I'll put it back in and maybe play around with the fonts some more. About the price: I'm sure we can work something out with them, should we win. But no need to worry about it now.
How about this version? I've highlighted the knob and used a halftone effect to cover up for the JPEG artifacts. The gun button is less intense (because it has nothing to do with this joke) and the font has a bit of vector jitter applied to it to make it less regular.
Should I send it in like this or is there something else you'd like to be different?

No that's perfectly fine, just send it in. Nice job, did you use Artweaver or some other program?

Two different programs:
1. Inkscape for lettering (open vector editor)
2. PaintShopPro 9 for effects (version 9 was the last version developed by Jasc and not Corel, who in my opinion completely ruined the interface)
Final versions of what I sent in.
"Hi folks (Mark I guess it's you who has to answer this stuff again, correct?)
Attached are my entries (hansschmucker_???.png) for the Oddworld caption contest. along with one that I did together with Gexecuter (hansschmucker_Gexecuter_001.png) at the forums. I don't really have a lot to say about them, except that we might have a bit of the problem should the one I did with Gexecuter win... should that happen, is there some way we could split the prize, for example into two $5.99 games or something like that?
See you around
Hans"

Here was my attempt at it.

I'm a bit slow again... could you explain what's going on here: So far I have different theories, but I'm not sure which one you mean:
1. The top one wants to stop Abe from pulling the lever and releasing the guys at the bottom. So the guy at the bottom is mad about the top one.
2. The bottom one wants to kill Abe and the top one is really trying to warn Abe.
3. The top one wants to use reverse psychology in order to get Abe to open the gates and let the bees sting the guys at the bottom.

Whichever you find the funniest.

:) Well... I gave it a shot. I hope you'll like 'em. :P These are the images I could attach in one post. I got one more. Maybe someone will reply and allow me to add it.

I liked the 1-blue pic.

Thank you. :) This is my last one. I hope you'll like it. :P

That's my favourite. One (minor) problem: Reading right to left seems a bit unnatural to me... do you think mirroring the image would be OK? You should probably send in both versions should you decide to do that (I've attached a quick PSP edit so that you can see the difference).
Edit: You'd probably also want to change "first" to "last"

:) Thank you. Sorry for the order. I'm just not good with graphics - I don't know how you mirrored the "EXIT NO RETURN" sign. I used Paint.NET. http://www.getpaint.net/
I didn't know we were supposed to have graphic skills. Do we have an official word on this?

I don't think so... it really looked more pleasant to read for me, that's all the reason I needed. I doubt that filters, effects and so on have a serious impact on the rating, I just wanted yours to look as good as it can, so that I'd have more fun reading it :)
Edit: about the mirroring: I simply mirrored the whole image, then drew a manual selection around the signs and mirrored them again.

OK. I think I got it! :P Does it look better now? (Still Paint.NET)

PERFECT!
Edit: I'm using a horribly outdated version of PaintShopPro over here and I doubt there's anything that PSP can do but PNET can't.

My first entry, it goes from right to left.