September 12th, 2011
The Journal has a great piece about it here. Sample greatness:
The axis of all this angst is Mr. Mankoff, who sifts through between 6,000 and 7,000 entries a week. His assistant uses a computer program to weed out entries that are too common or too long and pares the list to under 100. Mr. Mankoff selects three and readers vote on the winner.
He says his goal isn’t simply to pick the three funniest captions, but ones that represent different approaches, ranging from puns to the more abstract.
Patrick House, a neuroscientist from Stanford University and past winner, says captions that usually prevail fall into what he calls the “theory of mind” category, in which the writer projects the characters’ intent and hints at it, but lets readers fill in the blanks.
He arrived at his theory after what he thought was the perfect pun-based caption was passed over. Out of revenge, he submitted a caption the following week that appealed to the “urban ennui” he assumed afflicts the average New Yorker reader. It won.
The cartoon featured a man on his phone looking out the window, apparently unaware that a monster clung to the wall. To Mr. House, the monster was a metaphor for everything that plagues mankind and the man, a quintessential New Yorker, had given up. “O.K. I’m at the window. To the right? Your right or my right?” he wrote.
My all-time favorite (these things are impossible to find after they run, sorry) featured a giant squid working as a sushi chef.
Update: Galley Friend G.R. has the goods!
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I think I saved the squid one. I’ll see if I can dig it up.
Gabriel September 12, 2011 at 10:00 am
You mean this cartoon?
http://www.cartoonbank.com/2005/he-feels-he-can-do-more-good-working-within-the-system/invt/128444/
Cartoonbank has a very good keyword search system and I can usually find cartoons right away. I considered licensing this one for my book but figured the licensing fees/hassle would be higher that I was willing to go (that is, a couple hundred dollars and two hours, respectively).:
http://www.cartoonbank.com/2004/to-be-perfectly-honest-pete-im-not-sure-its-clear-channel-thats-holding-us-back/invt/128232/