Cartooning contests give people a chance to discover their artistic abilities.
Cartoon drawing contests are nothing new, and as a result many of the ideas for them have been done many times. A cartoon drawing contest is more interesting both to participants and readers if the organizers create a truly unusual theme for the contest. This requires some imagination and, at times, a certain amount of daring and a even willingness to offend some people.
Gender-Change Self Portraits
Female participants are required to draw themselves as a man, and male participants are required to draw themselves as a woman. Transgender individuals can take their pick. In the spirit of cartooning, unfair and indiscreet lampooning of gender differences is allowed and expected. Thus, women's drawings of themselves as men are likely to feature five-day beards, chainsaws, and tight pants, while men's drawings of themselves as women could incorporate prominent cleavage, elaborate hairstyles, and oversized handbags.
Erotic Animals
This is a contest to see who will draw the most compelling image of animals engaged in erotic behavior. Categories include most bizarre, most humorous, most beautiful and most anatomically correct. Use of exotic species is encouraged: an image of a group of Spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindela sexguttata) engaged in an orgy is bound to do better than a cartoon of two horses doing what horses do.
(You will probably wish to prohibit cartoon humans.)
Internal Organs
In the long history of the distortion of the exterior human form in cartooning, internal organs have gotten little attention. This contest is intended to amend that. It extends the cartoonist's art to the interior of the human form, and introduces internal caricature to the world. This is a genuine test of the satirical skills of a cartoonist. Use your artistic genius to make people laugh at someone's spleen. Develop a humorous situation involving a tibia and a pineal gland. Try to elicit a guffaw with your rendition of the small intestine. Here's your chance to combine humor and internal medicine.
Cloud Caricature
Contestants are sent out with a camera and a drawing pad. They are required to take a photograph of a cloud, and then to make a drawing that transforms the cloud into something recognizable. This contest could be made more difficult by requiring contestants to match certain clouds with certain emotions. One person might draw a sardonic altostratus, another would be assigned to draw an arrogant cumulonimbus, while a third would be working on a depressed stratocumulus. Require that the photo of the cloud must be submitted along with the cartoon.
