Attempted Bloggery: eggs

Showing posts with label eggs. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 181

It's time for another round of the CartoonStock Caption Contest. In contest number 181, two identically-dressed eggs stand at the base of Humpty Dumpty's wall. One of them is injured from, apparently, a great fall and it is he who speaks.

The rules of the monthly cash prize contest have not changed (and neither has my description of them): five dollars buys up to three entries. Real cash prizes are $500 for first place and $100 for each of five runners up. As of this writing, I've put $130 into the first twenty-six pay-to-play contests and this twenty-seventh challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $135. Having achieved runner-up status with two previous entries, I've collected $200 from CartoonStock, so I'm still playing with the house's money, thank goodness. In fact, so few contestants enter that the odds are generally favorable even for us less-gifted caption writers. My three hard-boiled entries are shown below. The cartoonist is Mick Stevens.

"Don't tell Mother Goose it was rough sex."
"Apparently I insulted all the king's horses."
"Now will you properly dispose of all banana peels?"

July 7, 2024 Update: The Winner

The Judges Deliberate

Video added June 29, 2024

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Monday, June 29, 2020

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #715

Crack up over my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #715 for June 29, 2020. The drawing is by Mort Gerberg.

"Just one. I can't afford any more great falls."

These captions weren't palatable:

"Do you have anything that can do what all the king's men couldn't?"
"For heaven's sake, no more pick-me-ups."
"Something to put me together again."

July 13, 2020 Update: The Finalists

July 20, 2020 Update: The finalists were each very good this week. I voted with Brooklyn.

July 27, 2020 Update: The Winner

Note: Last week in the Caption Contest, cartoonist P. C. Vey showed us a couple playing a game of beach ball in the pool with a cat. Play along with Contest #714.

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Thursday, September 19, 2019

Excuse Me: A Postcard from Liana Finck

New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck's new collection Excuse Me: Cartoons, Complaints, and Notes to Self is set for publication next week on September 24. Back on August 17, an intriguing offer appeared on Ms. Finck's Instagram account: preorder her book that weekend and send her a copy of the receipt; she in turn would reward you with a hand-drawn postcard. Nearly 2,500 people liked her post, and she left a similar one on Twitter (only seven likes there, including mine, but it's the one I actually saw).

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1RSr8olpE2/

It's a good offer and of course I took advantage of it. One hopes many other fans did too. I gave the artist the chance to opt out of having the drawing appear on social media if she wished, but then who wouldn't want to have a drawing grace this blog? I wondered to myself if she suspected how the Postal Service might treat a postcard like this containing delicate original art. I knew it very likely wouldn't arrive in perfect condition and I figured that probably could be considered part of the fun.

And here it is!

So the card is indeed a little scuffed in the center but, hey, the postal service was never perfect. I, for one, am delighted.

Do you know what else delights me? It's the correct placement of the serial comma in the subtitle of this book. Here is a rough, same as in the above Instagram post, without the comma:

And here is the finished version with the comma in all its glory:

Perhaps there's hope for the world yet.

Note: Obviously, I am not the only fortunate recipient of such a postcard. Other splendid postcards from Liana Finck have been posted on social media here and here. For those who don't care to use social media themselves, Attempted Bloggery welcomes submissions of original drawings by the artist.

Ms. Finck's book tour dates for Excuse Me are listed here on her Instagram account. Follow her on Instagram or on Twitter for updates. Copies of Excuse Me also may be ordered from the usual places.

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Liana Finck

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Friday, September 26, 2014

William Steig's Crying Chickens

Steig revels in his unconventionality, although it sometimes makes problems. He says his sojourn into the world of conventional business—as an illustrator for an advertising firm in the '60s—caused him to double over regularly with severe psychosomatic muscle cramps. "Doing advertising was something I couldn't stand to do," he says. "I just hate to follow someone else's impulse."

Joshua Hammer. "William Steig: With Pen, Ink and the Eye of An Innocent, a Brilliantly Off-Center Writer-Cartoonist Refuses to Surrender to Age" People magazine, December 3, 1984

Here then is New Yorker cartoonist William Steig doing something he couldn't stand to do. The story is that he has lunch with an advertising executive for a poultry company, who proposes a new advertising campaign. Chickens, you see, are saddened that their eggs are simply too small to be taken by this fine chicken company; hence they--the chickens--are left crying in despair. Mr. Steig covers two sheets of paper with sketch proposals featuring crying chickens. He does this quickly and apparently without the use of a reference. He works directly in ink with no pencil underlining. In the end, each chicken has an expressively tearful face and an appropriate gesture. The artist signs each sheet and leaves them with the executive, who keeps them for decades, even framing one of them. On February 8, 2014, they are each sold separately on eBay in the $230 to $240 price range. The advertising campaign never materialized. Now that's something to cry about.