HOW TO DRAW WITH YOUR FUNNY BONE

Sage instruction for would-be cartoonists from a veteran, self-billed “Trained Professional Artist.”

As the introduction suggests, this is more an overview of Smith’s personal approach than a systematic guidebook. He mixes standard starting points—looking analytically at photos or clip art, working from basic 2-D and 3-D shapes—with pages of sample caricatures and cartoons that interpret images in goofy ways or add comical details. Photos of pigs, mostly, but also pictures of an old car, a goat skull and other promising items serve as inspiration for the galleries of quick sketches. Many of these come with hand-lettered comments: “Light-bulb pig”; “Here’s a picture of an old sofa.” These complement the breezy main text: “Even food you think is yucky can be fun to draw.” He also describes—though doesn’t actually illustrate—using a lightbox, and he closes by urging readers to develop their own styles, providing a pair of blank pages as encouragement to limber up those artistic “funny bones.”

Smith’s pictures are always good for a hoot, though tyros will get a truer start from Ed Emberley’s classic manuals.