Manic cartoonist sheds airs for material (6)
I believe the answer is:
cotton
'for material' is the definition.
(cotton is a kind of material)
'manic cartoonist sheds airs' is the wordplay.
'manic' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen this in other clues).
'sheds' is a deletion indicator.
'cartoonist' with 'airs' removed is 'ctoont'.
'ctoont' with letters rearranged gives 'COTTON'.
(Other definitions for cotton that I've seen before include "Natural textile fibre" , "Kind of thread or fabric" , "Cloth made from fine hairs of seed pod" , "Soft white substance used to make fabric - in song, Old Man River don't plant it" , "Plantation product" .)