^[1]

I do tons and tons of chart cartoons, and I’m always on the lookout for different graphic takes on what is basically a few straight lines and an arrow.

So one day, I drew my line and decided it looked like a branch. I drew some more offshooting branches, some leaves, etc. . . .but the joke never quite materialized. Then I took another shot with the line as a flower, and that, unfortunately, just made things worse.

It had gotten pretty weird, pretty fast. But it was that surreal quality that finally suggested the caption above. It never exactly made sense, but at least the cartoon and I had come to terms with that.