Through the Looking Glass


business cartoon

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.

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. Mark,

    This type of “branching out” exercise could be used as a memory technique at business networking events in order to remember names and what people are doing at the moment and have done in their life. You visualize a branch “connected” to their business card and then grow the branch of the tree with more questions and answers in a visual form. After a short chat, you have a good overview.

  2. Nobody does line chart cartoons better than you, Mark! I love them.

    – Anita

  3. That’s pretty cool Mark, congrats on your success with the cartoon!