This year, I started out with my usual Drawlloween prompts, but added the extra difficulty of trying to also incorporate the prompts from other October drawing challenges, like Inktober and Mabs Drawlloween Club. This resulted in some odd compositions that took a while to render each day, and the results were not getting much attention or feedback, so I decided to stop going in that direction.
After a few attempts at ink-only situations, I decided that the thing people will always react to, is humor, even if the drawing is not an involved rendering that took hours to create. This shortcut to views and likes seemed appealing, as I was always able to come up with some kind of joke to go with the very broad and subjective Inktober prompts on the list. The Drawlloween prompts were fun, but so very specific that the did restrict the subject matter.
The “gag” joke a day format in just black and white (some with some Instagram filters added to give a bit of visual flair) seemed to go over much better with viewers on all the social media sites I posted them on, but particularly the Inktober 2019 Facebook page, which has so many people from all over the world on it, that the sheer numbers can be both a help and a hindrance for getting your daily submissions seen.
Here are the cartoons I ended up doing each day after I committed to the form. I did all 31 days of the challenge, but these are the ones I did in the more popular “joke a day” format.
Unlike my weekly newspaper cartoon that has to be about local and timely subjects, these cartoons I did for the prompt could be more general and cover all kinds of subjects. Therefore they have more value for reuse in other places and make good portfolio pieces for selling cartoons to other places, so overall, I am glad I made the change in direction of the kind of art I was doing for this challenge, and the reactions prove that the audience preferred it as well. Something for me to consider for next year’s challenge.
