As usual, Daniel Radosh is on the cutting edge of this question. For Radosh’s site, which provides (thanks to his admirably perverse readers) parallel-universe captions from the smutty to the surreal and everywhere in between, cartoonist and Rejection Collection editor Matt Diffee will be surveying his comrades-in-art and finding out what handwritten line of whimsy went with the original drawing submission that then, later, became a caption-contest challenge. I do know the original caption to Drew Dernavich’s lifeguard cartoon, but I’ll let Radosh do the honors. Speaking of the contest, I just discovered this site full of suggested captions and contest information (Michael Shaw, is this yours? I can’t figure it out!). Speaking of cartoonists, you’ll want to listen to Gahan Wilson and Bob Mankoff chatting about Wilson’s unmonstrous but excellent adventures in life and monster-drawing at the New Yorker website. Speaking of New Yorker cartoons in general, here’s a useful mini-collection of resources about the submission process. And speaking of wit writ large and small, I can’t believe the central Onion HQ is moving to Chicago; I read the paper faithfully in its fledgling years in Madison, my proud and good-humored hometown.
