DownWithTyranny!: We all want those creative types to tell us, "Where do you get your ideas?"

"While the argument over which came first, the chicken or the egg, may never be resolved," says New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, "progress has been made on an analogous conundrum: Which comes first, the caption or the drawing?"

FELIX UNGER: Er, Oscar tells me you're sisters.
CECILY PIGEON: Yes. That's right. [She looks at GWENDOLYN.]
FELIX: From England.
GWENDOLYN PIGEON: Yes. That's right. [She looks at CECILY.]
FELIX: I see. [Silence. Then, his little joke] We're not brothers.
CECILY: Yes. We know.
FELIX: Although I am a brother. I have a brother who's a doctor. He lives in Buffalo. That's upstate in New York.
GWENDOLYN [taking a cigarette from her purse]: Yes, we know.
FELIX: You know my brother?
GWENDOLYN: No. We know that Buffalo is upstate in New York.
FELIX: Oh!
[He gets up, takes a cigarette lighter from the side table and moves to light GWENDOLYN's cigarette.]
CECILY: We've been there! Have you?
FELIX: No! Is it nice?
CECILY: Lovely.
[FELIX closes the lighter on GWENDOLYN's cigarette and turns to go back to his chair, taking the cigarette, now caught in the lighter, with him. He notices the cigarette and hastily gives it back to GWENDOLYN, stopping to light it once again. He puts the lighter back on the table and sits down nervously. There is a pause.]
FELIX: Isn't that interesting? How long have you been in the United States of America?
CECILY: Almost four years now.
FELX [nods]: Uh-huh. Just visiting?
GWENDOLYN [looks at CECILY]: No! We live here.
FELIX: And you work here too, do you?
CECILY: Yes. We're secretaries for Slenderama.
GWENDOLYN: You know. The health club.
CECILY: People bring us their bodies and we do wonderful things with them.
GWENDOLYN: Actually, if you're interested, we can get you ten percent off.
CECILY: Off the price, not off your body.
FELIX: Yes, I see. [He laughs. They all laugh. Suddenly he shouts toward the kitchen] Oscar, where's the drinks?
OSCAR MADISON [offstage]: Coming! Coming!
CECILY: What field of endeavor are you engaged in?
FELIX: I write the news for CBS.
CECILY: Oh! Fascinating!
GWENDOLYN: Where do you get your ideas?

-- from Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, Act II, Scene 2

by Ken

It occurs to me that the Pigeon sisters may no longer be the icon for sure-thing dating that they once were. Nevertheless, I thought it worthwhile to resurrect them, and this wonderfully maladroit scene of social non-interaction in which the poor dears find themselves trapped when left alone with the socially maladroitest of them all, Felix Unger, as testimony to the principle that if there's anything we all want to know, it's where those creative types get their ideas.

FOR THE RECORD, HERE'S HOW THE ODD
COUPLE CONVERATION PROCEEDS . . .

FELIX [looks at her as though she's a Martian]: From the news.
GWENDOLYN: Oh, yes, of course. Silly me . . .
CECILY: Maybe you can mention Gwen and I in one of your news reports.
FELIX: Well, if you do something spectacular, maybe I will.
CECILY: Oh, we've done spectacular things, but I don't think we'd want it spread all over the telly, do you, Gwen? [They both laugh.]
FELIX [laughs too, then cries out almost for help]: Oscar!

Regular readers know that I'm a humongous fan of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's weekly e-newsletter-slash-blogpost. This week has brought one of his most distinctive entries, "First Things First (Unless They're Second)." The question Bob is ostensibly pursuing, as noted above, is the "cartoon conundrum," "Which comes first, the caption or the drawing?" But with the answers provided this week by Jack Ziegler and Matt Diffee (with more promised), turn out really to be answers to the more fundamental question "Where do you get your ideas?"

For the person viewing the cartoon, it's simple. The image must register at least slightly before the caption. In this way, the image works as the setup for the caption that functions as the punch line. If it were the other way around, it would be like telling a joke backward.

But when creating a cartoon, the answer is more complicated. Basically, there are two camps among the creators; the doodle-firsters and the word-firsters. Jack Ziegler is definitely a doodle-firster. Here's his description of the genesis of this cartoon of his.

I'm sitting in a comfortable chair, doodling on a clipboard in search of an idea. I'm on my second or third cup of morning joe. I try not to raise my eyes from the blank sheet of paper on the clipboard because there are too many distractions in the room -- and I'm easily distracted. If I allow my eyes to light on any of the spines on any of the books, LPs, or CDs on the shelves that surround me, I'm a goner. Not to mention the pictures on the walls, mostly framed cartoon originals accumulated over the years from friends in the profession. If I look up, I know there'll be one of these pictures that needs straightening, and if I give in to that urge I'm just asking for that Jesse James moment -- the bullet in the back from that dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard, which would be the biggest distraction of all.

I'm trying to come up with cartoon ideas. I find that if I have nothing written down already -- a preconceived idea or setup, say -- I generally start my doodling process, my search for something tangible, by drawing a man's head. Sometimes the face will look like there's something going on just out of my eyesight. What is it? I have no idea, but I go ahead and attempt to draw it anyway. Today I'm looking at this guy's head from a 3/4 angle behind him. I give him a cowboy hat, because is there any person more fun to draw than a cowboy? Probably not. I should probably put him on a horse. The horse I've drawn seems to be looking down, so maybe he's high up on a hill that both of them in their prairie wanderings have just happened upon. There's obviously something down there in the valley below. I've dressed my cowboy in a jacket that looks vaguely modern. Possibly shearling? Kinda screams Ralph Lauren in a Western mojo, doesn't it? It's then just a short, logical hop of the imagination from that jacket to a shopping mall, isn't it? So I draw the mall down there in the valley, surrounded by a lotful of cars. What's the cowboy going to do? Rein his horse off to the right in order to skirt the mall? Or will he succumb to an urge to shop? And if that's the case, shopping for whom? His wife? Girlfriend? Himself? Nope.

For me, it's generally the case that an idea for a cartoon springs from a tiny germ that I keep adding to until it builds into something that slowly begins to make a semblance of sense. Sometimes this construction project can be quite elaborate and consume an hour or more, but ultimately lead to a dead end. Other times it can take a mere few minutes and get me somewhere worthwhile. Either way, the journey can be fun, and occasionally one finds a jackpot at the end.

AS IF THIS WEREN'T ENOUGH . . .

As suggested above. Bob proceeds to offer us the wildly contrasting "journey" of "word-firster" Matt Diffee, which has hardly anything in common with Jack Ziegler's journey "aside from a similar dependence on coffee." Onsite you'l find Matt's account of the genesis of this cartoon: