I’m not sure that people necessarily understand how much work goes into any one of these little cartoons of mine. To give you some idea of the process, this is an unstaged photo of my desk as it appears at nine p.m. on a Tuesday night after two days of working on rough drafts of various ideas. (As you can see, the writing comes first, the artwork, later.) From this mess, I’ll narrow it down to one that I think is most effective, and then spend another day working on the art and refining the writing. In a typical week, if all goes well, it usually takes me three days to get a single cartoon out — with all other projects and obligations that arise from running a solo business squeezed into the time remaining.
Not complaining about any of this, of course. I love my job. But it does take more time than you might think …