Lynn Johnston's advice for aspiring cartoonists

TOM HEINTJES: Do you have any words of advice for aspiring cartoonists?
LYNN JOHNSTON: You have to be brutally honest with yourself if you want to be in the world of strip cartoons or editorial cartoons, because you have to be so many people wrapped up into one. You have to be a writer, a humorist, an artist and an actor. You have to be a superb actor, because you have to breathe life into all these characters. If one of your characters is laughing, you want that mouth wide open and the tongue out, eyes crinkled up, and you want to convey that expression so that it goes into the eyeball of the reader and straight to the brain. You have to be able to act that well.