Mike Lynch Cartoon in July 2007 Harvard Business Review

I got a letter in the mail from my editor at HBR. They wanted cartoons on long-term planning.

Long-term planning? What's funny about long-term planning?

I remember having a discussion with another cartoonist. He was telling me that he likes it when he get a narrow direction from an editor. My point of view was that I would rather draw up whatever I thought was funny, instead of being given a defined topic. After a while, I saw his point. At least I knew what the editor wanted. However, I did not envy the editor's job of sifting through all those long-range planning cartoons!

I drew a couple of roughs, added in a couple of other cartoons, and that was that.
"I think it's clear to all of us that when assembling this board, we were thinking long-term."

Above is the cartoon that HBR picked. I colored it and you can view it on their cartoons page. I'm in good company with a number of cartoonists that I know: Roy Delgado, P.C. Vey, and Kim Warp. I haven't met Teresa Burns Parkhurst or Chris Wildt, but I admire their work.