The Origin of a Cartoon

Hello, and welcome to the second installment of Origin of a Cartoon (or third, if you count this one). In the previous segment I showed you how my thoughts played out in the sketchbook before I finally figured it out and drew it. The editors never saw those first attempts at that cartoon. They weren’t so lucky when it came to “Uncle Murray Magazine,” which ran in The New Yorker on October 22, 2018.

I submitted tons of different versions of this cartoon before selling this one. So please sit back, relax, and enjoy some worse versions.

V1.

The original concept for this cartoon was a ten commandments sorta thing. My thinking was, Murray is a guy who’s got a lot of rules. It made sense to marry Murray to one of the most famous sets of rules. Ultimately though, this joke was about character work. Murray had a look, a voice (Futzin’ and Izzat being key to the joke), a favorite chair and a lot of rules. Anyway, it didn’t sell, but I really liked Murray, so a few weeks later I tried again with some edits:

V2.

This time Murray’s got a cat, a TV and his rules have changed. He’s also got a kid in film school and a thing for Glenn Close. He watches baseball. Most importantly, however, he still uses the word “Futzin’.” Still no sale! That didn’t stop me. A few weeks later came version 3.

V3. 

Same picture, but the big reveal with this one is that this Murray is divorced. The through-line within all of these versions is that his commandments are directed towards his kid. I thought that was perhaps lost in the other versions so I created the divorced punchline to drive the point home.

You’ll note that “Futzin’” remains.

It did not sell. It wasn’t working. I need to try something radically different. One problem with the cartoon is that it’s a lot of reading. I thought, perhaps this wasn’t really meant to be a cartoon after all. Perhaps it was meant to be something longer. So I turned Murray in to a Daily Shout.

V4.

A Daily Shout is a longer form of written humor in The New Yorker. Same editor as the cartoons. For this new version of Murray, I finally ditched the commandments thing, and thought about other ways that giving and taking commands could be translated into a joke. This led me to think about robots, and Dad-Bot was born.

Below is my Dad-Bot shouts pitch. You can skip it if you like. The Tldr is that it’s a robot version of Murray that is malfunctioning.

This did not sell. But was “Futzin’” still in there? You bet your ass it was.

V5.

I was going crazy. I needed to sell Murray in one way or another. I cannot tell you why. I just did. I went back to the cartoon idea, still thinking about different ways to visually show lots of commands. I decided, maybe it’s not really about commands. As I mentioned, the joke is primarily character work, so all I needed to do was convey the aspects of this guy’s personality. So I thought about other ways to visually display his phrases and landed on game shows, a favorite trope of mine.

“Futzin’” became “Futzing” but it still counts. It didn’t sell.

V6. Final Version.

I had lost all hope. Murray would never sell, whether as a commandment, or a robot or a game show. Depression set in. I walked through the city streets, rain pouring down on me. A man with a saxophone nearby played a sad tune under a street lamp. All the versions of Murray swirled around my mind, each one stamped with the giant red words: REJECTED.

But then, a vision. A gift from the cartoon gods. Of course! How could I be so stupid? It was all so obvious! There was a tried-and-true format for visually representing words in a cartoon that I had overlooked! The magazine cover!

I ran home, waving farewell to the saxophone man. He smiled and tipped his hat with a wink. I got home and started drawing. It would have to change a bit. First, the title. “Murray Magazine” didn’t feel complete, and “Dad Murray” didn’t sound right so he become “Uncle Murray,” which worked well.

The magazine format forced me to re-think the joke too. It had to riff off of magazine headlines, so I used set ups like “Top Ten” and “What to Wear.” This format also helped me come up with “The Goddam Crossword,” which I think is a good kicker.

Finally, most importantly, a magazine cover wouldn’t work with the amount of words that I had been using in previous versions. This restraint turned out to be the secret to the cartoon’s success. By limiting myself, by choosing my words carefully, I was forced to go back to the basics and utilize a fundamental law of cartoons: the rule of threes.

Yes, the rule of threes: so simple, so useful. One phrase to start, a second phrase to establish a pattern and finally the kicker, the final phrase to break the pattern and the reader’s expectations. Uncle Murray Magazine was born.

Of course, sacrifices had to be made. I finally killed my darling. “Futzin’” had to be cut. And so, with a tip of my cap and a salute, I said goodbye to my second favorite “F” word. A bittersweet ending to a long, harrowing tale.

And that’s where I’m gonna leave you! Thanks for reading!