Interview with Cartoon Movement

What inspired or motivated you to open a shop and how long have you run the shop?

The Cartoon Movement is a community of international editorial cartoonists and fans of political satire. The Cartoon Movement is part of The Video Journalism Movement (VJ Movement), an organization dedicated to the promotion of video journalism and press freedom. Our motivation to open a shop is twofold. First, we’re always looking for new and creative ways to show how cool editorial cartoons are, and printing them on T-shirts is definitely an exciting new way to share them with the world. Second, part of our mission to contribute to the future of editorial cartooning. All the cartoonists in our network are professionals, making a living (or trying to) by drawing great cartoons. We feel this profession deserves support, and that’s why we pay our cartoonists for every cartoon they publish at Cartoon Movement. To continue doing that, we of course need to generate some funds as well. Having a shop where people can buy our cartoons on a t-shirt helps us to continue what we’re doing, and it gives our audience a chance to literally show their support for editorial cartoons.

We launched our shop on May 3rd of this year, so we’ve only been running the shop for a short time. The reactions we’ve received since we opened the shop have been very encouraging, and people seem to like our designs a lot.

How did you learn about Spreadshirt?

We found the shop after a tip from a friend. We already had the idea of launching a webshop and he told us about Spreadshirt. After a quick investigation, we decided it was the best company for us to start the shop.

How much time do you invest in your shop? Do you create designs yourself?

All designs in the shop are created by our network of cartoonists. We’re aiming to add a new design in the shop at least once a week, but the great thing is that all cartoons that are published on our platform can be used as a design. You only have to send an email with the link to the cartoon to cartoons@cartoonmovement.com and we’ll put the cartoon in the shop for you.

Where and how do you market your shop and make it well-known?

We’ve just started spreading the news about our webshop on our Facebook page, on Twitter, and on our blog. The first reactions are really great! We’ll also mention the webshop in our newsletters, and have our network of almost 100 cartoonists from around the globe help with marketing our shop (after all, without their designs we wouldn’t have anything to offer).

Who do you think your customers are?

We have a group of very loyal followers. These are cartoonists, journalists, press freedom activists, but also the fans of political satire and editorial cartoons. People with a sense of humour and who are aware of the world news in general will hopefully be very interested in our shirts.

What was your biggest achievement up to now (with or without Spreadshirt)?

Our biggest achievement is without any doubt the fact that we’re here. When we started the Cartoon Movement about two years ago, it was only a thought. Today, the Cartoon Movement is a global publishing platform for editorial cartoons with a network of almost 100 cartoonists from over 60 countries.

What do you do for a living, or better said: what do you do when you are not fiddling around with your shop?

Cartoons are our daily business. Cartoon Movement’s editorial team consists of two cartoonists, so when where not busy coordinating Cartoon Movement (or fiddling around with the shop), your best chance of finding us is at the drawing table.

We also consider ourselves journalists, and we’re very happy to be part of the VJ Movement, as both platforms share a dedication to high quality journalism and press freedom. Together, we are constantly looking for new ways of practicing journalism.

If you were a t-shirt, what would you look like?

Just a plain T-shirt (probably it little bit worn as well ;), but with a message that would make people think about the world they live in.

Which question have you always wanted to be asked and what is the answer?

What’s the perfect birthday gift? Might very well be a T-shirt!