Tom Fishburne reimagines the Business of Cartooning

I don’t know about you, but I remember a time every Sunday when I’d grab my grandparents’ newspaper and thumb through to the only thing I found interesting at that age – the comics. Peanuts, Family Circle, Garfield, and of course, Calvin and Hobbs, to name a few. But what happened? Cartooning has been on a steady decline! Today’s guest, Tom Fishburne, lays out the huge opportunity for cartoonists in marketing, while facing the challenge that cartoons have never been more undervalued than they are today. In a time where cartoonists are failing, Tom has found a common-sense formula that he’s built his cartooning agency on, and he calls it ‘marketooning.’ At 2:00 – Tom describes how he applies his unique twist that has made his agency so successful in a time when cartoons are on the decline. At 8:00 – Tom talks about the fate of some of today’s biggest cartoonists, and the incredible pressure of having to have a ‘real’ job while they spend all their spare time on their passion and art. At 12:00 – Tom describes how he took his own creative process for creating a cartoon and scaled it up to fit an agency. At 21:00 – It’s sometimes difficult to create a cartoon for a company when you don’t have expertise, so Tom talks about how he learns new areas. At 26:00 – Tom talks about his future in terms of his three reimaginations of the cartooning industry, and the most important of those he considers to be helping his clients connect with their audiences in a meaningful way.