the loathsome new yorker cartoon caption contest.

so, every week, as it has for some time now, the new yorker holds a cartoon caption contest.

i have entered it dozens of times, and never been selected as one of the three finalists.

sometimes, the finalist captions are insightful and funny. most of the time, though, they're kinda lame.

more galling then its mundane picks for the winning captions, however, is the patronizing emails the new yorker sends the entrants once in a while, which are, of course, thinly veiled attempts to sell some garbage.

tonite, i got such an email. i think my response to it was right on the money. it will take a few moments to read the whole transcript, but i think it's worth it:

From: The New Yorker Store (thenewyorkerstore@thenewyorkerstore.com):

Dear Colby,

It's a caption-eat-caption world out there. But as a contestant in The New Yorker's Caption Contest, you already know that. And as a contributing cartoonist myself, and one who has yet to have a cartoon featured in the contest, I feel your pain.

I'd like to help by suggesting a technique I use to keep my own captions coming submission after submission, week after week.

Since I never "caption" a drawing, I can resubmit old drawings with new captions. So at the end of the month, around 39 unsold, uncaptioned drawings are added to the heap of my creative flotsam (sketches for ideas, ideas for sketches, old pastrami sandwiches, etc.).

Then, usually very early in the morning or late at night, I return to that stack of cartoons and just react to them. You'd be amazed how many different captions will bubble up, or how a flaccid line suddenly sharpens up.

So the original caption—"I'm sorry I'm such an apologist."

Might evolve into—"You're not even sorry about being an apologist."

In other words, from failure comes fertilizer! Probably 34% of my submissions, and about 25% of my sales, are generated in this manner.

Try it yourself. Next contest, create a few captions, allow them to simmer overnight, and then revisit and react. And keep all those extras—you never know when an old caption might be perfect for a new cartoon.

Hope to see you in The New Yorker, soon.

Michael Shaw
Cartoonist

P. S. I'm happy to announce a new training tool that's also a box full of fun—The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Game. Playing it is the perfect way to keep your gag reflexes sharp. And at $34.95, it's only about twenty cents per captionless cartoon. What a deal.

From: Me (me.bean@gmail.com):

go fuck yourself. how's that caption?