New Yorker cartoonist Chris Gural helped us judge this month’s contest, which featured his drawing. It’s set in a museum, where two fish are looking at paintings of lures. The fish on the left is speaking.
Chris’s original caption was a pun that alluded to the outrageous cost of collecting original art: “I bought this one. Now I’m on the hook for twenty thousand.”
This contest elicited many—far too many—obvious puns. There must have been close to a hundred that included the word “lure” or “allure” or “alluring.” One submission even attempted to address both museums and fishing by making a joke about “The Lure-vre.”
Not all the wordplay was terrible. Some was quite or at least somewhat clever:
- “His art always takes me by surprise.”
- “I find these quite tasteless.”
- “Breathtaking.”
- “This one really pulls you in.”
- “This one really caught my eye.”
- “This one caught my eye. And cheek.”
We debated the relative merits of those last two entries, which make essentially the same joke. I prefer the longer version because it does a better job of reconciling the disparate frames of reference: museums and fishing. In museums, people talk about art they like by saying it catches their eye. And fish are caught when they try to swallow a lure that contains a hook that goes through their cheek, not their eye.
The next two entries combine references to (1) critical comments about art, and (2) lures that attract fish by fluttering around and catching the light:
- “All flash, no substance.”
- “It lacks movement.”
The following two submissions are variations on the age-old and ultimately unanswerable question, “But is it art?”
- “Bait…is it art?”
- “But is it food?”
That first caption is clever—both in the way it substitutes the word “bait” for the similar-sounding “but,” and for the way it questions whether a fishing lure can ever be art—but the second is brilliant. By substituting the word “food” for “art,” it alludes not only to the question that causes so much debate in the art world but to the fact that fish confuse inedible and deadly lures for food. I love it.
Here’s the month’s best reference to a mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci: “Behold: ‘The Last Supper.’”
I like the way these entries suggest that artists are not the only ones who suffer for their art:
- “Great art is supposed to make you uncomfortable.”
- “All great art requires some form of suffering.”
I love, more than my fellow judges did, the way this caption alludes to a common description of under-appreciated artists while making the fish justifiably angry and vengeful: “I hope he died a starving artist.”
Any caption contest that features a drawing of fish will inevitably elicit one or more (many more) entries that allude to the common misconception that fish have short memories and attention spans. This contest was no exception: “I could gaze at it for seconds.”
Chris Gural really liked the following two entries:
- “It’s called ‘Kitsch and Release.’”
- “This one’s had a lot of nibbles.”
Both entries are good, but they’re recycled captions. The first is almost identical to Nicole Chrolavicius’s winning entry for the New Yorker contest that featured Paul Noth’s drawing of Big Mouth Billy Bass (the tacky animatronic singing fish that’s mounted on a plaque) addressing another fish in a lake: “They call it kitsch and release.” The second caption is very similar to Doug Finkelstein’s winning entry for the New Yorker contest that featured Ed Himelblau’s drawing of two scientists observing mice in a maze that’s essentially a miniature art gallery: “Nothing has sold yet, but we’ve gotten a few nibbles.”
From 1984-85, I worked in the gift shop at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., so I know museums generate much of their revenue from selling items (playing cards, jewelry, postcards) inspired by pieces of art from the permanent collection or travelling exhibits. Maybe that’s why I really like this entry: “Think the gift shop sells these as earrings?”
Both Bob Mankoff and Chris Gural liked this caption, which alludes to a tactic that both auctioneers and fisherman use to lure their prey: “I dropped out at 900 but the auctioneer gave it a jiggle.”
The next three captions transform ordinary statements that one might overhear in a museum into fitting captions:
- “It does look bad when you take it out of context.”
- “Finally, something accessible.”
- “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Here’s the month’s darkest joke: “The artist is in a can in the breakroom if you’d like to meet him.”
This entry suggests the two fish live together in a small tank that includes at least one aerating ornament: “This one will look great hanging next to our bubbling treasure chest.”
The final three entries I’m choosing to highlight make the fish who’s speaking sound like a pompous ass:
- “Why would a reputable museum display such an obvious fake?”
- “Of course, the hook represents death.”
- “We are left to imagine the worm.”
Congratulations to BRANDON LAWNICZAK, of Mill Valley, California, who submitted this month’s winning caption: “But is it food?” Brandon is a talented caption writer who has won or been a finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest several times. I mention him on page 228 of my book on the contest, so you should buy a copy to see what I wrote about him. (Don’t just pick up a copy in the bookstore, flip to page 228, and put it back down. Take the goddamn thing to the register and buy it.)
The five runners-up for our contest are:
- “I dropped out at 900 but the auctioneer gave it a jiggle.”
- “Think the gift shop sells these as earrings?”
- “This one caught my eye. And cheek.”
- “It lacks movement.”
- “Breathtaking.”
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and posted it on our YouTube Channel.