When I was in fifth grade, a teacher told us that, although it was unfair, people had expectations about what kinds of people wrote certain genres of books. For example, JK Rowling (whose books were very much a hot topic for ten-year-olds in 2001) famously used her initials because publishers were concerned that boys wouldn't want to read a book written by a woman, even if the main character was also a young boy.
I was a precocious and slightly insane kid teetering on the cusp of puberty and with a strong sense of justice. I knew I wanted to write books at some point in my life, but I also knew that people were dumb and bought into sexism all the time. So that year I initialized my first and middle name and then scrambled my real last name to create my very first pen name: J.M. Tye-zir. Part of it was that I knew I couldn't take on the entire system and wanted as big a chance at getting published as possible. The other, much larger part was the mischievous streak in me that knew it would be fun to see the sexism crowd break if their "cool author guy" turned out to be a pretty lady who was always running her mouth.
This norm is dissolving, but its influence lingers. To this day I have a male pen name for my more general fantasy fiction, although as a genderfluid person who flip flops between he/she/they, it's no longer quite a lie. (Still fun to see the looks on people's faces, though.)
Art, you would think, would be a great place for self-expression. Instead, it has much of the same expectations as writing does. I went to college for ten years (on and off) learning ins and outs of exhibiting in galleries, how to sell your work, how to prepare a digital portfolio. And one thing in all my years of schooling bothered me more than all else:
Being told I wasn't a cartoonist.
Some of my college courses required me to present my own work using professional statements. These, they told us, would prepare us for submitting our work to gallery exhibitions. Art jargon was highly encouraged to make our work seem complicated and intelligent instead of admitting that we just had a random idea and ran with it. (Side note, those professors actually allowed me to show off some of the NSFW stuff I had made, and it was fun to jargon the hell out of those. My classmates told me I had massive balls to be able to present them in an intelligent way without stuttering, and I'm still chuffed about that ten years later.)
However, despite getting high marks for most of my embellishments, the professors repeatedly refused to allow me to introduce myself as a cartoonist. They said it was a children's genre not suited for gallery showings. A few times I challenged them by bringing up influential shows like Family Guy and South Park. Their response was that those are the exception, not the rule. They tried to encourage me to switch to "respectable" words like "Illustrator" and "Fine artist."
And while I'm technically both of those... I'm still a damn cartoonist.
Cartooning was never intended for children alone. Early animation giant Fleischer studio aimed many of their surreal pre-code animation shorts at adults by including sexual imagery and drug references. Tijuana Bibles (please don't look that phrase up at work) of the 1930s and 40s prove that R34 of cartoons is a century-long tradition. Even Playboy (dodgy guys, but squarely in the "not for kids" category!) hired multiple cartoonists to add a touch of dirty humor between the, uhh... high-quality articles. The list goes on and on and on and on and on...
One of the things that bothers me most about having to refer to myself primarily as an illustrator is that if I say "cartoonist," people think I'm making "silly drawings." Not everything I draw is meant to be funny. But even if I clear the air by showing them some of my artwork, the initial reaction bothers me because it implies that humor is still not seen as a valuable emotion. Too often society thinks anything that "humorous" and "lowbrow" are synonyms. It ties back into the myth that, when entertaining, being funny is easy and being serious is difficult. These old myths downplay the importance of humor in culture, even aside from giving people a moment to chuckle. For example: in the days before modern cartooning, stage productions and puppet shows were an important means of rebelling against authority by providing an outlet for information and self-expression that was protected under law. One of the most famous examples were the Punch and Judy shows beginning in the 1500s, which are the origin of the word "slapstick" itself. "Professors" of Punch and Judy would use the medium of fiction to provide commentary on real-world politicians of the day without fear of government retaliation. (I could go on a puppet rant here, but I think I'll save that for later.) I often include humor in my works because I take what I call a "Roger Rabbit" approach to life... I love making people laugh!
The other part of the problem is that people sometimes assume they know what my art is like before actually looking at my work. This has been less of a problem as years go by and cartoons/comics for adults become more widely accepted. But there was a time in the past where people assumed I meant either Bugs Bunny or Care Bears, and no matter which category I was put in, I was told to stop drawing "kid stuff." (Funnily enough, Looney Tunes aren't kid oriented.) Cartoons are as diverse as people are, from the simplified characters of Charles Schultz to the fanciful drawings of manga studio Peach-Pit to the uber-grotesque art of Robert Crumb. It's nice to see that this stigma has faded greatly over time. But the wounds from years past still feel fresh. I suspect I'm not the only one with this kind of past.
Despite progress, it's a shame that such a storied medium is still looked down on to this day. Sadly, I don't have space to give my entire ramble about society, culture, and art when my critics roll their eyes at the word "cartoon."
I'm still going to call myself a cartoonist.