La Commedia 

Preludio

Kaamran’s interest in drawing cartoons began at the age of ten when his mother brought home a Walter Foster-Preston Blair animation instruction book. By the age of twelve, inspired by the work of Don Martin and Jim Unger, Kaamran had decided he wanted to be a cartoonist. Drawing came easily, but not knowing how to write humor at that age was a problem, and his early efforts came to naught.

In 1993, following a Bachelor of Music, Kaamran came across Mischa Richter’s book, The Cartoonist’s Muse, in which the venerable New Yorker cartoonist describes in great detail the process and techniques of generating ideas. Kaamran found he was actually able to write humor and sold his first cartoon – to King Features for use in their single-panel comic, The New Breed.

In 1995 Kaamran moved to New York to study Illustration at Parsons School of Design. He dropped out after a year, and spent some time living and working in Manhattan. During this time, he made his first cartoon submissions to The New Yorker, but sales were not forthcoming.

In 1997, Kaamran parlayed his success at Parsons into a spot in the University of Michigan’s Master’s Program in Architecture. Although his results as an architecture student were middling, he had some success drawing the political cartoon for the University’s newspaper, The Michigan Daily. After a year of studies, Kaamran decided architecture was not for him and left the master’s degree program.

Inferno

Midway through life’s journey, Kaamran found himself in Ann Arbor. Having lost the straight path, he took a job as a pharmacy technician at a local hospital and spent the next seven years working full time. Hope of becoming a cartoonist was abandoned.

Purgatorio

In 2005, Kaamran returned home to Vancouver where he resumed his interest in cartoons. He began making submissions to the newspaper syndicates, and In 2008 was offered a digital syndication deal by Universal Uclick, a division of Andrews Mcmeel. Kaamran spent the next year writing and drawing a single panel comic called Bozo for Uclick’s GoComics website.

Paradiso

In 2010, Kaamran left Universal Uclick to enter the magazine market. He began making weekly submissions to The New Yorker, and a few months later sold his first cartoon. Kaamran’s cartoons have since appeared in Medical Economics, Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Barron’s, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker.

Kaamran lives and works on Gabriola Island, BC.

 

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3 Response Comments

  • Dave Beresford  May 6, 2016 at 6:46 am

    I love the style of your cartoons and feel inspired by your story here. It shows me that I need to keep going with all the submissions I keep doing. Initial rejection (and who knows, constant rejection) is part of the road to becoming a cartoonist! Thanks for telling your story and please keep drawing!

    Reply
  • Melanie Cochrane Fallon  October 3, 2020 at 3:32 am

    Your cartoons make me feel better. Like an episode of Mad Men. Your lines are so self assured and swank. They are powerful lines. Your humor is sublime. Yes, I’m a late coming cartoonist… an American who left in 2994 for Ireland. I can’t do anything but could always “do art” for some reason. I’m now combining that in my strong humor streak and have a small stack almost ready to go to the New Yorker. If I ever got accepted I don’t think I’d ever stop crying. Anyway, your work lifts me to a higher plane. Cheers from Kilkenny.

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