Style Conversational Week 1429: Look again The Empress of The Style Invitational on the little details in this week’s Bob Staake cartoon captions By Pat Myers March 25, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. EDT Add to list The humor in a contest-winning cartoon caption — certainly one in The Style Invitational, like today’s results of Week 1425 — often differs from that of a standard single-panel cartoon: While a regular cartoon in, say, The New Yorker might be of a man simply talking into the phone at his desk, a la Robert Mankoff’s famous “No, Thursday’s out. How about never — is never good for you?,” a contest picture almost shows some odd situation and looks for imaginative interpretations or ingeniously fitting wordplay. It’s the caption answering “What’s going on in this picture?” rather than that picture illustrating a joke. Because the Invite runs a list of caption winners rather than a single one for each of Bob Staake’s wacky cartoons, the contest also lets the reader enjoy the fun in a variety of interpretation: Wacky Minds Think Differently. It’s not great, I know, that online you have to scroll up and down between the cartoon and some of the results, even with the cartoons spaced apart down the page; this week’s print paper has a more effective format. But it’s still fun. Today’s 35 inking entries came from a pool of about 1,200, with about 300 entries per cartoon. (So if your similar idea didn’t get ink, you’re not alone.) There’s one subset of Novel Interpretations of our Staake contest that’s unlikely ever to win the whole thing, but almost always results in a blot of ink for one or two Losers. And that’s focusing the caption on some little detail in the picture — often unintended — and making a joke on it. I thought I’d share a few of those today, with inking entries and non-. Image without a caption (Bob Staake for The Washington P) Red ovals: “I can’t figure out how the light is on when the arm is broken from the base and floating in midair.” (Jeff Contompasis) AD Green oval, noting how the undies seem to be hanging stiffly at a sharp angle: “No, the streetlight is fine, but I’m concerned that someone is not using enough fabric softener.” (Elden Carnahan) Brown ovals: After soiling himself at his business meeting and then trailing it down the street, Jim finally found things looking up. (Danielle Nowlin) And one that got ink, declining to accept what a sane person would instantly see as a phone (blue oval): Combing his nose hairs on his way home from Mardi Gras, Ralph suddenly realized why his nether regions were feeling so drafty. (Ivars Kuskevics) Image without a caption Picture B: Blue ovals: Holding his breath till he turned blue. Carl could tell from the stench that Bob was shipping a corpse in his baggage. (Steve Fahey) Including an eyelid: “If your skirt, backpack, eyelid, or entire body is blue, you may now begin boarding.” (Jesse Frankovich) AD Red oval: Jill knew what the question mark over her own head meant, but she wasn’t sure what the 3 dots over that other guy’s head stood for … (Richard Franklin) And once again, the brown ones: Everyone poops like a rabbit at the airport. (Mike Anderson) So what are those dots really? I asked Bob Staake what their artistic function was: Shadowing? Unifying the space? His reply? “Black dandruff.” Image without a caption Picture C: Yellow ovals: He was knocked off his feet by the realization the kid wasn’t his, as his hair curled in the opposite direction of the child’s. (Jeff Contompasis) Brown ovals: More “dandruff,” in an unfortunate location: After further investigation, Alan has determined that he, not his grandson, is responsible for that most unpleasant odor. (Tom Witte) “Guess you could call that a ‘void-ian’ slip, eh, Pops?” (Bill Dorner) AD ADVERTISING Or: Oof! Mustn’t — let — Junior — get — the — Raisinets! (Mike Anderson) Or just … “Help! I’ve dropped my change and I can’t get up.” (Steve Honley) Green ovals: Counting to 10 is a challenge when you have only three fingers on each hand. (Kevin Dopart) And then there’s the variant that Bob cited as his least favorite caption joke, as he chatted on the You’re Invited podcast in January with host Mike Gips: one that plays on to the letter ID in the cartoon: Bob Staake gets bent all out of shape after his artwork receives a C. (Eric Nelkin) Picture D didn’t have as much microfocus: There was one more reference to the dots on the ground (“mouse droppings”) but mostly there were allusions to the woman’s droopy breasts. By the way, if you’d like to put one of Bob’s cartoons on your personal drywall, you can get a piece of his Invite art, either a pencil sketch or the final pen-and-ink drawing, at bobstaake.com/SI. Tell him what you’re looking for — write to me first if you need help in figuring out the date, details of the cartoon, etc. — and he’ll check to see if he still has it. The original drawings aren’t in color, because he scans them into the computer and then colors them in Photoshop. AD It’s the fifth Style Invitational win — and 382nd blot in all — for Dave Prevar, but it’s his first Clowning Achievement trophy. It’s for Picture B, with the man with the giant box on his head: “Jack hopes his inflatable-luggage gag goes viral.” It and the three runners-up, one per cartoon, appear online throughout the results. 'Zups Lawrence McGuire, Jeff Contompasis and Jeff Shirley each are bespeckled with hundreds of ink blots, but for John Folse in fourth place, it’s just Ink No. 14 and his second appearance “above the fold”; his first was a win in 2013. What Pleased Ponch: While Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood continues to polish up his refurbished heart, Other Ace Copy Editor Ponch Garcia weighs in with his faves of the week, all from the honorable mentions: For Picture A, he liked Scott Straub’s “I was checking for shorts in the electrical grid”; one of two Ted Cruz this week, this by Lani Jacobson, telling the senator that “they’re not literally on fire”; and Barry Koch’s “late bloomers”; for Picture C: “By the end of Week 1, it was already clear that 2021 was not as serene as other New Year babies” (Joanne Free and Seth Tucker with very similar entries) and Duncan Stevens’s “scantily clad babe: and for Picture D, Duncan’s joke about the Washington Football Team’s desperate search for a wide receiver. Love Laboring to Lose: This week’s Shakespearean contest I’m a sucker for Shakespeare contests: There’s so much material to work with, all of it so readily accessible and in the public domain, and a chance to exemplify The Style Invitational’s trademark mix of haughty and potty. As Duncan, Thane of Stevens (or Inthane of Invitational), suggests, the idea of Week 1429 is to choose a quote and convey the same idea with a contemporary (real or fictional) quote. It’s not a puzzle-type contest with strict rules (e.g., change one letter) and I suspect that I’ll be generous in setting the boundaries for what fits in this contest. AD What I didn’t have in mind were “Mess With Our Heads” misinterpretations of the language — a quote about Caesar in reference to a salad, say. I don’t know if these previous Shakespeare-themed Invitational contests will provide much guidance, but they make a great read. (In some cases, the link goes to the week’s new contest, so you’ll have to scroll down a bit for the results.) Week 683, string together words from “Hamlet” to write something funny Week 772, “translations” of various literary passages for easy-readers Week 1039, write something using only words in the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy Week 1275, “Questionable Journalism” with Shakespeare quotes Week 1329, Shakespeare “tailgater” couplets Week 1376, add a character to a Shakespeare play English teachers and students, I totally think that entering Week 1429 deserves extra credit. Deadline is Monday night, April 5. Happy Passover to all matzoh-chompers — and be sure to download Loser Barbara Sarshik’s THE BEST “Seder Songs” parody collection, free at barbarasarshik.com.