At last, your misery at the hands of Omar has come to an end. Indeed (which is one of my favorite words), this is my last issue as the editor of the Humor / H-BS / That Guy sections, and I must say, if I may (which I may, because who’s going to stop me? [Insert maniacal laugh here]) that I am pretty proud of the section this year. In fact, we met both of my lofty goals for the section:
1) no Harbus cartoonists were harmed or expelled nor was I forced to resign
2) I made myself laugh every week
You see, this had nothing to do with you, the reader. In fact, at times our interests diverged. For example, witness the caption contest. While I enjoyed finding absurd pictures every week to publish, generally, you (the reader) thought they sucked. As evidence, here is one caption you sent me for the contest:
“”I will happily eat this non-descript yet presumably foul tasting morsel and 16,000 more just like it if you will promise me that not one more man, woman, or child will suffer such an unpleasant force-feeding at the hands of the Harbus Caption Contest. The caption contest must die.”
And die it did. But some things stuck, like the H-BS section, which pushed boundaries and kept us honest. Though last year Allen Narcisse and I began the parody news section (under the name Harharbus), there is no way it would have become the staple fixture it has this year if not for the tireless efforts of Marc Teillon. Let me also take the space (again, who’s going to stop me?) to thank Rivka Spivak for her fabulous cartoons, Jen Rabin for being my most regular contributor, Hughey Newsome and Jessica Tornek for always pulling something together when the section was empty, Allen for asking me to do the job, Dan and Keith for not firing me, the caption gang, the academy, my agent, and all those little people at home who are saying right now, “That ungrateful f*&%er, he forgot to thank me!”
With that, I leave the section in the fine hands of Maria Wich-Vila, who promises to be funnier than I was.
In Jest,
Omar
