Secrets of the City

A lot of ad agencies in town buy art all the time. Also, there are about 10 local mags. The Rake, Mpls-St.Paul, Minnesota Monthly, vita.mn, City Pages all seem to buy freelance art all the time. Also check this.

This ia great city for creative folks and for cartoonists with talent or even without. Though typically cartooning is a freelance career and your clients aren’t likely to be in the area. There are lots of advertising and interactive agencies in Minneapolis with plenty of opportunities for good digital illustrators. It’s no Los Angeles but there is plenty of work (and competition)

http://cartoonistconspiracy.com/ The International Cartoonist Conspiracy is a large, open, and active group of cartoonists that meet once a month. A good place to start is at their monthly Jams.

Scroll down for a list of Cartoonists in Minneapolis: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/commentary/2819

Big Time Attic http://www.bigtimeattic.com and PUNY http://www.punyentertainment.com are based in Minneapolis and I’ll usually hire a cartoonist over a non-cartoonist.

Talk to David Gillette at Minnetonka Comics, asher. He’s a local kid making a living with his scribbles.

Maybe the Red Wing paper could use you?

If you are willing to work in/with advertising – then the Twin Cities are a great town to work within the Graphic Design industry.

However, if you are not willing to get into advertising, the market is over-saturated.

I don’t know about cartooning specifically – but your best bet for illustrative work is going to be going with the advertising agencies.

There is actually a pretty neat cartoonist community here – depending on what you’re into.

Roger Looten
Ken Avidor
Andy Singer (although he may have left for SF)
Adam Wirtzfeld

all great guys who I have met personally.

Not sure how to get in touch with them but I’ll bet if you google you can find a contact.

I think the market has been lousy for illustrators for 15 years now, ever since the stock art companies went online. It’s very hard even for good illustrators to get much work, that goes double for cartoonists. However, the cost of living is far lower here than in NYC and it might be easier to pursue a cartooning career here.

If you have not already, I would highly recommend learning InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator and getting a job as a designer. The illustrators that are still getting illustration work usually get it in conjunction with their job as a designer.

That being said the Twin Cities has had a terrific cartooning community for a number of years with several talented cartoonist living here. Charles Schutlz is the most obvious, but also Alison Bechdel, Ward Sutton, Rob Kirby (who also lived in NYC) etc, etc….

Despite it being deader than Schultz, this thread has astounding persistence on the front page. I think it should be commemorated in some way.

Perhaps it should become an unofficial open thread? Maybe we could post our favorite cartoons here?

Teucer: The Minnesota-made creator of Charlie Brown, Linus, and a certain beagle had no “t” in his last name. Which is not to suggest there are no people named Schultz who are also dead and whom you may have meant.

But Charles M. Schulz was a genius on the magnitude of Beethoven and Da Vinci.

Hey, Talk to Terry he is the only real cartoonist I know. He draws real comic books works at MCAD dose free lance. Real nice guy. Here is his blog. terrybeatty.blogspot.com

I can’t help anyone in cartooning, so there!