STRIP SEARCH EPISODE 3: GTFO

So the first episode of the webcomic reality show where there is a contest with not only a winner but a loser. Today’s contest, as teased last time, is designing a t-shirt. First prize is getting the t-shirt produced and placed in the Penny Arcade store; winner keeps the profits. Seriously — nice prize and you could tell the contestant were happily surprised to hear it.

I have to say; the producers of the show made watching 12 people sketch a t-shirt way more exciting than I would have predicted. The show is well done. The staff from Penny Arcade judging the t-shirt designs were interesting, personable — I like the fact that Penny Arcade, inc. is essentially offering up everyone in the organization a role on this show.

So spoilers? Yeah spoilers ahead. Don’t wander too far below the video of this episode if you don’t want to read the spoilers.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI30MIrGSx8]

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

So definitely fun to watch but a surprisingly not great batch of designs out of it. I was not shocked that Amy won this episode though. It was probably the only idea that wasn’t just a straight ahead riff on the logo or a cliched use of a four panel comic strip. Not that it could have been easy to gin up an amazing idea in an hour. This was probably a really hard challenge.

I was shocked by the format of the show though. Winner Amy was told she had to choose the two losers who will be judged by Jerry and Mike before one of them goes home. That contest — between Katie and Alex — is teased as some kind of creative exercise before the Penny Arcade twins on next week’s episode. And it seemed like Amy did pick two other contestants that she thought did poorly on the t-shirt design.

But strategically she didn’t have too. She could have picked anyone. She could have picked her strongest competitors to go before Jerry and Mike. This is a pretty gutsy Survivor-like twist to the show that is both a little frustrating but also pretty interesting. Some of these contestants might be a lot more Machiavellian than Amy was and that will probably amp up the Real World potential of this show.

So let’s update the not at all official and completely superflous Power List: