CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE! Washington, DC still doesn't have voting representation in Congress, but it does have a winner in Caption Contest #51 (court witness with hook for hand):

"Can you please identify which hand was mistakenly amputated?"

Congratulations to Hilary Phillips--now let's see what you can do to bring democracy to the nation's capital!

A glance at the list of winners to the right of Blog About Town's handy caption contest map indicates that a few weeks have passed since leader California had a winning caption. That situation could change soon, as Los Angeles has two candidates in Contest #53 (woman in bed with giant bug reading newspaper). But there's some stiff East Coast competition from Adam Stevenson of Salisbury, Maryland:

"Well, it's another thrilling night at the Samsas'."

My loser:

"So--can't tear yourself away from the paper?"

Over at Anti-Caption Contest #54 (loopy guy with watch talking with another guy crawling in desert), the winner is TG Gibbon with

"Mickey's pointing right at your withered foot! Like he can see it!"

My losers:

The Blair Watch Project

"I'm sure it's right at least twice a day!"

"Hey--it says my watch is a Rolex! Must be a mirage...."

"We'll be able to start walking in an hour--after the Viagra wears off. In the meantime, we might as well make the most of the situation, sexy!"

Caption Contest #55 is here. Anti-Caption Contest #55 is here.

Here is the current New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest breakdown by state:

11 California

6 New York (all New York City)
6 Pennsylvania

3 Massachusetts
3 New Jersey

2 Illinois
2 North Carolina
2 Texas
2 Utah

1 Arizona
1 Connecticut
1 Georgia
1 Maryland
1 Mississippi
1 Missouri
1 New Hampshire
1 New Mexico
1 Ohio
1 Oklahoma
1 Oregon
1 Rhode Island
1 Vermont
1 Washington, DC

Thanks to Emily Gordon of emdashes for her salute to the map!

Map Introduction

Thanks to Andriy Bidochko for Map Builder.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone