Cat Therapy

This drawing could easily go the other way, a dog on the couch and the therapist asking if the owners aren’t cat people. Or, the therapist could be a dog. Or a cat. So many possibilities on this scenario.

I have done many therapy cartoons, but the only one I sold to The New Yorker is this one, drawn right after Obama first won the presidency. Some of you might recall we hadn’t had a democrat in that office for a long time.

Speaking of how to cast cartoons, this one has a story to go with it. As I drew it, at first I thought I would do as I normally might: draw a man and a woman. But I decided not to do that and make it two women. Because why not? Casting in cartoons is a subtle thing, and has changed over the years. When I first began drawing for publication (the dark ages of the 1970’s), if you had a woman speaking in a cartoon, it was about “women’s issues”— cooking, cleaning, child rearing, shopping, being a secretary. That’s all changed now. Women can be “everyman.” Progress!

For those of you who are paid subscribers, I share some drawings below that I did the other night at a conference, when I was invited to live-draw a singer and her band.