CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE!

Before sharing the latest in caption/anti-caption contest winners, losers, and nominees, here's a message from Chrys Wu, who's got the enviable job title of Editorial Curator at WNYC:

The New Yorker's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, is looking for a few good Thanksgiving-themed New Yorker-style cartoons and I thought you and your readers might be interested in entering the contest.

Make a drawing, give it a caption, and submit it to <http://www.flickr.com/groups/cartooncontest/> on
flickr. Mankoff will choose his favorites and discuss
them on "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC on the day
before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, Nov. 21.

Submission deadline is Nov. 14 at noon.

For more information, please see:
<http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2007/11/21>

And, of course, Dan Radosh has started his own anti-contest for the worst Thanksgiving cartoon possible.


So. The big contest news is that New Jersey has broken its dry spell to become the third double-digit state in the Cartoon Caption Contest, thanks to Caption Contest 116 (Gahan Wilson's alien cartoonists):

"On what planet do you imagine this would be funny?"
Eva Liane Foster (Princeton, NJ)

That's the first New Jersey winner since Caption Contest 88, and the first from Princeton!

The nominees in Caption Contest 118 (Paul Noth's angels on eggs) are

"Why did you think angels had wings?"
Sonya Erickson (Denver, CO)

"It's not the tedium. It's the uncertainty."
Hope Witte (Chevy Chase, MD)

"I always figured Hell would be less ironic."
Ben Snyder (Charlottesville, VA)

My loser:

"When I feel blue, I simply remind myself that it's much worse for the penguins."

And in Anti-Caption Contest 119 (Danny Shanahan's man in crib), the winner is

There once was a man like an infant?He was a real jerk and skinflint?I put him in bed, oh bed bed bed bed,?bed bed bed bed bed bed infant.
jdt

My loser:

"I can't believe that, after the horrible things this man did to me and our children, and the millions of lives he destroyed in every corner of the planet, he can still, somehow, sleep like a baby. But now he must die!"

Caption Contest 120 is here. Anti-Caption Contest 120 is here.


THE STANDINGS

Here is the current New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest breakdown by state. You can find it all mapped out here.

20 California

17 New York (15 from the Big Apple)

10 New Jersey

6 Massachusetts
6 Pennsylvania

4 Connecticut (two from New Haven, two not)
4 Illinois (three from Chicago, one from Lake Bluff)
4 Maryland (none named Mary)

3 Georgia (includes two-time winner Carl Gables)
3 Minnesota (Minneapolis 2, St. Paul 1)
3 North Carolina
3 Ohio
3 Texas
3 Virginia

2 District of Columbia
2 Mississippi
2 Missouri
2 New Hampshire
2 Oregon (both named Eric, both from Portland)
2 Rhode Island
2 Utah
2 Vermont

1 Alabama
1 Alaska
1 Arizona
1 Florida
1 Iowa
1 Kentucky
1 Michigan
1 Nevada
1 New Mexico
1 Oklahoma
1 Washington

Map Introduction

Thanks to Andriy Bidochko for Map Builder.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone

CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE!

Another week, another winning woman! In Caption Contest 114 (Drew Dernavich lifeguard perched next to high lifeguard tower), the winner is

"He's the lifeguard during high tide."
Jennifer Shelly (New Braunfels, TX)

And so, on a day when many people are filing their late taxes, Texas takes on a third winner, right in between Austin and San Antonio.


In Caption Contest 116 (Gahan Wilson's alien cartoonists considering a cartoon of an alien on a desert isle), the nominees are

"It would work better with an alien."
Don Hill (Corvallis, OR)

"It's just not funny if she looks so sexy."
Randy Dreyfuss (Los Angeles, CA)

"On what planet do you imagine this would be funny?"
Eva Liane Foster (Princeton, NJ)

So hey: Maybe New Jersey will finally make it to the double digits.

My loser? I went with verbosity:

"This will be perfect after a couple of changes. First, change the
setting to outer space. And then make the central figure an astronaut."

And I note that my anti-caption

"I know I'm new at this, but don't you think a caveman would be funnier?"

was also in the ballpark. (And I note that Emdashes recently asked New Yorker librarians Jon Michaud and Erin Overbey about the magazine's cartoon editors with nary a word about aliens.)


In Anti-Caption Contest 117 (circus ring in living room), the winner is

"Well, sir, PETA made us release the animals. OSHA made us get rid of the trapeze, ring of fire and so forth. The health department closed down the concessions because of trans-fats. The carney workers went on strike. I'm afraid this is all that's left. But, you know, 'step right up!' and all that."
JohnnyB

My losers:

Bil Keane: Behind the Panels [props to stcoleridge]

"Don't worry about all those people watching us with their computers. This isn't 2001: A Space Odyssey, and nobody can see our lips moving anyway."

Caption Contest 118 is here. Anti-Caption Contest 116 is here; this round's winner will snag a copy of clever writer A. J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically!


THE STANDINGS

Here is the current New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest breakdown by state. You can find it all mapped out here.

20 California

17 New York (15 from the Big Apple)

9 New Jersey

6 Massachusetts
6 Pennsylvania

4 Connecticut (two from New Haven, two not)
4 Maryland (none named Mary)

3 Georgia (includes two-time winner Carl Gables)
3 Illinois
3 Minnesota (Minneapolis 2, St. Paul 1)
3 North Carolina
3 Ohio
3 Texas
3 Virginia

2 District of Columbia
2 Mississippi
2 Missouri
2 New Hampshire
2 Oregon (both named Eric, both from Portland)
2 Rhode Island
2 Utah
2 Vermont

1 Alabama
1 Alaska
1 Arizona
1 Florida
1 Iowa
1 Kentucky
1 Michigan
1 Nevada
1 New Mexico
1 Oklahoma
1 Washington

Map Introduction

Thanks to Andriy Bidochko for Map Builder.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone