The Winner of the Tournament of Champions

Well, that was fun. After all of that, the winner of the tournament turned out to be the number one seed. It kind of feels anticlimactic--like the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl or something.

Still, there is a reason that particular gag was ranked first. I'm quite sure there has never been a joke of mine that was shared more widely than that one. I'm still proud of it.

Thank you, everyone, who helped celebrate ten years of this silly website. Over that time I've posted over 1,000 comic strips and single panel gags!* There is no way I would have made it this far without your support and comments. (Seriously, I live for the comments.) Thank you.

There were over 350 votes cast in the tournament. I took each of those (even those who claimed a particular match up was too close to vote) and added them to a spreadsheet where I ran a random number generator to determine the three winners of the drawing. Congratulations to Chamberlin, Emily P, and Kathy Farrier. Please send me an email at arie@mormoncartoonist.com with your address and I'll drop your copy of Mission Daze into the mail.

If you didn't win and would still like a copy of the book, follow this link. If you send me an email after ordering the book, I'd be happy to dedicate it to whoever you'd like.

Starting Monday, the blog will return to it's regular Monday/Thursday schedule. Thanks for indulging me these past three weeks.

*This is like a year's worth of work for my friend fellow cartoonist Kevin Beckstrom, who also has a book of missionary gags available for purchase.

Tournament of Champions: Finals!

After three weeks, you've whittled down my sixteen favorite gags to this: a winner takes all match up to decide which comic is the best one ever published on this website.

One Seed. Maybe it was meant that these two gags should meet. After all, the only reason we know the Brother of Jared's name was because of a baby blessing. During the early days of the Church, brother Reynolds Cahoon asked Joseph Smith if he wouldn't mind blessing and naming his newborn baby. Joseph obliged and named the boy Mahonri Moriancumer, explaining that the Lord revealed to him that this was the name of the Brother of Jared.

Ten Seed. The moral of the above story is clear: never let a prophet name your son. (See also Isaiah and his son Maher-shalal-hash-baz).

Cast your vote now. Voting will close tonight at midnight (mountain standard time, as always). Come back tomorrow where I'll unveil the winner of the tournament and the three winners of a copy of Mission Daze.

Tournament of Champions: Final Four-Day Two

The end is in sight, folks!

Ten Seed. As a newly married, I read a message from President James E. Faust where he commented that with every baby blessing he gave, he blessed the baby with a sense of humor. His reasoning was that life would be so much the more endurable with that trait. I liked the counsel so much, I made sure to include that in the subsequent blessings for my children.

Eleven Seed. I really like the way my genie turned out. He sure looks a lot better than this guy.

Cast your vote for this match up as well as yesterday's match up by 12 midnight mountain standard time tonight. And then come back tomorrow to vote on which joke will be crowned champion!

Tournament of Champions: Final Four-Day One

And just like that we are down to four.

One Seed. Of the two brothers, Jared definitely was the less consequential. It was his brother that conversed with the Lord and led the people from Babel to the promised land. Yet due to a quirky form of government, Jared got a people named after him, while his brother didn't even warren a proper name in the scriptural record.

Four Seed. I am endlessly fascinated by Church art. Did you know that Harry Anderson was a Seventh-day Adventist who the Church contracted to paint a series of Bible paintings? Or that Minerva Teichert painted her series of Book of Mormon paintings as the result of a spiritual impression and later donated the whole lot of them to BYU?

Look lively. You've got two days to vote on the four semifinalist, of which the second two are coming tomorrow.

Tournament of Champions: Round Two-Day Four

It's a match up of underdogs as the 11 seed fresh off an upset of the six seed takes on the 14 seed (which crushed the three seed). Let's find out which of these two gags will advance to the final four!

Eleven Seed. I wonder just how many places left in the world don't have peanut butter. Even Slovenia, where I served 20 plus years ago, started carrying peanut butter about four months before I went home.

Fourteen Seed. Believe it or not, neither of these talk openings is my biggest pet peeve. That honor (?) would have to go to the old "For those of you who don't know me..." line. I mean, were you not paying attention to the member of the bishopric who announced you just moments ago? Not to mention the fact that your name is printed in the program. (I'm sounding like a grumpy old man, aren't I?)

Voting for the second round closes tonight at midnight mountain standard time. Be sure to cast your vote for this or any of the other three second round match ups before then, then tune in tomorrow for the final four.

Tournament of Champions: Round Two-Day Three

Today's match up centers around the arts. Specifically Latter-day Saint fine arts verses 19th century Gothic fiction.

Four Seed. I'm a cartoonist. I draw exaggerated figures all the time. I still struggled to make my Nephite match Friberg's dimensions.

Five Seed. Technically, Frankenstein and his bride never married. She rejected him and he destroyed the lab and the two of them in a fit of mournful rage. They're kind of like horror's Romeo and Juliet.

Phew, we made it through another week of this ridiculous exercise. Two down and one to go. Come back Monday for the stretch run. Remember to include your name with your votes to qualify for the Mission Daze drawing.

Tournament of Champions: Round Two-Day Two

Moving right along.

Two Seed. If I could do this over, I'd probably have added a couple more children to the snow family.

Ten Seed. Our first upset of the tournament (but not the last one).

Cast your votes for this and any other round two match ups. See you tomorrow.

Tournament of Champions: Round Two-Day One

Thanks to everyone who voted during the first round of the Tournament of Champions. The response was better than I could have ever hoped for.

For the next four workdays, we'll be voting to decide which comics move on to the final four! Remember to leave your name with your vote so that you can be entered into the drawing for a free copy of Mission Daze.

One Seed. I really enjoyed seeing how much variation there was in the voting. Each comic strip in the tournament received a number of votes. Even the sacrificial lamb 16 seed kept it respectable--with 1/3 of the votes cast in that particular race.

Eight Seed. Preschool beat the first day of school (with 64% of the votes). I briefly toyed with the idea of expanding this idea into some sort of children's book. The problem was (outside of the irreverent nature of the thing) developing some sort of conflict to the story.

See you tomorrow.

Tournament of Champions Day Eight

This is it! The last pairing in the first round. Let's finish this off!

Six Seed. Back when I first published this gag, twitter was still a nice little place for silly jokes and brief messages. Now it's a cesspool of putdowns and insults. Hopefully, that doesn't hurt this joke too much. (First published September 13, 2012)

Eleven Seed. Silly missionary: Always wish for infinite more wishes! (First published January 9, 2014)

Polls close for all first round match ups 12 AM MST, so cast your vote for this and every other post in the Tournament of Champions. Tune in tomorrow for the beginning of round two!

Tournament of Champions Day Seven

Here's your next match up:

Five Seed. Over the years I've done over a dozen Transylvania Central Mission gags featuring Elders Hammer and King. Their first comic is still my favorite. (First published October 27, 2011)

Twelve Seed. Growing up in the 1980s, He Man was a big part of my childhood which made drawing this comic particularly fun. (First published March 29, 2018)

Cast your vote in the comment section. Don't forget to include your name if you'd like to be entered into the Mission Daze drawing. Check back tomorrow as we finish up the first round in preparation for the elite eight.

Tournament of Champions Day Six

Let's finish the week with another tough match up. Thanks for humoring me, everyone!

Three Seed. Over the years I've done a couple of google searches on this gag. It's so simple that I have a hard time believing that some other cartoonist hasn't already done it. So far, I haven't found evidence that someone else came up with it first. (First published January 2, 2014)

Fourteen Seed. Someone really needs to use this at the beginning of their sacrament meeting talk. I'm sure the more sophisticated portion of the crowd would appreciate it. (Added bonus: it's another real life bishopric!) (First published February 19, 2015)

Be sure to cast your vote in the comment section with your name included. Come back next week for the conclusion of round one and the start of round two!

Tournament of Champions Day Five

Today you are voting on possibly the two oddest entries in the tournament of champions. I'm excited to see who you've got.

Four Seed. To appreciate this joke, you have to know popular Latter-day Saint artists Arnold Friberg and Minerva Teichert. Friberg drew all of his characters larger than life (I would love to have the physic of Nephi's kid brother) while Teichert did not. (First published April 25, 2013)

Thirteen Seed. This one is just weird. But in a good way. I'd like to think it's got a Gary Larson vibe to it. (First published July 20, 2017)

Leave your vote (and your name) in the comment section. Check back tomorrow for more.

Tournament of Champions Day Four

We're halfway done with the first round!

Seven Seed. One particular subset of gags I've returned to time and time again is the missionaries tracting into some famous fictional character. I'm particularly fond of this one. Plus, drawing the Scooby Gang was a lot of fun. (First published January 1, 2015)

Ten Seed. I'm sure this has happened at some point in the Church. (First published May 14, 2015)

Vote now on this and any other first round match up. And please don't forget to leave your name to qualify for the Mission Daze drawing.

Tournament of Champions Day Three

Today's match up is between the eight and nine seeds. Let's find out who you've got.

Eight Seed. It's kind of like Muppet Babies for the religious crowd. (First published September 24, 2014)

Nine Seed. Another play on the school of the prophets. Every fall my Facebook feed is overrun with pictures of bright-eyed children getting ready to start another school year. From that came this. I guess Facebook is good for something after all. (First Published August 25, 2016)

Cast your votes for this and any other first round match up. Remember to include your name in order to qualify for the drawing.

Tournament of Champions Day Two

For the next three weeks, I'll be posting the tournament of champions each and every workday. Here is today's match up.

Two Seed. I am so proud of this gag. Of course it would be the mom snowman that sacrificed her nose for the Jell-O salad. (The only strike against this is the fact that green jell-o is no longer as ubiquitous in Latter-day Saint culture as it used to be.) (First published January 7, 2010)

Fifteen Seed. For the first two years of this blog, readers had to endure a number of posts where I bemoaned the fact that the New Era consistently rejected my pinewood derby submissions. I probably sent the magazine a half-dozen variations on the same theme. Finally, the New Era published this particular joke. Seeing as how the Church is ending its relationship with the Boy Scouts at the end of the year, this joke represents my one and only published pinewood derby gag. I'm just glad that I was able to include so many great mustaches with it. (First published March 10, 2011)

Cast you vote now. And remember, you can vote for any first round match up until I post all of the match ups. See you tomorrow.

Tournament of Champions Day One

Welcome to the Ward Cartoonist Tournament of Champions. Today the number 1 seed squares off against the number 16 seed. Will it result in a rout or an epic upset? That's for you to decide. Simply cast your vote in the comment section and remember to leave your name. Voting for this and every other first round contest will remain open until all the first round pairings have been revealed. I'll be posting a new pairing each and every weekday until we've crowned a winner, so check back here often.

One Seed. Five years ago when I commemorated five years online, this came in as my number one favorite comic. Nothing has changed since then. (First published May 19, 2011)

Sixteen Seed. This was one of my very first "Things not to say over the pulpit" comics and still one of the best. As an added bonus: the characters on the stand represent my ward's bishopric at the time. (First published November 12, 2009)

See you Monday.

Introducing the Ward Cartoonist Tenth Anniversary Tournament of Champions

This month I’m celebrating 10 years of blogging on the web. Reaching a milestone like that deserves a little bit of navel gazing. So to honor the occasion, I’m going to undertake a little tournament to determine the best single panel comic of the week I’ve ever published on the site.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to pit two gags against each other in a winner-take-all field of 16 tournament. I’ve selected my favorite gag from each year, plus six at-large entries. I’ve assigned each gag a ranking, but it will be up to you to determine which single panel comic is crowned the Ward Cartoonist’s best! Once the pairing is posted, I’ll be looking for you, my readers, to vote on a gag to advance to the next round.

As an incentive to encourage your participation, I’ll randomly be giving away three copies of Mission Daze to commenters over the course of the voting. For every pairing you vote on, your name will be added to the drawing again. So please, comment regularly and be sure to include your name.

Believe it or not, whittling it down to 16 comics was a bit of a challenge. While we wait for the tournament to get started, here are 10 gags (listed in chronological order) that did not quite merit inclusion.

When I first started drawing these gags it was for the sole purpose of getting featured in the New Era. Of all the gags I’ve submitted to that publication, I have never been more sure of them publishing one of my jokes as I was of this one. (First published February 18, 2010)

No person in his right mind would award Flock of Seagulls a victory over Buddy Holly and the Crickets in a battle of the bands. Buddy Holly is rightly recognized as one of the architects of rock and roll while Flock of Seagulls is that band with bad hair. (First published July 22, 2010)

I love the idea of a mime speaking in church. Marcel Marceau is probably the most famous mime in history. (First published September 9, 2010)

I probably drew Jacob a bit too stern in this gag. Based on his writings in the Book of Mormon, he was probably a much more benevolent father than is represented here. (First published June 14, 2012)

I like plays on words. I also like drawing scripture-era gags (they are much more interesting to draw than a couple of guys in suits and ties). (First published January 17, 2013)

Say, I might be failing Sunday School too. (First published July 11, 2013)

This one cracks me up, although I think I should have placed a paintbrush in the Spanish speaking guy’s hand instead of a hammer. (First published July 18, 2013)

This joke was good enough when I sketched the girl looking at the boy with a puzzled expression. It became one of my favorites when I figured out what her response to his proposal should be. (First published February 12, 2015)

My love of geeky stuff has been a constant presence on the blog. I’ve drawn Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, and even Ghostbusters. This might be my favorite. (First published December 17, 2015)

I’m probably alone in my affection for this “joke.” It falls in the so-bad-it’s-good zone for me. (First published November 15, 2018)

Come back tomorrow ready to vote!