| A cartoon is usually a single drawing in which, if a story is implied, the conversation or actions of the characters must convey it. Cartoons are simplified drawings (if the picture is realistic or artistic it is not a "cartoon"). Caricature is a near cousin. Bei uns this art-form is usually fan-fictional; a fan takes a look at his young son and exclaims "Omigawd! Tendrils!" ktp.
Several varieties of cartoon-character must be distinguished. Aside from obviously non-human creatures like Jean Young's Roubidoux Bird and Archie Mercer's Trufins, humanoid cartoon-characters may be classified as actually manlike, stick figures, or phallic symbol men. William Rotsler gave widest circulation to the latter, whose name will readily be understood from a glance at the illustration. ("You might add", mentions WR, "that 99% of the captions you see on them are not mine. People will use my drawings and then add captions of their own. I wouldn't have minded if they were any good at it...") Obviously related are Ray Nelson's Globlies, J&dYoung's Poo and Yobber, the Laney Character, and Charles Wells' Foofs. Jack Speer has contributed whole pages of stick figures doing varied things in the manner of American Legion cartoonist Wallgren; to this category also belong Lee Hoffman's Li'l Peepul, Jean Young's Jeff City Men, some of Jean Linard's drawings, and Dean Grennell's Blork-men... tho here we begin to shade into the actually manlike creatures like Shelby Vick's Puffins, the Dave English character, and Harlan Ellison's Max J Runnerbean. Hard to classify are a few whimsical anomalies like Terry Carr's face critturs and the faces Walt Liebscher used to do with the typer-keyboard.
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