Like business, cartooning has its own language. But instead of words like “infrastructure” or acronyms like “CEO”, it’s mostly visual. For example, you might show someone sleeping by drawing ZZZs over their head. Or a cloud with bubbles to signify thought.
One of the things I like best about drawing cartoons is taking convention and poking fun at it, even cartoon conventions.
So one day while drawing a character getting an idea, I stopped for a moment to see if I could write something around the old lightbulb over the head idea, and I got the above idea about an idea having an idea. (It’s best not to think too hard about it.)
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About the Author: Mark Anderson’s cartoons appear in publications including The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. Anderson is the creator of the popular cartoon website, Andertoons.com, where he licenses his cartoons for presentations, newsletters and other projects. He blogs at Andertoons blog.
Mark: Maybe you could sell this cartoon to Generic Electric or some other light bulb manufacturer? 🙂
Very cute! 🙂
The sad thing is this is probably dated with all of those twisty fluorescent bulbs taking over.
It must be difficult to develop a new idea that will be accepted as easily as the one it replaced. We’re so used to certain icons – like the light bulb over the head – that we don’t have to think about it anymore. Anything new – like this cartoon forces us to ask questions. That has to be a good thing.
How about using a new florescent or LED light bulb going off over someones head with a disparaging caption like “I know, he always is coming up with green ideas”