Naked Inspiration

People often ask cartoonists, “What comes first, the caption or the drawing?” For some cartoonists, like Matt Diffee, it’s always the drawing. For others, like Jack Ziegler, it’s the other way around. But, for one class of cartoonist wannabes—the finalists in The New Yorker’s cartoon-caption contest—the image supplied by the cartoonist always come first.

How do these finalists think up their captions? The Cartoon Department has hatched various schemes over the years to ferret out this information. The use of ferrets was itself perhaps both the most ingenious and the most misguided. The best scheme turned out not to require ingenuity but simplicity: we just asked some of them.

Our first finalist, Press Millen, of Raleigh, North Carolina, took the democratic approach to Contest No. 412:

Caption: “Well, maybe once, back in clown college.”

Millen explained:

Here’s what happened: this year, I resolved to try to win the contest. I write ten captions for each cartoon and send them to family, friends, and co-workers for their input as to which is best. There is generally little consensus (which was true this week). Then I pick one and send it in.

For Jim Ranscombe, of Toronto, who entered Contest No. 421, the muse was more spontaneous:

Caption: “Coffee and doughnuts. No wonder they’re endangered.”

Ranscombe remembered:

I came up with the caption over coffee and doughnuts. Realizing what I was doing to myself, I just blurted it out.

(His caption is a finalist in the current contest. Have a look at all three, and then vote.)

But, judged by uniqueness of inspiration, one of the finalists stands out: Martin Kley, of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who entered Contest No. 391:

Caption: “Why do I wonder at times whether you are fully honest with me, Henry?”

He arrived at this caption via an unusual experience:

Strangely enough, a few weeks ago, a naked (!) man broke into my brother’s apartment in Munich and fled after his wife let out the loudest scream ever recorded in Munich outside of the Oktoberfest. My brother saw his naked ass climbing down from the second-floor balcony and running down the street. As you can imagine, I felt strange seeing the cartoon shortly after I had heard the story, and knew I had to make it the opposite situation: the husband coming home, and the woman reacting in the calmest terms possible. I am now curious to see what my brother and his wife think of my caption. Or whether I will even tell them about it …

Oh, go ahead, Martin. And, if you do, we will not only send you a framed print of the cartoon with your caption but also one to your brother and his wife. Then you can all have a good laugh about the incident, until the naked guy shows up again.