Last week, the cartoonist Joe Dator facetiously explained how the facts of his own life combined to create a drawing that seemed as though it was a figment of an artist’s fevered imagination.
In a similar vein, this week, the cartoonist David Borchart takes us behind the scenes to view the real scenes underpinning some of our most enduring cartoon clichés. O.K., David, open that vein:
Thanks, David. Great work. I just hope some of these hitherto secret locations don’t get overrun by cartoon tourists and groupies.
One of the definitions of “trope” is “a common or overused theme or device.” So, when looked at that way, some of the cartoon tropes that we’ve examined here might be considered a bit, well, de trop. A reader might ask: After literally hundreds of desert-island scenarios, guys crawling in the desert, gurus, shrinks, and the like, shouldn’t cartoonists abandon these clichés and start thinking outside the box? No.
Why? Because there are still so many great ideas left inside the box. Until those are published, let’s have a look inside the box with this slideshow: