Attempted Bloggery: hen

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Monday, May 13, 2024

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #896

The fast food is supersized in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #896 from the issue of May 13, 2024. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Lonnie Millsap.

"The special is all-you-can-eat egg salad."

May 25, 2024 Update: The Finalists

June 2, 2024 Update: I voted for the caption from Pasadena.

June 9, 2024 Update: The Winner

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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

My Entries in Danny Shanahan's Caption Contest for October 2013

Back in April of 2013, Danny Shanahan's Cartoon Caption Contest was my introduction to writing cartoon captions. That's right, you can blame him. The contest made another appearance in October of that year but it has been in a state of suspended animation ever since with no winning caption declared. I submitted eight captions to this contest, but I'm still not sure I've come up with just the right one. I mean, when you find yourself writing a caption about chafing, it's a good idea to take a step back and rethink it all.

"Fool me once, shame on you...."
"Um, just between us, what's your mother's name?"
"Ah, yes, I knew your mother."
"Actually, I go more for legs."
"Why, as a matter of fact, I have been to the henhouse."
"The chafing must be awful."
"Are you available for babysitting?"
"Got eggs?"

Note: Danny Shanahan's website can be enjoyed here. Take a look around. I'm the only one to enter the caption contest since 2013, but, hey, you can feel free to join me. While you're there, consider buying some great original artwork.

My entries in his swinish April caption contest are documented here.

Danny Shanahan figures prominently here in my essential blog post on New Yorker Cartoons at Auction.

My string of unsuccessful entries in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest has been exhaustively documented for posterity. You can see the disheartening results here. If you have a calculator handy and are good with numbers, you'll see that the number of my successful entries to date is zero.

My captions may never be up to The New Yorker's standards, but I have just been named a finalist again in Moment magazine's Cartoon Caption Contest. See the blog posts about my only captioning contest triumphs here.

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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.