The question I get most often as a cartoonist—besides “where do you get your ideas” (Ans. Cleveland)—is “what comes first, the caption or the picture?” For a cartoon with no caption at all, the answer is obvious. And interestingly enough, for the kind of word-centric cartoonist that I eventually became, in my early New Yorker drawings, the wit was wordless. Even after all these years, these cartoons remain some of my favorites. Why? I’ll let them speak for themselves.
Alas, I don’t do this kind of cartoon anymore. What can I say? My mouth eventually got the better of my eye. Fortunately, others still do these wordless wonders. One of the best is Seth Fleishman. Check out some of his here.
Yours in Good Humor,
Bob