While punch is over 150 years old and has ceased publication, its legacy still lives on within most newspapers and magazines, with the occasional cartoon that lies in the depths of a page. Regular political and satirical cartoonists have their work published in papers every day, with work in exactly the same style as in punch; pictures accompanied by funny captions.

A technique used by some cartoonists is having the funny caption integrated into the picture. This is done to avoid a feeling of the picture and caption being separate items and being detached from each other. Often this is done in the form of a simple speech or thought bubble leaving a person's head, a technique adapted from comic strips (see below), but in many cases it is done more subtly. This could be a piece of graffiti on a wall, writing on a TV screen, or a notice board. This is normally better than leaving the caption separate as it creates a unity of the whole item and the subtlety adds to the humour.

This technique first came into use during the 19th century, around the same time as Punch was being first published, in the form of comic strips. This as you will probably know is a story told by a series of pictures, drawn by a cartoonist according to a particular story. The length of the story can vary greatly. Some strips in newspapers can last just a few frames, whereas others that feature in specific comic strip magazines can last for several pages. The name 'comic' comes from the fact that originally they featured funny pictures telling a story, but in the last century they have become increasingly diverse, covering genres such as adventure with characters like Tintin and even soap opera with Mary Worth and Judge Parker. The idea of telling stories using pictures has existed since the Ancient Egyptians, and examples exist right through to the beginning of true comic strips.

In the 20th century, American culture developed the standard comic strip consisting solely of funny pictures and added captions to it, most importantly with the introduction of speech bubbles and large block text to indicate surprise. Speech allowed much more scope with comic strips and as a result they became more popular across the world and were collected together in comic books and magazines. These books parallel the magazine 'Punch' in that they both work on the same principal, pictures with funny captions and funny pictures with funny captions, the only difference being the number of pictures used in each item.

More recently, funny pictures accompanied by funny captions have revolutionised the greetings card industry. While the traditional sort with pictures on the front are still available, they are being increasingly replaced by ones with funny cartoons or pictures and accompanied by a funny caption. In particular, a range known as "On-The-Ceiling" featuring black and white photos of old fashioned people, have become particularly popular. These sorts of greetings cards are probably the most valuable funny captions in today's society.

Caption contests now also feature in many places today, mainly on the Internet and in magazines, where a picture is shown to the reader and they have to come up with a funny caption to go with it. A winner is then decided and then the picture is republished with the winning funny caption. To have a go at creating your own funny captions and challenge your friends go to the home page here and download Name The Picture.

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