Memories
People tend to remember what they did on historical dates – here is what each of us did on that fateful day three years ago:
Bernd couldn’t bear the tension of staring at the computer screen all day. Instead, he spent the afternoon at a local bar called “Pillhuhn”. He had to walk there on crutches because he had broken his ankle. The doctors used seven screws to fix it. Theyshould have been removed in 2008 but they are still in there – there’s just too much to do.
Max took a day off after working hard for weeks. He had been coding HTML until the very last minute.
Becci / Battlestar only joined toonpool.com in April 2008. In November she was still writing her BA thesis. She also dreamt that she was Dieter Bohlen’s girlfriend and wet his bed.
Paul was staying in the United States. He had not heard of toonpool.com yet. On November 15 he held a presentation on Disney World, wrote an exam on Southern Literature and went to bed early. He joined toonpool.com in August 2009.
Lars / Ches wrote an email at 1:47 AM. It said: “toonpool.com – now awailable”. He also provided the very first cartoon. You probably need to know a German browser game called “Space Pioneer” to really get the joke.
Some History
We would like to offer you a glimpse into the evolution of toonpool.com:
Click here to see an early layout, dated May 2007 – only four weeks after the initial meeting.
Click here to see three stages in the development of our logo.
Click here to see a later design for the page (please note that the logo is already in place)
Click here to see the last stage in designing the layout (June 14, 2007)
Click here to see a very early (and very small) design for the toonpool guy (September 8, 2007)
Click here to see what the site looked like in October 2008 before the first relaunch – it’s pretty close to the 2007 design. Ah, the lamella.
Outlook
Over the years we introduced several new features to toonpool.com and did some stuff that was only remotely related to the site. Some of these things probably need some more thought (toonBattle, anyone?), others went great – take the toonpool.com exhibition in Izmir, for example. That’s probably how life works. We have quite a lot of stuff planned for 2011 – new exhibitions, new features and a major relaunch. Maybe we will even change that rating system. Maybe.
And finally…
We are glad to have such a great community – and obviously none of this would have been possible without you. We hope that you will stay with us in the years to come. And we would like to give an extra shout-out to everyone who sent in their version of the toonpool guy. They are awesome – just look at them:
A toonpool girl by Ronald Slabbers
A toonpool djinn by Menekse Cam
A toonpool cowboy by Otilia Bors
A new toonpool mobile by Perugino (we really need one of those)
A colorful toonpool thing by Afroditi
the toonpool guy about to save the day by Creative Jones
A middle-aged toonpool guy by Til Mette
A toonpool gnome by Meikel Neid
Temperaments of the toonpool guy by Nicoleta Ionescu
If there should ever be a toonpool feature film we want Danny DeVito to play the guy
Fighting toonpool guy by Mailto
Til, you lived in New York for a while… How did you end up there?
My wife was offered a job in Manhattan in 1992 , so we moved to New York City and lived there for 14 years.
Can you remember the first time you read an issue of the “New Yorker”? Did the cartoons appeal to you in some kind of special way?
That was when I was still very young. My uncle studied theology in New York in the Fifties and had the New Yorker at home. I was always impressed by the cartoons. I guess that’s how I learned English – by trying to get the jokes.
Would you say that there is some kind of quality or a special kind of humor that all the different people drawing for the New Yorker share?
Yes, I do. But I think it’s not the cartoonist, it’s the editor’s choice that creates the “New Yorker style”. These cartoons did not change very much the last 85 years. Some cartoons from the Thirties or Forties by Alan Dunn or Chas Addams could have been done today. They are old and modern at the same time.
So, how would you describe that style of cartoons that several generations of editors seem to agree on?
There is not one single style of cartoons in the New Yorker but the most common style would be the black and white one panel social cartoon with its caption underneath.
Did these cartoons teach you anything about how to do your own cartoons?
Oh yes. I love that dry and witty humor. The quintessential New Yorker cartoon is timeless, poetic, silly and satirical. My all-time favorite is Art Spiegelman’s cartoon where he proves that Jews do the best anti-Semitic jokes. This was his comment about the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest some years ago.
