The original cartoons were drawn on letters to mom in the margins of lined notebook paper using ballpoint pen and colored pencils. These did not scan too well.

As a UNIX system administrator for a publishing department, I was familiar with some techniques and graphic software they used. I settled on drawing the cartoons in pencil, and tracing them onto velum in ink with a size 03 Staedtler pigment liner pen.

They were then scanned into Paint Shop Pro for editing and coloring. Canvas was used as a template for the cartoon frame and lettering. (I am not very good at lettering.) However the images imported into Canvas became too jaggy. Thanks to a tip from Mike Baldwin of the syndicated cartoon Cornered, they were imported into Photoshop, and converted to RGB mode, making the images smoother and more professional looking.

I then scanned the pencil sketches into Photoshop, traced them with a WACOM Intuos3 9X12 digitizing pen tablet, colored them and then edited the text. It also offered layers for the cartoon template, cartoon and text.

I am now using a new WACOM Cintiq 20WSX pen display to draw the sketch and cartoon directly on the screen into Photoshop. It's much faster and more intuitive. I'm also utilizing a new template system, courtesy of Wiley Miller, creator of the syndicated cartoon Non Sequitur.