We’re pleased to bring the jocular doodlers among you news of a rare opportunity: Now that cartoon caption contests are all the rage, why not a contest for the cartoons themselves?

WNYC public radio host Leonard Lopate and New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff had the same thought, and are joining forces to host just such a competition. Naturally, they thought of the readership of Emdashes as a promising source of entrants.

Here are the details: Whip up a cartoon on the subject of Thanksgiving, give it a caption, get it into .jpg or .gif format, and post it to this Flickr group before 12 pm on Wednesday, November 14, 2007. Mankoff will then choose his favorites and discuss them on The Leonard Lopate Show one week later, the day before Thanksgiving, November 21, 2007. (Don’t forget that Thanksgiving is on its earliest possible day this year.)

So bust out your pens, brushes, electronic tablets, crayons, lipsticks, woodcutting equipment, what have you, and do us proud! If the resultant radio segment consists of nothing but Emdashes readers, that’s just fine with us. —Martin Schneider