This week in the Dilbert comic, Alice discovers she has a bad case of chair butt. United Media, the company that syndicates Dilbert, rejected the first version I submitted. It looked like this:
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My editors thought the pose looked too provocative. They requested I redraw Alice in less of a “mount me” position. I argued that in the context of a medical exam, no one would interpret her pose as sexual. This argument did not carry the day. So I went back to the drawing board with the instructions to make it look “more medical.”
At this point in the story I should pause to confess I did not attend medical school. I don’t know exactly how a trained physician would examine a patient for signs of chair butt. So I took an educated guess and resubmitted the comic. Here’s a peek.
Although my editors have no formal medical training, they were nonetheless certain my depiction of a chair butt exam was inaccurate. I went back to the drawing board a third time and drew the version that was accepted and ran in newspapers. Here it is.
What I learned from this experience is that being a doctor takes more than common sense and a willingness to look at unattractive naked people. I don’t know how much more it takes, but I intend to keep drawing comics until I find out.