We asked Grossman about the market for cartoons, his characters, and how the global pandemic influenced his work.
Cartoons are Andrew Grossman’s life. He has devoted decades to developing his characters and style, even though drawing has nothing in common with his education.
“I began drawing cartoons as an outgrowth of being a poet. When I graduated from college with a degree in English, I was thinking about what I could do for a living, and I thought I could try cartooning,” Grossman told us.
“My career developed in magazines, many of which used cartoons at that time,” recalls Grossman. However, with print magazines and newspapers being replaced by online media, Grossman had to adapt.
Brands find his cartoons online and buy them for their blogs and campaigns; writers and publishers ask him to create recognizable images for their books.
There isn’t a single topic Andrew Grossman wouldn’t cover. In his portfolio, you will find cartoons on politics, health, culture, education, business, and lifestyle.
This is how he describes his readers: “I think of my audience as people who want a break in their day to laugh and feel light, especially if their day has been heavy with work or other concerns.”
Cartoons are a genre of illustration with specific guidelines. Especially when it comes to image format. For example, Grossman specializes in single-panel cartoons, which work well in magazines, posters, or creative online campaigns.
“I would describe my style as a single-panel cartoon. In newspapers, comic strips of generally three panels are most common, but in magazines, the single-panel cartoon is most common,” Grossman explained.
The Spotty Relationship cartoon is Andrew Grossman’s favorite work in his Depositphotos portfolio. It depicts a character who frequently appears in his stories. “I like the simplicity of this cartoon and the universality of the fact that everyone has had ups and downs in their relationship life,” the artist admits.
And although the cartoonist often uses dogs and cats as heroes, you can still recognize them as typical people you meet in the office, on the street, or in the store.
Andrew Grossman speaks fondly of his characters: “The cartoons come from my imagination, but more specifically, they come from the minds of characters I’ve created over the years, many of whom are dogs and cats.”
A cartoon can take the artist anywhere from one hour to two full working days. The more complex the drawing, the longer it takes to complete. Andrew Grossman's productivity amazed us. The artist admits: “I probably create, on average, about 3—6 cartoons a day.”
Andrew Grossman is one of the most outstanding contributors to Depositphotos. We asked the artist why he uses microstock if he’s a well-known artist with a vast client base. Grossman told us that this approach enables him to unleash the potential of his enormous base of illustrations.
“I wanted to make more money from cartoons that had not been previously published, and from those that had been published, but which I had the rights to publish again,” the artist said.
There is hardly a person on our planet that wasn’t affected by the global pandemic. However, single creatives like photographers and illustrators often experience changes in themes, messages, and aesthetics.
Here's what Grossman thinks about it: “COVID-19 has not affected my workflow. It has certainly affected the topic of many of my cartoons because this pandemic has unfortunately been shared by millions of people. I want to help these people feel that they are not alone and that even in the most difficult times, we can be helped by humor.”
Andrew Grossman is proof that comics are a current genre of illustration with enormous potential in business and communication.
If you are an aspiring illustrator, here are some words of wisdom from Grossman himself: “Ideas always come. The best way to be inspired, I think, is to create characters that you find appealing and fun to work with, and then let the characters speak.”
