Cartoon fans and those who relish behind-the-scenes peeks into popular culture will delight in Your Caption Has Been Selected: More Than Anyone Could Possibly Want to Know About the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. Lawrence Wood, "the Ken Jennings of the contest," shares his path to a record-setting eight wins, plus humor-writing tips and anecdotes from the 25 years of the contest's history.
Former New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, who founded the contest in 1999, explains in a foreword how the competition evolved from an annual event to a weekly one, and why he urged Wood to write the book. A lawyer from Chicago, Wood has been a finalist 15 times, among pools of entries ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 a week.
Wood's savvy enriches this entertaining volume. In text juxtaposed with more than 150 New Yorker cartoons, some now classics to regular readers, he explains the daunting competitiveness that leads to a winning caption. A crowdsourcing method narrows entries that New Yorker staff trim to three finalists; more than half a million readers' votes then pick the winner. Winning the contest, which earns the winner "bragging rights" but no cash, has eluded famous personalities including Chevy Chase, Maureen Dowd, and Jon Stewart. Writers will appreciate Wood's pithy tips, offered in short chapters such as "Don't Bury the Punchline," "Eliminate Unnecessary Words," and "No Exclamation Points!" (Exceptions include "Fire!" and "Help!"). Quotations from cartoonists, academics, and other winners negate the "more than anyone could possibly want to know" subtitle of this witty book. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.