There may be some folks who wonder what a cartoonist’s day looks like. In my case, every day begins somewhat the same — with feeding our cats, making coffee, and getting to my work table. Following that, things usually veer off any kind of pattern rather quickly. The cartoon gods are fickle — I never know what they’ll toss my way, or if they’ll toss anything. Here’s a run-down of this morning, as best as I can recall as the noon hour approaches. All times approximate, even though they sometimes appear quite specific.
6:55 Our two cats await their breakfast. They are fed. I make coffee while they eat.
7:15 The outdoor cat is let outside. I join him (his vision is impaired — he must be watched/monitored).
7:30 Both of us back indoors, I head to my work table — it’s a few steps away from the kitchen.
7:31 – 7:45 Instead of a “normal” morning — sitting down to a blank piece of paper — I realize I really want to finish off a drawing left unfinished yesterday at day’s end; this morning the caption needs to be set down. It’s such a silly drawing that I’ve been letting it back-burner longer than most, trying out captions, writing them down on scrap paper. The captions are all variations of what I imagine ancient Catskill stand-up routines were like. The captions I’m coming up with are so incredibly bad they make me laugh. I finally set down one of the best worst captions, and then toss the finished drawing onto the not-yet-sent pile (this is where all finished drawings go each day. Some of them will never be submitted to The New Yorker — or anywhere. I clean house every so often, tossing many of the not-yet-sents into a box). Am already having mixed feelings about submitting the Catskill-based drawing next week to The New Yorker. We’ll see what happens Monday with the arrival of my self-imposed deadline to submit.
7:46 – 9:20 Instead of getting to the blank piece of paper and hopefully doing brand new work, I realize there are 3 more unfinished drawings left from yesterday. I like the drawings enough to want to finish them asap and get them into the not-yet-sent pile. All three drawings are finished, but all three need captions. The cartoon gods are kind this morning and send a few options my way. This mysterious process consists of me looking at a particular drawing and waiting. The wait wasn’t long today: two captions sent in are so-so. (As Edward Koren told me — and I’m loosely paraphrasing here: we are both the best judges of our own work, and the worst judges of our own work). The third caption sent in instantly becomes my favorite of this week’s efforts.
Left: the Not-Yet-Sent pile
9:21 – 9:29ish All three drawings, now with captions, are tossed onto the not-yet-sent pile. The third one — the one I have perhaps too high hopes for, needed a bit of color pencil added. Adding color was fun. Immediately after finishing those drawings and getting to the blank paper, a so-so idea came to me. It’s perhaps a dud idea, but I was amused enough to draw it up (caption and all) and toss it on the pile.
Approx 10:00ish – 10:30ish I take a few minutes to watch Queen Elizabeth’s coffin being placed on the catafalque. The New York Times live coverage alerts me to the word “catafalque.” I Google how “catafalque” is pronounced, listen to the pronunciation, and am surprised by it.
10:30ish – 11:35 Discover yet another potentially salvageable unfinished drawing on my desk (this is unusual — although I have a lot of unfinished drawings laying about, it is rare that I feel the need to finish off so many in a day. Suddenly I remember that tomorrow will be a day away from the desk, and there will be no new drawings done. I’ve been unknowingly making up for tomorrow.
I look at this newly surfaced unfinished finished drawing and hope an idea flies in. Nothing happens; I like the drawing too much to try to make something happen for it. It remains in the pile of work sheets (the worksheet pile is comprised of drawings in various stages: some almost finished, some just partial drawings, some pages mostly words — it’s a mish-mash). Realizing the time, I begin working on this Spill post.
12:35 This Spill post is posted. Onto lunch (at the desk) and back to — I hope — staring at the stack of blank paper.