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Contact the Artist
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) of Robb Armstrong |
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 Q. When did you first start drawing cartoons?
A. The short answer: Age 3. The long answer: I began drawing cartoons when I was about three. The "cartoons" I'm referring to looked like the scribbles of any 3-year-old. The difference is, my mom really went wild over them, to encourage me. This definitely caused me to take my feeble efforts seriously, and by the time I was 10, my scribbles looked better than the scribbles of other 10-year-olds. I nearly perfected a "Fred Flintstone" likeness that I could execute with lightning speed. I became a one-kid freak show, and it helped me make friends and get over shyness.
Q. Who were the cartoonists who most influenced you?
A. Hanna Barbera, Charles Schulz, Jeff MacNelly, MAD Magazine.
Q. How did you get your professional start?
A. My college newspaper, The Daily Orange, carried a strip I created called "Hector" for the four years I attended Syracuse University. I was "discovered" by the late Mark Cohen, a comics collector, about four years after I got out of college. He passed a strip idea along to United Media called "Cherry Top," which was a strip about a pair of cops. It evolved into "Jump Start" around 1988, and was launched in '89.
Q. How would you describe your style?
A. I'm a satirist. I love to exaggerate reality to make very specific points. I also like to illustrate emotions to extract certain emotions from my reader. One example of exaggeration that comes to mind is how I depict the terrible driving of Joe's mother, "Dot." She is such a scary driver, no driving instructor will ride in a car with her. She ends up being taught how to drive by a New York cab driver, and even he becomes traumatized. People nod along with this type of thing and say, "Yup. Reminds me of my aunt." I illustrate emotions like love, fear, etc. by having the characters communicate with themselves at various stages of life. "Grown-up Sunny" often visits "Kindergarten Sunny" so that they can work out their differences, etc. People seem to really relate to this concept.
Q. Where do you get your story ideas?
A. I get the funniest ideas from my friends and especially my family. My daughter, at the age of six, announced at dinner that she could no longer eat chicken because she's a vegetarian. My wife told her that she'd have to start eating vegetables, because that's what vegetarians do. My daughter said something so funny, I used it in a strip without changing a word. She said, "I do eat vegetables. I eat macaroni and cheese."
Q. How did you come up with your characters?
A. I base most of the characters in JS on real people. It has helped me treat my characters better, because I think of them as flesh and blood.
Q. Which are your favorite characters in the strip and why?
A. My favorite character is a friend of Sunny's named "Dr. Appleby." He's one of the few characters totally grabbed out of thin air, but I have a ball with him. He's a kid whose real name is "Doctor" because his mother wants him to be a surgeon when he grows up. She dresses him in scrubs every day, and kids have to make an appointment months in advance to play with him.
Q. Do you create on a daily basis?
A. Do you prefer to work in the morning or at night? I write every day, but I execute strips three days a week. I do my best work in the wee hours of the morning, around 3 or 4 AM. The ringing of the phone and other distractions don't exist at that time, and I can almost hear my ideas talking in a loud voice. I know that sounds weird, but you have to be weird to do this for a living.
Q. What materials do you use to draw your comics? Do you use a computer?
A. I use see-through paper to ink in my originals. I sketch on xerox paper and trace the finish onto translucent vellum. It's a time-saver because cartoonists who ink onto boards (as I used to do) have to sketch on the same board, and then erase the sketch after the inking process. I use a "Rotring Art Pen" for my characters and balloons and a black Papermate Flair for lettering. I scan everything into my iMac and modem my strips to New York two or three times a week.
Q. Do you have any suggestions on how to become a professional cartoonist?
A. In order to sell a strip to a big syndicate, some knowledge of the newspaper industry is useful. Strips need a "reason why" to sell to a syndicate, and to sell to newspapers. Young cartoonists must understand that being "funny" is not enough. Being a good artist is not enough, and being a witty writer is not enough. You have to be able to answer the syndicate's question of "Why do we need this strip?" If any other strip currently in syndication satisfies the reason "why," then your strip simply won't sell. Nobody needs "another Far Side" or "another Cat with a bad attitude." Demographics are enormously important because strips are used by newspapers to lure new buyers. That's why a new strip with a primary character of Asian origin would have a strong "reason why" right now.
I'm really happy to be a syndicated cartoonist. It is probably the best job in the world. I not only get to express every emotion inside me every day, but I get to do it from the comfort of my own home. My commute is so short, I do it in my underwear - sometimes not even that!
It's a dream come true.
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To contact the artist, write to:
Robb Armstrong
c/o United Media
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Your letter to the cartoonist will be forwarded via snail mail
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