A cartoon of mine is in today's Wall Street Journal.
I remember when Sam Gross gave a talk at the 2006 Reubens. On a big screen, for all the cartoonists seated in the room, he showed a series of his rough sketches, and talked about coming up with ideas. Like all of us, the one and only S. Gross sits in a room, alone, and doodles, trying to come up with cartoon gags. He talked about drawing a series of pictures that he liked, and then backing out of the drawing, trying to find a gag.
I had no idea that other cartoonists worked like that.
For the cartoon that WSJ bought and published today, I was doodling in my sketchbook. I didn't have a lot of ideas that day. I drew a guy in his office and I was going to draw an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder. OK, but that's been done. Ho hum.
What if I drew a devil with 2 businessmen on his shoulders? Or an angel with a businessman on one shoulder and a devil on the other? What if I drew a devil on each shoulder?
When I thought of the "lesser of 2 evils" phrase for the 2 devils drawing, I knew I had a gag.
Anyway, this is an example of successfully doodling up some odd situations and then, backing out of them, and asking yourself, What is the gag here?
A big tip of the hat to Pletch, who, in the early morning, sent me an email letting me know my cartoon was in today's WSJ. Thanks, Pletch!
Interesting. I read an interview with Bill Ward and he talked about how in the old days he would often just send artwork and leave it up to the editor to come up with a gagline. Talk about backing into the gag!
ReplyDeleteGreat gag and method, Mike.
ReplyDeleteCongrats!! Great cartoon, I always heard the the mind works better at 30 degrees or below.
ReplyDeleteInteresting way to come up with gags.
I tend to put my mind in neutral and come up with gags.
ReplyDeleteBTW, you inspired a devil/shoulder gag for me over the weekend. Thanks!
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