CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE! California continues to clobber the cartoon caption competition as Ryan McCarroll of Los Angeles wins Cartoon Caption Contest #53 (woman and giant bug reading in bed) with

"Two thousand eyes, but it still takes you all day to read the morning paper."

That's 12 wins for California, with half from the Los Angeles area.

New York, which is trailing by six, may get a boost in Caption Contest #55 (two fowl fooling around on a couch), where two-thirds of the nominees are from the Big Apple. Cary Wong wrote

"Wait. Would we still be doing this if the sky weren't falling?"

and Rajiv Joseph wrote

"Quack means quack!"

Their competitor is Kansan David Fulk with

"So this is why you crossed the road."

My loser:

"Oooo…you just gave me goosebumps!"

In Dan Radosh's Anti-Caption Contest #56 (surgeons operating on a bombshell), the winner is TG Gibbon with

"Don't make a sound. You mustn't let the others know I'm asking you this. By any chance do you know anything about gyroscopic inertial guidance systems? Just nod once for 'yes' and then point to it."

My loser:

"Technically, it's not a biological agent. It's Vieux Boulogne--recently judged the stinkiest cheese the world! Legal, yes...humane, no!"

Here's more on Vieux Boulogne.

Caption Contest #57 is here. Anti-Caption Contest #57 is here.

Here is the current New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest breakdown by state. (You can take it all in on this map.)

12 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 Minnesota
1 Mississippi
1 Missouri
1 New Hampshire
1 New Mexico
1 Ohio
1 Oklahoma
1 Oregon
1 Rhode Island
1 Vermont
1 Washington, DC

Map Introduction

Thanks to Andriy Bidochko for Map Builder.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone