Sports Cartoons and Illustrations
Some subjects just make sense as cartoons. Athletes, for one. There's already something larger than life about the way they move, compete, and carry themselves. A good sports cartoon doesn't exaggerate that. It just makes it visible.
This is where the toons live. Mets, Islanders, Knicks, and whatever else in sports has been worth drawing. The roster changes when a player does something that demands it, or when the cartoon just needs to get made. Sometimes both happen at once. Sometimes a player does something so inexplicable that the cartoon draws itself out of pure confusion.
The Islanders are the other half of this. Growing up near Nassau Coliseum will do that to you. Mat Barzal, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and the rest of the blue and orange get the same treatment: hand-drawn first, then rebuilt digitally until it holds up at any size.
Beyond that, if a player did something worth illustrating, they're fair game. This isn't a museum. It's a working gallery of sports cartoons and illustrations that gets added to when the sport warrants it.
This is where the toons live. Mets, Islanders, Knicks, and whatever else in sports has been worth drawing. The roster changes when a player does something that demands it, or when the cartoon just needs to get made. Sometimes both happen at once. Sometimes a player does something so inexplicable that the cartoon draws itself out of pure confusion.
The Players
The Mets get the most attention here, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who grew up within earshot of Shea Stadium. Juan Soto, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Yoenis Cespedes. When a player has that kind of presence, the cartoon practically draws itself. Almost. The other five to ten hours are on Joe.The Islanders are the other half of this. Growing up near Nassau Coliseum will do that to you. Mat Barzal, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and the rest of the blue and orange get the same treatment: hand-drawn first, then rebuilt digitally until it holds up at any size.
Beyond that, if a player did something worth illustrating, they're fair game. This isn't a museum. It's a working gallery of sports cartoons and illustrations that gets added to when the sport warrants it.
Joe Toon
The Process
Every cartoon starts on paper. The initial sketch is hand-drawn, then redrawn digitally using a Wacom tablet and Adobe Illustrator. The goal with each illustration is clean line work, strong caricature, and enough personality that you know exactly who it is before you read the name. If you cannot tell who it is, the drawing failed. Joe will be the first to say so.
It’s a different discipline from oil painting, but the instinct is the same. Find the thing that makes the subject worth looking at, and put that on the page.
If you want one of these on a shirt, a print, or your wall, the merch stores are the place to start. Or just email joe@grafixjoker.com