Another caption contest? The last thing I need, I told myself, is to start documenting a third cartoon caption contest. I'm already reporting on the New Yorker's challenging weekly contest and on Moment magazine's bimonthly contest. So on July 27 when Columbia Surgery announced on its Facebook page a new weekly caption contest with cartoons created by none other than Benjamin Schwartz—that's Dr. Benjamin Schwartz—I thought I might just play the game quietly without generating another 52 blog posts each year.
I have made no secret of the fact that I don't find anything funny about medical situations—unless of course they involve psychiatrists. Dr. Schwartz's wonderful efforts have done much to change my mind about this. Now five months into the run, I find that I wrote some decent entries and even won the contest a few times. Most importantly, I enjoyed myself. Surely you'll indulge me if I share with you a selection of my captions—just the winners, mind you—as I've become quite fond of some of them.
Here's how the contest works: there are no published rules. There are no finalists, only winners. There's no prize other than acknowledgement on social media. The contest appears simultaneously on both Facebook and Twitter, each of which usually has its own distinct winner. I enter the Facebook contest only. Twitter usually has fewer entries and may well be easier to ace. A fresh cartoon in need of a caption appears sometime on Monday and a single winner is announced for each contest sometime on Friday.
This is the only caption contest I've seen professional cartoonists take a stab at. It turns out they're not bad at this game. Here for openers are three winning entries by two New Yorker cartoonists who entered the Facebook version of the contest. The first is by Liana Finck from the very first contest that ended on July 31 and, boy, it's a beauty:
September 18:
October 2:
October 23:
December 4:
Note: Want to play along with me? Follow Columbia Surgery on Facebook or, if you're intimidated by me, Twitter.
Today is Jason Adam Katzenstein's first mention on the blog. It's not all it's cracked up to be, Jason. Here's more about caption contests and cartoonists from the blog's archive:
Benjamin Schwartz
Liana Finck
The Caption Contests
I have made no secret of the fact that I don't find anything funny about medical situations—unless of course they involve psychiatrists. Dr. Schwartz's wonderful efforts have done much to change my mind about this. Now five months into the run, I find that I wrote some decent entries and even won the contest a few times. Most importantly, I enjoyed myself. Surely you'll indulge me if I share with you a selection of my captions—just the winners, mind you—as I've become quite fond of some of them.
Here's how the contest works: there are no published rules. There are no finalists, only winners. There's no prize other than acknowledgement on social media. The contest appears simultaneously on both Facebook and Twitter, each of which usually has its own distinct winner. I enter the Facebook contest only. Twitter usually has fewer entries and may well be easier to ace. A fresh cartoon in need of a caption appears sometime on Monday and a single winner is announced for each contest sometime on Friday.
This is the only caption contest I've seen professional cartoonists take a stab at. It turns out they're not bad at this game. Here for openers are three winning entries by two New Yorker cartoonists who entered the Facebook version of the contest. The first is by Liana Finck from the very first contest that ended on July 31 and, boy, it's a beauty:
The second is by Jason Adam Katzenstein from the contest ending September 25:
The October 30 caption contest winner once more is Liana Finck:
Without further ado, here are my own winning Facebook entries. Please hold your applause until the end.
August 14:
August 28:
September 4:
September 18:
October 23:
December 4:
Note: Want to play along with me? Follow Columbia Surgery on Facebook or, if you're intimidated by me, Twitter.
Today is Jason Adam Katzenstein's first mention on the blog. It's not all it's cracked up to be, Jason. Here's more about caption contests and cartoonists from the blog's archive:
Benjamin Schwartz
Liana Finck
The Caption Contests
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