Creativity Quote by John Kricfalusi

Kricfalusi’s line lands like a backhanded compliment, the kind only an animation lifer can toss off with a straight face. “Untrained” and “more trained” aren’t neutral descriptors here; they’re bait. He’s poking at the art-world hierarchy that treats technique as legitimacy and treats comedy as a lesser craft. By separating “cartoonists” from “illustrators,” he’s not simply describing two job titles. He’s describing two social classes inside commercial art: the scrappy misfits who learn by doing, and the credentialed professionals who learn by rules.

The subtext is part grievance, part swagger. Cartooning has historically been a medium of speed, repetition, and brutal feedback: you draw, you publish, you get judged instantly. That pressure breeds a different kind of skill than academic polish. Kricfalusi, whose own work prizes elastic anatomy, aggressive timing, and grotesque expressiveness, is quietly defending a tradition where “wrong” can be more alive than “correct.” Calling cartoonists untrained also frames them as freer: less beholden to the tasteful proportions and market-friendly sheen that illustration can reward.

Context matters: he’s speaking from the animation and comic-adjacent ecosystem where “training” often means conformity to studio style, pipeline efficiency, and a narrow definition of draftsmanship. The intent isn’t to shame cartoonists; it’s to needle illustrators and the institutions around them. He’s warning that technical instruction can become aesthetic obedience, and that the unruly, self-taught energy of cartooning is precisely what keeps it dangerous, funny, and culturally sharp.