As some of you will know, I’ve been trying to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest for the last couple of months. Inconceivably, it seemed, they always avoided picking my brilliant, cutting-edge submissions and I was never made a finalist. I hated them. I sent them letters with blood spattered on the envelope. I canceled my wife’s birthday trip to Manhattan. I bought a cross-bow.
And then this appeared in my email box:
Congratulations Michael!
Your caption has been selected as one of the three finalists in this week’s caption contest. Can you please confirm the spelling of your name as you’d like it to appear and send me your non-P.O. box mailing address ASAP? If we do not have confirmation by tomorrow at Noon (Thursday) we cannot run your caption.
Your caption will appear in the March 5th issue of The New Yorker and will be online for voting beginning Monday, February 27th at:
www.newyorker.com/captioncontest
Thanks,
Marcel Andre Picard
—
Marcel Andre Picard
Assistant Cartoon Editor
The New Yorker
Drawing by Farley Katz
Contest #322, February 13, 2012
Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. The finalists in the February 13th & 20th contest appear below; select your favorite. The winner will appear online Monday, March 12th, and in the March 19th issue of The New Yorker. Any resident of the U.S. or Canada (except Quebec) age eighteen or older can vote.
Your Vote
“On a clear day, I can get Santa Fe on the antenna.”
Submitted by Michael Murray
Toronto, Ont.
“At the next canyon, I’ll show you why.”
Submitted by David Hagemeier
Arden Hills, Minn.
“Nope, it’s not a new haircut. Try again.”
Submitted by Alec Anderson
Ann Arbor, Mich.
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Marcel Andre:
Yippe ki-yay, motherfucker!
Can I say that?
I’m sorry if I can’t and take it back immediately.
I grovel, even.
These are my grateful stats:
Michael Murray
Xxx xxxxxx xx
Xxxxx xxx
On another note, why did it take you so long to pick one of my submissions? Have you been making the interns do it while you flip through wallpaper swatches? By the way, you have a very pretentious name. Does everybody at the New Yorker have a pretentious name? I mean, is it a requirement to get a job there, because if so I would absolutely change my name to something like Benedict P. Harbinger.
Whatever it took.
And Picard, you aren’t related to the famous Jean-Luc Picard, by any chance, or do you just want people to think that so that they don’t punch you when they see that you dress like a sissy?
Michael Murray
Michael:
You really do know how to make friends, don’t you?
First of all, we don’t really take kindly to aimless swearing at the magazine, but we’re willing to let it pass this time because we figure you’re excited, like when you get drunk and go on a roller coaster. As far as our selection process goes, we have a tremendous volume of submissions, all of which we go through very carefully. Generally, our interns are used to press our ties and fetch lunch, although sometimes they will be required to gather wallpaper swatches for us, too. At the New Yorker, we’re interested in well-rounded people, not people with anger issues, OCD and fear of Roller Coasters.
When you get a job at the New Yorker you are assigned a name, and so I have nothing to do with mine but am grateful that it is not Omega-7, or something. And no, I do not use my assigned New Yorker name as a bully shield, hoping that people think I’m the son of a fictional TV character.
Can you also confirm that you’re over 18?
And just do it without the “color,” you’re skating on very thin ice here.
Thanks,
Marcel Andre Picard