{"id":2946,"date":"2022-11-13T07:48:09","date_gmt":"2022-11-13T12:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/?p=2946"},"modified":"2022-11-10T17:59:44","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T22:59:44","slug":"cartoonist-leila-cabibs-craft-is-to-tell-a-joke-without-using-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/cartoonist-leila-cabibs-craft-is-to-tell-a-joke-without-using-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Cartoonist Leila Cabib\u2019s craft is to tell a joke without using words"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Courtesy of Leila Cabib<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cartoonist\u2019s job entails more than just eliciting a chuckle at a humorous punchline. The best cartoonists are not only \u2014 or merely \u2014 funny. They dig into political and social issues; point out the ironies of contemporary life; teach us about our neighbors and ourselves and, perhaps, make us scratch our head, disagree or even change our minds about an idea or belief.<\/p>\n

Leila Cabib knew none of that growing up, first in Argentina, then Potomac. But she always enjoyed drawing and also read classic cartoons like \u201cPeanuts\u201d and \u201cFelix the Cat.\u201d But when her older sister, Cintia, brought home an edition of Churchill High School\u2019s newspaper, Leila thought that the cartoons looked like a lot of fun. \u201cI couldn\u2019t wait to get to high school and join the school\u2019s paper,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Since high school, Cabib has created her own syndicated cartoon, teaches cartooning through the Montgomery County Public Libraries and challenges herself to sketch daily. And her multi-panel cartoons, which she shares on her website, are both playful and sharp-witted examinations of modern life, tackling topics like dating and marriage, female friendships, job interviews and therapy, to name a few.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always drawing as a kid,\u201d growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, until the family moved to Maryland when she was in elementary school. At Bard College, Cabib penned comics for the student paper where, she said, \u201cI loved poking fun at the students at Bard, which is known for their unconventional people, but I found them to all be very conventionally unconventional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really interested in humor and the ironies of daily life,\u201d Cabib said, \u201clike the personal quirks and how we bump up against each other.\u201d She cited French cartoonist Claire Bret\u00e9cher\u2019s work in the strip \u201cLes Frustr\u00e9s\u201d \u2014 the frustrated ones \u2014 along with Jules Feiffer\u2019s pointed takes on life and politics, as inspiration to think about cartooning from a more studied psychological or sociological point of view.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat inspires me are situations we encounter in life,\u201d she said. \u201cI enjoy coming up with and running with an idea that gets across my point. It\u2019s like I am developing a dialogue\u201d with the reader.<\/p>\n

Cabib carries a small notebook with her everywhere she goes to jot down overheard conversations, random thoughts and observations of oddities that occur in life. Those notes \u2014 captured in the grocery store, a caf\u00e9 or restaurant, in her classes, at the post office, or wherever she might find herself \u2014 become fodder for her perceptive and quirky comic strips.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of Leila Cabib<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One titled \u201cThe Conscientious Canine\u201d involves the growing presence of emotional support animals. She considered the various ways an emotional support or therapy dog could come to life in a 16-panel strip that pushed the idea to its absurd endpoint \u2014 the dog coaches her owner, like a $300-an-hour therapist would.<\/p>\n

Cabib drew a daily syndicated strip for a brief period, prior to the digitalization of journalism. \u201cI created a cast of characters and each had their personality,\u201d she said. \u201cAs I illustrated the strip each [character] took on a life of its own \u2026 they became real people to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because competition in the syndicated comic world is so fierce and space is so tight in daily print newspapers, that strip didn\u2019t last long. But in truth, Cabib said, she never loved the four-panel strip format that syndication required: \u201cI like to do longer strips because the space in each panel is so tiny you end up just doing talking heads.\u201d She also found that the intense deadlines left her little time to get out in the world and glean fresh material from daily life.<\/p>\n

Beyond cartooning, Cabib\u2019s illustrations have given life and perspective to articles in publications ranging from Time-Life Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Gannett newspapers, Cambridge University Press, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the African American Health Program. She is often tasked with solving the problem of drilling down to the essence of a story or theme in pen-and-ink sketches or colorful watercolors \u2014 the results range from introspective depictions of a concept to fun illustrations of learning to a not-so-subtle take on a woman breaking through the glass ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, I like variety in my artistic life,\u201d she stated. In recent years she has begun a series of architectural sketches of homes and buildings in Washington, D.C., neighborhoods like Logan Circle, Capitol Hill, Georgetown and Dupont Circle. \u201cI started doing [architectural sketches] just to practice my observational drawing skills,\u201d Cabib said, noting that she had also participated in a life-drawing group on Saturday mornings at Montgomery College for many years.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of Leila Cabib<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More recently, she discovered an urban sketchers group, which focuses on street scenes and architecture sketched from life \u2014 en plein air. \u201cI go downtown with my sketchbook, pencil, pen and watercolor brushes to sketch. I bring a little stool and just sit in front of buildings that I find an affinity for.\u201d At this point Cabib has completed enough plein air architectural sketches for a June 2023 show at the Connie Morella Library in Bethesda.Cabib also makes time to teach, both children (in person) and seniors (via Zoom), the art and craft of cartooning. Her goal, she explained, is to \u201cteach a series of exercises for students designed to give them parameters to express a point of view, to be original.\u201d To that end, she shares artwork by a variety of cartoonists from Charles Adams to Jules Feiffer and beyond. \u201cThe challenge [in cartooning],\u201d she said, \u201cis for students to get a joke across without any words \u2026. It\u2019s not a drawing class; it\u2019s really an idea class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cartoonist\u2019s job entails more than just eliciting a chuckle at a humorous punchline. The best cartoonists are not only \u2014 or merely \u2014 funny. They dig into political and social issues; point out the ironies of contemporary life; teach us about our neighbors and ourselves and, perhaps, make us scratch our head, disagree or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":2952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,61],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nCartoonist Leila Cabib\u2019s craft is to tell a joke without using words - Montgomery Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/cartoonist-leila-cabibs-craft-is-to-tell-a-joke-without-using-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cartoonist Leila Cabib\u2019s craft is to tell a joke without using words - Montgomery Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The cartoonist\u2019s job entails more than just eliciting a chuckle at a humorous punchline. 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