Is there a cheap/free source for super cool, retro-talking heads clipart?

March 29, 2004 6:42 AM

I've got a chance to do a cartoon for our local paper. Our town has 8,000 residents. So anyway, I'm lazy and want to rip-off David Rees' Get Your War On. If I want my own super cool, retro-talking heads clipart do I have to scan it in myself, or is there a cheap/free source out there I can plunder? Many thanks.
posted by mecran01 to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Not really an answer to your question, but have you seen PartiallyClips? It runs on the same concept.
posted by brownpau at 7:17 AM on March 29, 2004

my recommendation would to be spend some time at local thrift clubs/swap meets (if your town or ones nearby have any), as there's simply oodles of those stupid Clip Art CDs that came with pre-built computers or that people actually bought (!).

My experience with "free" online clip art is that it's suckass to download, and isn't usually in a complete enough collection in one place to make it worth your while (i do remember that some of the FTP repositories had collections for awhile, which would be the easiest to DL as you could just snag a whole directory, but I'm not sure they're still around).

actually, my experience with typing "free" anything into google is usually suckass, but hey, that's the price one pays for a dot-com boom.

EDIT: google ftp clip art returns this (slow-loading) site which has a list of the FTP sites I was thinking of (haven't tried them, though, so it's still possible they're gone) .
posted by fishfucker at 7:19 AM on March 29, 2004

Build Your Own Meat

Not sure if that's what you're looking for, but it's fun either way.
posted by Pockets at 7:20 AM on March 29, 2004

Response by poster: Hohohoho! "Build Your Own Meat" is awesome! Thanks!

New York Public Library Archive of really old illustrations looks kinda good.
posted by mecran01 at 7:44 AM on March 29, 2004

Even small town papers usually have tens of thousands of clip art images on CD or through ftp sites, all of it copyright free. Talk to someone involved in designing ads to get ahold of it.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2004

Best answer: The art in Get Your War On is by Tom Tierney and is published by Dover Publications.
posted by skylar at 8:27 AM on March 29, 2004

I second Dover--you can buy cheap cdrom/book combos and you're all set. Will they be online too? (I'd like to see em)
posted by amberglow at 9:19 AM on March 29, 2004

To that point, the Dover CD-ROMs would seem to be exactly what you need.
posted by jjg at 9:21 AM on March 29, 2004

Response by poster: Excellent.

Thanks, these are great suggestions.
posted by mecran01 at 10:33 AM on March 29, 2004

Not sure what the copyright implications are, but Microsoft Comic Chat is great for this sort of thing. There is a site which already uses it (Can't remember the name of it), but it produces quite impressive results very easily.

An example....

posted by seanyboy at 1:50 PM on March 29, 2004

Three cheers for Build Your Own Meat! Awesome!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 2:57 PM on March 29, 2004

Or...

StripCreator.

Lovely.
posted by armoured-ant at 5:51 PM on March 29, 2004

If you are going to publish someone else's art in your cartoon, you should get their permission or at least talk to a copyright attorney. You should also probably let the paper who will publish your cartoon know you plan on doing this so that they can start preparing for the inevitable lawsuit.
posted by caddis at 7:42 PM on March 29, 2004

Response by poster: I believe much of the dover stuff is copyright free. Are claiming that one can be sued for using copyright free material?
posted by mecran01 at 2:38 PM on March 30, 2004