Where is this drawing from?
For more than 35 years, I've seen this thing posted in offices, stores…pretty much any kind of establishment where someone has to produce something on some sort of schedule. I know it's been at least 35 years because that's how long ago it was that my mother brought a 99th generation Xerox of it home from a store where she was working and asked me to please trace a new, clean copy for her boss. Even by then, I'd seen it taped up on the walls of places of business, and what I saw was always a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a tracing of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a tracing of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a…well, you get the idea. This thing has been passed around more than the hooker at the 99-Cent Only store.
I remember once hearing a cartooning authority (there are such people) claim that the R. Crumb "Keep on Truckin'" poster and its various bootlegs was the most widely-distributed cartoon image of its day. When he said that, I thought, "Not even close." The "You Want It When?" cartoon has to have it and all others beaten. And I think it's kind of interesting that in all the times I've seen it, I've never seen any other caption put on it. You could apply all sorts of sayings to it but it's always "You Want It When?"
So where did it start? All those Xeroxes of tracings of Xeroxes had to begin with some artist sitting down and drawing the first one for some purpose. Was it a greeting card of some kind? A poster? A graphic in a magazine article? Maybe someone did draw it just to put up in one office and a co-worker who liked it made a copy and sent it to someone else. And then that person copied it and sent it to someone else who copied it…
I'll be surprised if anyone has an answer but I have to ask, just in case. Who drew it in the first place? And for what purpose?