June 21, 2005

Funny competition

So I know George has submitted an entry to The New Yorker's new weekly cartoon Caption Contest. As an avid reader of the magazine for over five years now, I have been curious to know just how many people have been participating and how the feature has been working out for The New Yorker.

Well, the answer is more than 50,000 people since April, or between 7,000 and 12,000 each week.

I for one think the feature is great, and I am continually amazed at how clever some of the winning captions are.

The article from Newsday is actually pretty interesting for a few other tidbits about the contest process, such as how the editor in charge has developed a computer program to sift through entries and how the submissions are often in sync with the cartoonists' original caption:

In the May 9 issue, "First, you must gain their trust," was a finalist for a cartoon depicting a lab researcher wearing a mouse suit while taking notes on a group of caged mice. Cartoonist Mike Twohy's caption was, "First, you must earn their trust." Close enough.

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