“…And maybe Nick could draw an icon to go with it,” an editor suggested to Carolyn Hax, my wife at the time, as they were discussing Carolyn’s new advice column in The Washington Post.The original idea was that I would create five, maybe seven, general images that would rotate through the column depending on the subject: breakups, weddings, family, etc. I was excited for Carolyn’s opportunity and wanted to do whatever I could to help its success.
Then we switch hats and I ruminate over which angle to take with the cartoon, send her a bunch of concepts, and we run ideas back and forth until one of us laughs. then falling in love with charcoal because I admired a cartoonist hero’s velvety line work, then aiming to harness the unpredictability of watercolor,then moving to the digital tools I use today for speed and expediency and digital compatibility; and always discovering and rediscovering the value of “just enough is more” .
"Someone’s infidelity or jealousy or boundary-crashing or name-your-insecurity isn’t really the pull for me. But using cartoons to analyze an issue, and make it relatable, is endlessly interesting to me. And the single-panel cartoon offers a fun creative challenge: find the right moment to make that point, a slice of life that, whether they’re conscious of it or not, encourages the reader to consider what came immediately before and what will happen immediately after that moment.
I love Nick’s cartoons because of his wonderful composition and brushwork. Always just the right amount of content and small physical accents here and there, and shadowing and texture that adds vibrancy from his spot-on flawless use of color values in just the right places.