How can you teach yourself to be “timeless, poetic and silly”? .. Well, seriously, how do you apply features you admire to your own cartoons?
That will always be one of the biggest mysteries in our job. If I knew, I would quit drawing and start a zen buddhist cartoon school. But in the future I guess you just wait until Google comes up with the timeless-poetic-silly app, copy and paste it to your cartoon and..bingo!
Is there a German equivalent to New Yorker cartoons?
The New Yorker magazine is a very unique paper, but Germany’s Stern magazine, with its sixty-one year tradition of presenting cartoons prominently as part of their trademark comes close. And last not least there are some great Geman cartoonists that draw in this “New Yorker” style, like Rudi Hurzlmeier, Rattelschneck, Freimut Woessner, Detlev Beck and Bernd Zeller.
Last question: Have you ever sent in a cartoon to the New Yorker?
In the early nineties I tried to get into the New Yorker for about a year. You have to send them twenty cartoons per week. In the end I still got rejected but also received some encouraging notes attached to the rejections. At that time I applied to Stern magazine and a bit later I got a contract offer. Since then I have focused on being a Stern cartoonist.
Thanks for your time!
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The original sketch for the toonpool.com mascot. These days it serves as decoration in our bathroom.
We went online on November 15, 2007 and since then the site has evolved quite a bit. Today, there are over 55,000 cartoons by 1430 artists from all over the world. We introduced great new features, like Collections and the Community page as well as features that turned out not so great in reality (anybody remember Bubble-It?). We stayed true to the rating system, even though a lot of users have complained over time. We witnessed and took part in several debates about topics like censorship and anti-Semitism and we survived an international scandal in the cartoon world. Throughout all of this we held some fierce internal debates about the site’s appearance that ended only a year ago. Some of us still miss the old lamella design.
The idea behind toonpool.com is quite simple, yet the artists made the site a special place on the internet: something different from other portals that provide funny illustrations and photos. It’s always amazing to see how fast artists provide topical cartoons – sometimes only ten minutes after an item has appeared on the big news portals. In the future, we want more people outside of toonpool.com to profit from this. We will work hard to make the amazing works on our site known to a greater public. We are also planning to help those who feel inspired to do a cartoon but just can’t draw. There’s more to come.. so, stay with us. And tell your friends.
We would like to thank everyone who has worked for toonpool.com in the past, interns and temporaries and loosely affiliated folks. You helped us a lot. And we would like to say thank you to all artist and users. Obviously. You’re the most important part of the whole thing.
The toonpool.com staff
Staff Picks
Max: It’s not exactly easy to pick a favorite out of 55,000 cartoons. There are so many different drawing styles on toonpool.com that I really enjoy. But I picked a “classic” cartoon: “Good Morning” by Ronald Slabbers. The cartoon is classic in several ways – it combines social criticism and a funny drawing the way great cartoons have done for 50 years now and it’s a prime example of Slabber’s classic cartoon art. His style always reminds me of cartoons in the New Yorker, which I would look at as a kid without really knowing English.
Bernd: I like “Speech” by Pawel Kuczynski best. That’s all.
Battlestar: My favorite is this one by Creative Jones. It’s about a problem in our society that affects me personally, too. Online networking has become a huge part of modern society and there are so many communities you are supposed to join and so many accounts to take care of, so much time we spend on the internet …it can drive you insane sometimes. I think it’s important to reflect that and make fun of it. Besides, I am always imagining this is the “Tom” from myspace, who is everyone’s first friend. I think he would like that cartoon as well.
Ches: I can’t really decide between “Johnny Skywalker” by Volkertoons and “Screen Shot” by Achecht. They are both ingeniously rendered word plays.
Paul: “Haarschnitt” by Peter Thulke always makes me smile. It’s about the transforming power of children’s haircuts. Well, maybe that’s my favorite cartoon for friendly days. On another day I might have chosen “Handschuhe” by Ari, for instance.
Photos
