The birth of a cartoon.

This is the story of how a cartoon comes to be. How it gets into the mind of the cartoonist, something of how it's drawn and where it can eventually wind up.

I'm a cartoonist and I draw cartoons every day. The kind of cartoon I draw is called a single-panel gag cartoon. In this kind of cartoon, the characters are drawn and then enclosed by four lines (that's the panel). Then a few words (that's the gag) are printed inside or outside the panel saying what the cartoonist wants the characters to say - which, of course, the cartoonist hopes will be funny enough to make readers laugh. Out loud, hopefully.

When people learn that I draw cartoons, the question they most often ask is, "Where do you get your ideas?" At first blush that might sound like a straightforward question, for which I, the cartoonist, should have a straightforward answer. It's actually a bit more complex than that.

I'm sometimes tempted to answer this question by saying my ideas for cartoon come "from all over." They actually do, but "from all over," covers a lot of territory. So I try to narrow things down; to say in a more specific way just where the ideas do come from.

Some of my ideas come from other cartoons. I'll see one and, without copying it, I'll think how its caption or subject matter might be altered so that my version will be as funny, maybe even funnier. Other times I'll get an idea for a cartoon from the title of a song or a movie or a book, or from a phrase that, for some reason, snags my eye as I'm reading.

Then there are cartoon ideas that come when I mix together two phenomena that, taken separately, are perfectly normal, but that when combined, become just off-beat enough to be funny. I guess if I had to pick just one favorite way of coming up with cartoon ideas, this would be it.

Picture, if you will, a young boy or girl walking into McDonald's and saying to the person behind the counter, "I want a cheeseburger." That's not very funny, is it? Now picture a mouse lying outside its hole in the baseboard of someone's living room. That's not funny either.

But what if, in your mind's eye, you see a mouse lying on the living room floor stretched out all comfy-like, its head resting on a nice fluffy pillow, and the mouse is saying to itself, "I want a cheeseburger, and I want it right now." Now we have the makings of a fairly funny cartoon made up of two previously unconnected mental images, neither of which was particularly funny by itself.

Think of a llama. Not especially funny, right? Now think of a Ilama wearing a mask like the one the Lone Ranger wore. Then think of a masked llama drawn inside a four-sided panel, with "Another in a Series of Masked Wildlife" printed across the top. I don't know about you, but this strikes me as a funny sight.

I guess what I'm saying is, yes, my ideas really do come from all over. I never cease to be amazed at how many things in daily life can, when looked at in topsy-turvy ways, be turned into funny cartoons.

Once the cartoon idea strikes, the cartoonist will quickly draw it in rough form on, say, an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of lined paper, using, say, a black, ball-point pen. When all parts of the cartoon look the way the cartoonist wants, when the caption has been worded as well as the cartoonist can word it, the cartoonist lays a blank sheet of white paper over the rough, and using, say, a medium-point, black, felt-tip pen, traces over the drawing and comes up with the finished cartoon.

So, as the cartoonist, you've had your "Eureka!" ideas strike you and have drawn several cartoons. Your next job (and believe me, nobody who knows will ever tell you that being a cartoonist is easy) is to locate people who will want to buy your hard work. The major users of single-panel gag cartoons are magazines. Of all the magazines published in this country, The New Yorker is the biggest user of, and pays the most for, cartoons. To the cartoonist, the next best thing to Heaven is having a cartoon accepted by The New Yorker. Fortunately for all us struggling, average cartoonists out here, there are lots of other very good magazines that use cartoons, pay very nicely for them, too.

You'll want to make sure what whichever magazines you choose to send cartoons to, that they use the kind of cartoons you draw. Become familiar with the magazines by looking at back issues, or reading the specifications given in books like Humor and Cartoon Markets.

When you've matched your type of cartoons with the kinds a particular magazine uses, your next step is to put about ten copies (Never send original drawings.) of your cartoons (with a very brief letter introducing yourself) in a 9 x 12" manila envelope (being sure to enclose a stamped, addressed, return envelope so you'll get your cartoons back if they're not used), say a prayer or two, and mail them to the magazine's editor.

While waiting to hear of your cartoons' fate with this magazine, be working on new cartoons that can be sent out right away to other magazines. That's a cardinal rule - always have lots of cartoons in the mail on their way to being considered for purchase by lots of editors.

Well, that's about it. Oh, remember that cartoon idea I mentioned earlier, the one about the mouse and the cheeseburger? I actually drew it, and the magazine Bostonia used it. Thought you'd like to see it, so here it is. Hope you get an out-loud laugh from it, at least a grin. If you do, then that makes me a successful and happy cartoonist. I couldn't ask for more than that. (Well, I take that back; I could ask for The New Yorker to start using some of my cartoons.)