The Portland, OR Tribune continues the tradition of local coverage of hometown cartoon heroes:

Local documentary filmmaker Eric Slade has won a New Yorker magazine cartoon caption contest. It’s a drawing of a business exec rushing out of his office with a surfboard under his arm, hollering to his secretary: “Tell my one-thirty things got way gnarly.” … There was no prize money, says Eric, but he’s getting lots of phone calls from people he hasn’t heard from in a long time.

What Slade (check out what I'm assuming are his interesting-looking films here and here) is modestly leaving out is his signed print of the David Sipress drawing, which is worth much, much more than mere money. As for the current contest, I'm afraid it's one of those barren weeks without much to inspire effusion. #1, “Try telling that to the Kansas Board of Education" (Bob Schwartz of Cincinatti) is one of those editorial-commentary picks that have been popping up in the contest from time to time, so topical they won't date well. #2, "Simple. I just wear my pants backward," by Don Hailman of Wheaton, Ill., is disquieting and I can't endorse it. I don't think, although it's been many years since I reviewed Defining New Yorker Humor, that it really qualifies. And #3, “What's more important, youthful hair or F.D.A. approval?” by Rachel Kirkwood of Lexington, Ky., is funny—my pick—but also distressingly typical in that there's a phrase, "youthful hair," that I don't think anyone outside an ad agency or maybe the goofy new MTV show The 70s House would ever use. Aside from that, though, Kirkwood's caption is timely without being over-specific, inventive, and tells a whole silly story in eight short words. Well done. Vote now.

Since we are still in Kansas at the moment, Dorothy, read my pal Ben Adler's fascinating roundup of actual conservatives' opinions about evolution in TNR. For instance, the NYT's John Tierney: Whether he personally believes in evolution: "I believe that the theory of evolution has great explanatory powers." Tucker Carlson: "I think God is probably clever enough to think up evolution."

Categories: Cartoons, Contest, NYer, Issue