The Trial And Error of Creativity

A lot going on in the news. I’m particularly interested in the storyline of the Secret Service deleting text messages from January 6th. What the heck? This is extremely suspicious, and they know it, but there may be nothing to be done about it. Can they be recovered? I feel like if we can get to the bottom of this, we will know a lot more about the goings on of Trump and his people on that day. I can’t wait for the hearings this coming Thursday. Everyone should be watching, particularly since this one is in primetime.

Since today is Tuesday, I sent in my batch of cartoons to The New Yorker a few hours ago, the deadline for emailing our pdf of cartoons to the cartoon editor. By Friday we know whether or not they bought one; if there is no email from the cartoon editor on that day, then they passed on your lovely babies. That has been the process since I began in the 70’s, give or take some technological changes and a day change. Submissions in person used to be Wednesday for us youngins’ when I started out, the oldster cartoonists went into the office to meet with the cartoon editor on Tuesdays. Some of the younger cartoonists met with the editor on Wednesday, it all depended on if you were invited in. I never was. But that was okay—actually, no it wasn’t. I really wanted to be invited in! Even after I sold cartoons to the magazine, I was never invited. Ah well. At least I sold.

For me, getting ideas all starts with sketching. Words float around in my head as I sketch, and I sometimes jot them down, but unlike some other cartoonists, I don’t usually come up with the caption first. The words and image evolve together. The drawing below (and the one above) is a sketch that never made it to a full cartoon. I just could not figure out what she might be saying to the dog. So I save it for next week.

Sometimes even a few hours away from a sketch like this will help. When you return, the words jump out of her mouth. Sometimes not.

And so you draw something else.

Another thing many of us do is rework rejected cartoons. This week, I took two cartoons that didn’t sell and reworded the captions and shortened one. On another one, I redrew the woman’s face and ever so slightly changed her expression. I have sold some over the years after slight changes.

As always, it’s key that you not overwork it. It has to look seamless, not like a crafted joke, even though it might be. The caption needs to feel natural, like the person would actually say it.

The New Yorker cartoon below came out of me drawing a clown on top of a car. Then I remember I worked a lot on the caption. The words have to be organized so that the idea is funny. If I had her saying, for example: “You guys have to all get into the car, that will be funny”— that caption doesn’t work. The phrase “jam yourselves into the car” is the funny part of the caption, so it should be at the end.

And, by the way, I consciously made the speaker a woman. Just a little commentary on the notion that in the caveperson era, women were in charge of what’s funny and what’s not!

Creating things is so many times trial and error, and being relaxed. If you can. You make a lot of stupid cartoons, or at least you think they’re stupid. Some of those stupid cartoons end up being the ones they buy.