Mike Lynch Cartoon in January 9, 2009 WSJ

A cartoon of mine is in today's Wall Street Journal.

I remember when Sam Gross gave a talk at the 2006 Reubens. On a big screen, for all the cartoonists seated in the room, he showed a series of his rough sketches, and talked about coming up with ideas. Like all of us, the one and only S. Gross sits in a room, alone, and doodles, trying to come up with cartoon gags. He talked about drawing a series of pictures that he liked, and then backing out of the drawing, trying to find a gag.

I had no idea that other cartoonists worked like that.

For the cartoon that WSJ bought and published today, I was doodling in my sketchbook. I didn't have a lot of ideas that day. I drew a guy in his office and I was going to draw an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other shoulder. OK, but that's been done. Ho hum.

What if I drew a devil with 2 businessmen on his shoulders? Or an angel with a businessman on one shoulder and a devil on the other? What if I drew a devil on each shoulder?

When I thought of the "lesser of 2 evils" phrase for the 2 devils drawing, I knew I had a gag.

Anyway, this is an example of successfully doodling up some odd situations and then, backing out of them, and asking yourself, What is the gag here?

A big tip of the hat to Pletch, who, in the early morning, sent me an email letting me know my cartoon was in today's WSJ. Thanks, Pletch!