Day: July 28, 2022

Contest No. 189 starts right now.

Briefly, here are the details: I’ll supply a drawing of one of my old cartoons that has never been published, leaving off my caption. You are invited to supply your funniest captions. Simply (1) click on “See Comments and Add Your Own”. Then (2) scroll down past any other submitted captions and type in your name and your caption in the spaces provided. Then (3) click “Save”.

Your caption (or captions) will be posted after I review your submission. However, no captions at all will be posted for the first few days of each contest. This is to give everybody a chance to submit their spontaneous, gut-instinct caption without fear of discovering that it was ripped off by somebody else’s similar spontaneous, gut-instinct caption. This is an equal opportunity contest!

There is no limit on the number of captions you may enter for each drawing, but I will only post and consider the first 15 captions from any contestant. Entries will be accepted and posted for one week, after which a winner will be announced and the winning caption will be printed. Below that I will also reveal my original caption.

The cut-off time and date for you to send in your captions is midnight Wednesday, August 3, 2022.

I will be the sole judge. The winning caption will be the one I judge to be the funniest one submitted (not necessarily the one that matches or comes closest to my original caption). Additional rules and regulations, for those of you who need such things, can be found here.

Okay, let’s have a little fun with this one.

At the end of the last Contest, I revealed that my original caption, from many decades ago, was a miserable pun (“Lock him up and throw away the quiche”, instead of “Lock him up and throw away the keys”). For this current Contest, I’m presenting, for your consideration, another familiar courtroom scene. This time it’s a jury foreman reading from a slip of paper. But this time, the drawing includes a title, or header banner, above it that says POETIC JUSTICE. The drawing still needs your funny caption to complete it.

I just want to let you know that my original caption for this drawing was a short, snappy four-line rhyming poem.

Now this cartoon was never purchased or printed by any of the publications that I offered it to (including The New Yorker, of course), so I’m not claiming that my original caption/poem was any good. I’m also not saying that, in judging this contest next week, I will give any “special” consideration to any caption/poems that you choose to submit (after all, you’re Captioneers, not Poemeers). All I’m saying is that I remember having a lot of fun at the time just thinking about the possibilities, and I hope you will also.

So why not give it a shot, just for laughs? You can make it a normal, everyday caption, a poem, a limerick, a haiku, an ode, a ditty, or what-have-you. Just make it humorous and appropriate to the drawing, please. My original poem/caption will be revealed next week, as usual, when I announce the winner of this Contest.

Below is the drawing that needs your funny captions. Good luck, Captioneers!