This month’s contest features a drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Seth Fleishman. It’s set in a tailor’s fitting room, where Dracula is wearing a long black cloak with a blood-red fringe around the collar and looking at himself in a triple dressing mirror. He cannot, of course, see his reflection. Dracula has his back to us, but his tailor is speaking.
Like many of Fleishman’s cartoons, this one works as a captionless drawing, but Fleishman originally had Dracula speaking. “In my version,” Fleishman told us,
Dracula was the one talking. The caption was “I vill take your vord for it.” Having the speaker with his back to the reader was a fun idea, but maybe a reason it didn’t work. So, I made the tailor the speaker in the one I sent to you, but never wrote a caption for it.
One of you had the tailor make essentially the same joke Fleishman originally considered giving to Dracula: “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Many of you transformed an ordinary statement into a fitting caption:
- “Perhaps you need some time to reflect.”
- “Can you see yourself wearing this?”
- “I can see you wearing this.”
- “I can see it.”
This next entry is not an ordinary statement, but it makes the same joke as the last two captions: “I can totally see you in this, even though you can’t see you in this.” Typically, I prefer shorter captions, but in this case I think the longer version works just as well.
Here’s another example of spinning straw into gold by turning an ordinary statement into a caption that takes on an entirely new meaning within the contest of the drawing: “Can any of us truly see ourselves?” That’s not only clever and funny; it’s meaningful. When I interviewed New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich for my book on the caption contest—more on that in a bit—he talked about how much he likes such captions. “My favorite cartoons do two things: they elicit a laugh, and they provide insight. It’s not easy to create such cartoons—its hard to be funny and profound—but that’s always my goal.”
Now, back to plugging my book, which has already received positive reviews:
“An appealing book about a surprisingly difficult task: writing a good cartoon caption…. Wood has a great time here, mixing the bizarre, the jocular, and the wise into a clever package.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Wood, a Chicago lawyer who has won the New Yorker’s caption contest eight times, debuts with a diverting overview of the contest’s history and offers tips on how to win it….New Yorker readers will get a kick out of this.” —Publishers Weekly
My book won’t be released until June 4, but you can pre- order it here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250333407/yourcaptionhasbeenselected
Now, back to the entries for this contest:
The best groan-inducing pun turned out to be the best groan-inducing Jewish joke: “Is this for a Bat Mitzvah?”
The following entries suggest the cloak is for a different kind of ceremony:
- “I assume you’re not getting married in a church.”
- “So, who’s the lucky bride this time?”
Here’s a clever reference to the fact that Dracula’s a bloodsucker: “Formal, yes, but it also works if you’re just out for drinks.”
This entry offers several possible explanations for Dracula’s inability to see his reflection: “It’s either the lighting, the mirrors, or the folklore.”
Here’s a terrific example of a caption that works by making the speaker oblivious: “That’s odd, they were just working yesterday.”
This next entry suggests that Dracula has nothing to do with the fact that he can’t see his reflection: “Give the mirrors a second. My mother-in-law was in earlier trying on yoga pants.” Yes, I know mother-in-law jokes are considered stale, but that one made me laugh out loud.
This entry is the best of the many jokes about Dracula’s immortality: “It makes you look five hundred years younger.”
In Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” the sun does not pose a lethal threat to the vampire. It only weakens him. That changed with F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film “Nosferatu,” which features a vampire who sleeps by day because sunlight could, and in the end does, kill him. For the past century, therefore, many books and movies have perpetuated the idea that the sun can kill a vampire, which explains the next caption: “Perhaps you could see yourself better if I opened the blinds.”
I understand this next entry all too well: “You’d be surprised how many people wish they couldn’t see themselves in a mirror.”
Because Dracula has no reflection and is standing with his back to us, we can’t see what he’s wearing under his cloak, but several of you took a guess:
- “My only suggestion is that you add a belt and some undergarments.”
- “I’m not sure about the Taylor Swift t-shirt.”
- “The shorts are certainly a bold choice.”
- “Try putting on pants.”
Several of you noted that an inability to see one’s reflection in a mirror would make a certain daily activity difficult, but only one of you cleverly suggested that it could also make the activity dangerous: “Shaving must be an adventure.”
This entry has the tailor trying to make the best of a challenging situation: “Let’s focus on how it feels.”
And finally, here’s a reference to the fact that vampires sleep in coffins: “Shall I put it in your box?”
Congratulations to Jean Novokmet, who submitted the winning entry: “Can any of us truly see ourselves?”
Here are the five runners up:
- “Formal, yes, but it also works if you’re just out for drinks.”
- “I assume you’re not getting married in a church.”
- “That’s odd, they were just working yesterday.”
- “Shaving must be an adventure.”
- “Shall I put it in your box?”
A video of our deliberation can be seen here.