]() ![]() There are a handful of basic techniques which the cartoonist manipulates to create a symbolic world of make-believe.īasically, cartoonists, as all good communicators, transmit information through three processes: leveling, sharpening and assimilation Under scrutiny, the cartoon code is surprisingly complex, but it is not without logic. ![]() An understanding of the impact of cartoons rests in part on an appreciation of the cartoon code, how and why it works the way it does. ![]()
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