Style Conversational Week 1209: We stick it to you once again On the way: 1,000 brand-new Loser Magnets. How many will be yours? A Post parade of also-rans: The Style Invitational Loser Magnets Since 2004, The Style Invitational has awarded business-card-size magnets to honorable-mention winners. Each year, we have 500 copies made of each Bob Staake design, so it really is getting a limited-edition Staake print when you get ink. Caption All 24 of Bob Staake’s designs for our honorable-mention prizes Josh Borken’s slogan on one of the first pair of Loser magnets, when the Empress took over at the end of 2003. This design was reused in both 2005-06 and 2009. Design by Bob Staake for The Washington Post Buy Photo <#> Wait 1 second to continue. By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // January 5, 2017 I’m always excited to introduce our new pair of Style Invitational Loser magnets each year, as we do in this week’s contest. Actually, our supply of 500 of each magnet stretched this past year into January — but JUST into January: I mailed out the last of the “Falling Jest Short” design yesterday — in fact, I forgot to save one for the archive! — and have only two or three of the “Magna Dum Laude” model left. For several years now I haven’t run a new contest for magnet slogans; instead, I’ve used runner-up and honorable-mention entries from our numerous contests over the years for not just magnets, but also T-shirts, Loser mugs and Grossery Bags. (I don’t think I’ve used any bumper sticker ideas from back in the Czarist era.) One slogan I considered this time around was one by Drew Bennett, “Me Write Pretty One Day.” But I was concerned that the allusion to the 2000 David Sedaris bestseller wouldn’t be as obvious in 2017; sure enough, when I polled the Style Invitational Devotees group — a generally overeducated bunch — on Facebook this week, a number of people had no clue. I don’t want the Loser magnet to puzzle anyone who might win it. The two new designs are now in production by the promo-stuff company run by Julianne Weiner, who happens to be an Invite fan, and she expects to deliver them by the end of next week. So, magnet winners of Week 1205, you’ll have to wait a few days more than usual — unless you’d like one of the classic designs shown above in the photo gallery: I have a few extra copies of many (but not all) of the old models. If you got ink in Week 1205 and want an vintage magnet, e-mail me with your preference (and perhaps second and third choices). And ahem, I think I have to trade with someone to get one or two “Falling Jest Short” magnets back. *A NEW LEASE ON LAUGH*: PART 1 OF THE 2016 RETROSPECTIVE CONTEST * /*A non-inking (too long for print) headline idea by Jesse Frankovich / It’s like judging 50 contests at once! Actually, I think it’s probably more fun to see entries for dozens of different contests rather than thousand upon thousand for a single type of joke. And I’m even eager to do it all over again this weekend for Week 1206; for the first time ever, I ran the same contest for two successive weeks, with two sets of winners. (I haven’t started judging it, but I did notice when compiling the entries that some Losers sent the same entries in both weeks.) I wasn’t surprised at all that not many people, and almost no brand-new people, entered Week 1205; having to look up 50 previous contests is a challenge that will appeal disproportionately to Loser Obsessives. On the other hand, a lot of the submissions contained the maximum 25 entries. Some people did 25 entries to a single contest; others spread them out.thinly I believe that only one contest didn’t get any entries: the week where we showed drawings of everyday objects (e.g., an electric plug) and say what they “really” were; good call, since it would have been difficult to run a picture. As in past years, entries that referred to more recent events got a lot of ink, including Mark Raffman’s runner-up “Rahputin.” But I think I’m presenting a wide variety of humor this week, including the Invite-signature poop-joke-with-a-current-reference that won the Inkin’ Memorial. Holy moly, what did William Kennard put in his Alpha-Bits four weeks ago? While William enters the Invite regularly and had blotted up 37 inks as of last week, he’d never won, or even placed “above the fold.” This week he scores three honorable mentions in addition to the Bobble-Linc, and had even more entries on my short­list. Maybe he’d like me to present his trophy to him at the Loser Post-Holiday Party on Jan. 14? (Evite here ; yes, even you are invited.) And while runners-up Jeff Contompasis and Mark Raffman can’t stay out of the Losers’ Circle, it’s the second trip, and just eighth ink overall, for Michael Rolfe of the Cape Town, South Africa, Loser Bureau. Fortunately, a tote bag isn’t likely to shatter in transit as it’s paddled across the Atlantic in a canoe. *What Doug Dug: * The faves this week of ace copy editor Doug Norwood: “I really liked Fantastic Boasts [Matt Monitto]. Also Forrest Gum [Chris Doyle], FiddlerOnTheRoofie [also Chris], What Ever Happened to Baby. Jane? [Roy Ashley] Umami [Doyle yet again] made me laugh but I worried that it might offend Asian Americans. [Nah; it has nothing to do with Asians at all. What I loved about it was that in addition to the giggle-prompting turning of “umami” into a Your Mama joke, Chris also worked in a play on “taste,” which is what /umami/ is all about.] Oh no, you sent an entry for Week 1206 that’s almost identical to one that got ink in Week 1205? Aww, dang. Well, I’ll tell you what: How about if ... nah, tough luck. Welcome to Loserdom. *JUST FAKE IT: A NEW FICTOID CONTEST* A couple of weeks ago I asked the Loser Community for ideas for some more false-fact contest ideas — don’t say we don’t do our part to fit in with the New Washington — and Melissa Balmain’s suggestion had the funniest examples. I only feel bad that Bob Staake didn’t get to depict the cotton candy seller inspired to invent the toilet paper roll. As always, most of the entries will likely sound for a moment a wee bit plausible, like a page from a trivia book, until the mind clicks into gear. (But something totally ridiculous and funny from the get-go may well prove me wrong.) Okay, on to Week 1206 — and this time, I won’t have to look up all the contests to figure out the entries.