Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick. This week our intrepid critics take a look at social distancing cartoons. Mid-pandemic, it feels there’s no end to the upending of our lives. Someday, looking back, we’ll marvel at the strange customs we adopted to cope…
Continue Reading…
Have Something Specific in Mind?
Using Cartoons for Tech Startups: A Creative Way to Stand Out
Caption Contest Commentary
“Making Hay” Caption Contest Commentary with Lawrence Wood
The New Cash-Prize Caption Contest.
So you think you're funny? We do, too!! Each month we're offering a cash prize of $1,000, $500 to first place and 5 runners-up prizes of $100 each. What's the catch, you ask? Well, you have to pay $5 to play. But with a chance at up to 500 smackeroos, it's well worth it!
ENTER NOW
View previous winners
Recent Posts
Anatomy of a Cartoon: Unsocial Distancing
It’s Funny Because it’s True
“It’s funny because it’s true….” We’ve all heard that – but is it true? Certainly, there are things that are funny, and there are things that are true, and sometimes, there are things that are both. Here’s a prime example of exactly that, and everyone past a certain age can relate to it. BUY THIS…
Continue Reading…
“Library Cadavers” Caption Contest Commentary with Lawrence Wood
Jeremy Nguyen’s cartoon is set in a library, where cadavers—their bodies covered with sheets, their left toes tagged—are stretched out on every available surface. Two librarians, one male and one female, are looking at a cadaver that’s on a bookcase in front of a “new arrivals” sign. The female librarian is speaking. Because corpses need…
Continue Reading…
“Sheep Herding” Caption Contest Commentary with Lawrence Wood
A few weeks ago, we featured a Lars Kenseth cartoon that was set in an office building, where a wizard carrying a banker’s box (implying that he had just been fired or laid-off) was addressing his colleague. It therefore had two strikingly disparate frames of reference—downsizing at the workplace, and the wizard’s magical powers—and the…
Continue Reading…
“Peter’s Rabbit” Caption Contest Commentary with Lawrence Wood
In Peter Kuper’s cartoon, a man on the sidewalk is looking up at a gigantic rabbit, and the rabbit is talking. Peter and I have collaborated on several cartoons, three of which have been published in The New Yorker, and we already tried collaborating on this drawing. Peter’s original caption (“I’m not invisible, and I’m…
Continue Reading…
Cartoons are for Learning
Read any good textbooks lately? My guess is they’re probably not crowding your nightstand. Even a good textbook is not what I’d call a real page-turner. And yet, it might surprise you to know that many textbooks sort of double as cartoon anthologies, using cartoons to provide comic relief naturally while reinforcing and making memorable…
Continue Reading…