Let The Idea Take You

You never know where it will lead

I rarely do drawings on the subject of sex, prefering to draw about relationships. But I thought it might be interesting to show you how this one came about. It emerged from my mind in the following way: I decided I wanted to draw a cake stand and see where it would take me. That’s often where ideas come from: you want to draw an item or a person or situation, and then let it tell you where it should go. I thought to myself, what could be funny on a cake stand? A bed, why not? So I drew a bed. It’s wierd enough having a bed on a cake stand, you don’t want to put an animal in the bed or anything. That would be overkill. So I put the normal thing in the bed, a couple. And then after drawing the couple, I thought of the caption. It’s just plain absurd.

Sex, of course, can be absurd when you think of it. The subject has historically been a topic for cartoons in the magazine. Here’s one by Barbara Shermund from 1925, which I think might be a reference to homosexuality.

This one below is by Nancy Fay from around the same time. I love her use of the space to put forward the humor. It’s amazing when children chose to ask this question!