Customer Reviews

Drawing Cartoons (First Steps)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is the first one I read this year (back on Jan 1!). I've since re-read it a few times and continue to find it enjoyable and impressive.

For me, Chapter Four alone is worth the price of admission. Page 79 is priceless, truly inspiring -- and I have to agree with it: after about 35 years of serious drawing, I still learn new things about cartooning all the time, it never stops. [And more than a couple of those new things are ones I learned out of this book.]

What Mark Heath has achieved here is not easy: a fresh approach to the basics that can help raw newbies and wizened amateurs alike. I never felt like "this is stuff I've already read a million times" -- Mark sidesteps the usual intro material and approaches it from a new slant or adds new insights to it.

If you're new, this is a great intro to cartooning that allows you lots of room to find your own style while homing in on solid quality work. If you're an old hand, this book will still show you a few new wrinkles, and re-awaken your love for the artform all over again. What more can you ask?

The book is only worth about $5. It has only a hundred or so pages that are more of the author's cartoons than any practical advice. On the last page of the book, the author points out all the mistakes he made in the book but decided to leave in so that he could point them out to us. I'm interested in cartooning/comic strips and I feel that I am no closer to being able to do that than I was before I read the book. I don't understand how this book got all great reviews. Don't be fooled like I was!

This is a great book for beginning cartoonists. Mark Heath's "Drawing Cartoons" is the first "how to draw" book to help me learn how to "think like a cartoonist." Most drawing books I've seen in the past give the reader step-by-step line drawings to copy. While this approach often results in a flashy finished-product for the reader, the beginning cartoonist is left without the "tools" for creating drawings from scratch, on his or her own. Mark's emphasis, in contrast, is on arming the beginning artist with the means to create his or her own cartoons from the ground up. For example, he advises, "cartoons don't perfect detail, but rather, suggest detail." Advice like this helps the budding cartoonist think like a professional. In addition, Mark's warm and witty sense of humor make for a enjoyable first, second, and third-time "reads." I really like it!

I have absolutely no talent for drawing, but I write books for my first graders and was tired of cut and paste stuff. I found this book about cartooning, and since I felt that the only thing I could possibly do was something very basic, I decided to try it. I have been drawing now for about 6 months and am really thrilled at my progress with cartoons. Best of all, the kids love the stories and the stupid little cartoons I draw! Okay, Bob Books, move over!

I have read a number of cartooning books, some by people who are "household names", but never one this good! This book covers what every cartoonist wants to know, cutting through the unnecessary "stuff". I would put this book in the hands of everyone interested in the fine art of cartooning!

As a novice cartoonist, I was looking for a book to take me through the basics of learning to draw faces with expression and bodies to go with them. Mark Heath's book accomplishes this and more with a blend of humor and commonsense advice. I learned how eyes and mouths can reveal emotions and how a body that stands at ease makes a cartoon seem realistic. Hands (both in and out of pockets) and feet (naked and shoe-d) are also explored; so are clothing, accessories and setting. The book is highly readable - its format (lots of drawing, light on the text) should appeal to would-be cartoonists of all ages. This is a book I will refer back to again and again - my copy is already becoming dog-eared!

Mark's book is one of the best I've seen dealing with getting started in the cartooning business. I use it myself for workshops I give. It's easy to follow and deals with the subject with wit and lots of fun imagery. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

I already had several other books of cartooning instruction, including ones that have received five-star reviews elsewhere on the Amazon web site, but there was something special about this one when I picked it up. Funny, I used to be self-conscious when I'd pull out my pen or pencil and notebook to draw basic shapes and lines. I didn't want others to see how crude my first scratchings were. But Mark's special touch with words and drawings helped me overcome that. Now I can be seen on the train during my daily commute with his book on one knee and my sketchbook on the other, happily drawing squares and rectangles and circles and noses and hairlines and eyes, and I don't care anymore how they look, becuase I know they'll get better. Thank you, Mark, for your wonderful instructions and examples and your positive approach.

I got this as a gift. A great book. The author's funny, honest, inspiring. I'm not a great artist, but this book showed me how to make the most of what I CAN do.

DRAWING CARTOONS is a wonderful book that shows novice cartoonists what tools to use and how to draw cartoon people, animals, backgrounds and special effects. There are hilarious, endearing cartoons on each page. Mark Heath shows how to portray emotion, mood and movement with just a few strokes of a pen. He shows how easy it is to draw cartoon faces, hands and bodies and how to make them expressive. Readers are encouraged to experiment, have fun and not worry about mistakes. This is a fantastic book.