by Episode Eight is called Drawing Blind and involved a contest where the contestants paired up and then each had to draw a picture they couldn’t see but that their partner described with words. Is this at all relevant to making webcomics? I guess a little — working with a writer or just two or more creators collaborating would need to share ideas. Words do help but I imagine most creators do like to share thumbnail sketches. The results of this contest are pretty good evidence that words alone are not enough for a good working webcomic collaboration.
Nevertheless per the Strip Search format, someone has to win this contest! [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j41pb3LIhsw?rel=0]
Lots more spoilers for this episode and the next episode with Scott Kurtz after clicking “read more”!
The winners of this contest are Erika and Amy and far and away they definitely deserved. As Erika says in the episode they have a “connection” — they certainly did.
The next episode is entitled “You Are Your Brand” and features Scott Kurtz of PvP.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ogR4fkRMk?rel=0]
Remember spoilers throughout — the contest is pretty well set up. The contestants have to come up with responses to some fake tweets ranging from promotion to fan-ish to hater. Point being if you do get your fifteen seconds of Internet fame as a webcomic creator your relationship to the public does change a bit and you should be able to deal with it.
Man I wish we’d had twitter and FB back in the nineties. Let me tell you something about shoveling through forums to deal with the above… Well maybe not, let’s not go to Camelot today.
It is hilarious to have Scott Kurtz judge this. He’s kind of grown up in public to a certain extent and some of his public actions over the years was clearly him tweaking the audience for attention. His judging of the tweets submitted (including speculating on why the contestants answered some of the tweets and not others) was a lot of do as I say not as I’ve done but still, Kurtz is a pretty successful promoter so you have to listen to what he says with an open mind.
I felt bad for Lexxy – she spent a lot of time explaining her nice girl approach to the Internet. I would have agreed with her too, before the most intense years of Comixpedia/TALK, but there are people who whether for their own personal personality issues or their deep investment in LOLs over genuine human interaction who cannot be niced around. Her interaction with Scott Kurtz was also clearly the reason why winner Nick Trujillo picked her along with Tavis Maiden for the loser-off contest on the next episode.
HEADING INTO APRIL UNOFFICIAL POWRR LIST:
- Erika Moen: webcomic badass and co-winner of the Blind Draw contest
- Katie Rice: winner of the first two elimination contests
- Nick Trujillo: Winner of the last two choose the losers contests
- Amy Falcone: co-winner of the Blind Draw contest winner of the first choose the losers contest
- Maki Naro: holder of the REDRAW pass
- Abby Howard
- Monica Ray
- Mac Shubert
- Tavis Maiden: up for elimination
- Lexxy Douglass: up for elimination
