The Day’s Full of Opportunities…Shall You Sink or Swim?


sink or swim cartoon

I love word pairings. To and fro, give and take, meat and potatoes, ebony and ivory, apple and oranges – there’s a million of them out there.

So one day, when I heard “sink or swim” in a conversation, it suggested the paperwork in and out trays and this cartoon wasn’t far behind.

It’s an easy sort of transference joke, but I was surprised how much research the art ended up requiring. It took a screen full of naval officers, ships, anchors and whatnot to get this to read visually.

Sometimes those easy ideas aren’t so easy.

3 Comments ▼

Mark Anderson Mark Anderson's cartoons appear in publications including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. His business cartoons are available for licensing at his website, Andertoons.com.

3 Reactions
  1. Hehe!, I like the Sink/Swim trays! Clever!

    If you knew how much it would involve to create this cartoon, would you have followed through or gone on to something else?

  2. Me too. I love them. It’s nice to use the words “Sink or Swim” instead of the typical words of “Yes or No”. Really nice idea. I even thought of putting it on my desk haha