Parent Company Calls


Unleashing Bold Initiatives

Business offers an almost inexhaustible wealth of jargon. Honestly, it’s difficult to page through the business section without tripping over words or phrases that just beg to be mocked.

So when I ran across “parent company” one day, the floodgates opened and I had tons of new material. Or so I thought.

One thing cartooning has taught me over the years is to never trust a great writing day. I’ve been tempted into drawing up something that, at that moment seemed brilliant, only to find out months later that it was lukewarm at best, or nonsensical at worst.

So all the “parent company” ideas went into what I’ve labeled my Idea Box. Ideas go in to marinate for a while so that when I pull them out weeks or months later – I have a fresh pair of eyes on the joke.

The above cartoon was the only survivor from that seemingly outstanding writing session. . . sigh.

4 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.

4 Reactions
  1. Sage Advice! A very good (though too little known) musician once said that he could never judge how well a concert had gone, or his playing that night until he heard the tapes much later. Sometimes he felt great playing, and it wasn’t happening, and sometimes he thought the performance was awful, and later found it was among his best. (It was Robert Fripp, founder of King Crimson, and inventor of “Frippertronics”.)

  2. Love it! This may be all that’s left from that great writing session – but that’s OK – it’s brilliant!

  3. Martin Lindeskog

    Mark: I think your cartoon is well marinated and it has a nice flavor to it.