Running Cartoons

Running cartoons are a way of lightening your spirits, of finding humor in what you are doing. You can find cartoon running and cartoon runners on several internet sites including zonkbonk.com, junkertunes.com, offthemark.com, runtheplanet.com, kidsrunning.com and cartoonstock.com. You can also locate them as you skim through various magazines. The Hawaii Race Magazine and other racing or runner’s magazines carry a cartoon runner or two or even three, although the prestigious Runners’ World does not. Sometimes, running cartoon drawings do comprise an illustration for an article or make up the pictorial section of a particular advertisement. John Sheppard cartoons showing a cartoon boy and a cartoon girl running illustrate the July/August issue of Fitness Runner published by Road Runner Sports.

A running cartoon may also find its way into the mainstream magazines such as the New Yorker or the London Times. These and other non-sports publications print a cartoon man running or a cartoon person running in their magazine wherever it is appropriate. Newspapers occasionally have a runners cartoon. You can find them in the Sunday Funnies or on the comics’ page.

The topics of the various cartoonists are varied. Scott Metzger does an interesting and very amusing cartoon of animals running. It is a remake of or a new take on the hare and tortoise race, substituting a horse for the hare and giving the tortoise attitude with a capital A. Jim Barahal and John Pritchet create “Endorphin Man.’” There are also cartoon people running as well as a cartoon dog running. Rich Tennant draws a running cartoon depicting two dogs commenting on a person stretching against a tree. He also shows a cartoon run in which two runners are discussing the definition of endorphins.

	More Info

Many different artists occasionally will draw at least one runner cartoon. Gary Larson is one of them. Other cartoonists with, at the very least, one example of cartoons on running in their funny bone arsenal include Simeon Liebman, Guy Junkr, Mark Parisi, Brent Thompson, T. McCracken, Mark David, Timothy Harris, Linda Causey, Rui Batista, Phil Callaway, Matthew De Angelis, Jeff Swensen and Timothy Word.

Marathon posters or sites can have a runner cartoon or cartons of running to brighten the mood and remind people that racing can be fun. The Honolulu Marathon website and CoolRunning, Australia are not afraid to use humor. Humor, comedy, laughter and poking fun at one’s self are good and healthy characteristics in everyone, not just in runners.