That’s pretty much Twohy’s advice to would-be cartoonists as well what came through in our interview with him was not what a great job he had, but just how hard he worked at it. His advice to aspiring caption-contest-winners: 1. According to Mankoff, winning at humor, like winning in sports, is more a product of perspiration than inspiration. “I had to think about the wording a bit: rounds versus bullets, etc., but the key was ‘nine lives.’ Once I had that, it all sort of followed.”Īnd, so, it can happen that way, but it usually doesn’t. “For a long time there, I thought that the winning captions were so much better than anything I could do, so I retreated.” The cat caption just sort of came to him, he said. For his part, Leonard admits he had lately been “sloughing off” in his captioning efforts. Mankoff reports that each caption contest now receives about five thousand entries on average-which means it’s very, very hard to win. He was very apologetic and said that they had a new idea, and would it be OK if they printed mine without the caption and had the readers put one on it? And I said, ‘Well, certainly. As he recalled it then: “ had purchased that cartoon from me already, and Bob called me. The winning entry appeared two weeks later: “ More important, however, is what I learned about myself.”**Īs it happens, that cartoon was drawn by Berkeley alum Mike Twohy (MFA ’73), who we interviewed for our Humor Issue back in 2009. From their cages, the rats looked on in curiosity. The inaugural contest featured a caption-less rat cartoon-actually, it showed two men in a laboratory, one wearing a lab coat, the other dressed in a rat suit, and writing on a clipboard. The caption contest, now in its 374 th installment, debuted in the Apissue of the New Yorker. “I’ve had more cat time than normal lately, so I was reminded of that attitude cats have.” Reached on the phone earlier today, Leonard said the fact that he and his wife have been babysitting their daughter’s cat probably helped inspire him. Here’s a news flash to lighten your day: Berkeley University Librarian, Tom Leonard, has the winning caption in the New Yorker’s weekly Cartoon Caption Contest.
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