By: Shawn Moynihan The Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald puts up a new photograph each week in print and on its Web site for its ?Creative Captions? contest, in which readers are asked to send in their own caption. But this time around, editors decided to forego the usual photographic image and asked Jeff Koterba, the World-Herald's political cartoonist, to provide them a drawing to use instead.
Koterba?s illustration, which can be seen
here, shows a space alien sitting atop Santa?s lap, with one other waiting child whispering to another. The word balloon was left blank for readers to fill in.
As the paper reported, ?We didn't expect an avalanche of entries. But that's what we got.? Readers sent in about 240 suggestions, more than double the usual weekly load.
Reader Jenny Beukenhorst?s entry was selected as the winner. To fill the child?s word balloon, she wrote, ?An Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator? He?ll shoot his eye out.?
The reference is to a classic ?Looney Tunes? cartoon in which Marvin the Martian, intent on destroying the Earth, needs the space modulator for his planet-smashing death ray to work. Bugs Bunny, of course, steals it.
World-Herald cartoonist Jeff Koterba added the final ink caption after selecting Beukenhorst the winner. As a prize, the Omaha resident receives the original cartoon.
"It just kind of came to me in a flash," she told the paper about her entry.
The cartoonist told his paper that determining the winner was a tough, but very funny, process: "I did struggle. I laughed out loud while I was reading these. ... I'm really impressed with the creativity of our readers."
Koterba?s work is syndicated by King Features Syndicate as part of the ?Best and Wittiest? package, distributed to hundreds of newspapers.
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