StripSearch
I don't know how many people have been watching
Penny Arcade's StripSearch, but I find the show fairly enjoyable and wanted to try my hand at the elimination challenges. Each artist up for elimination was given an hour and a half and drew a word or phrase from a basket. The words or phrases were then to be combined to make one comic. Below are the comic's prefaced by the words or phrases drawn. Commentary on the comics can be found at the very bottom of the page.
Elimination #1: Space & Table Tennis
Elimination #2: Being Lost & The Future
Elimination #3: The Areola & Circus
Elimination #4: Country Fair & Flatulence
Elimination #5: Mermaids & Ukelele
Elimination #6: Mystery & Naughty
Elimination #7: Dinosaurs & Roller Skates
Elimination #8: Cars & Cats
Elimination #9: Candy & Religion
#1: Like many of these, this one's fairly rushed and I think I'd rather focus on the writing (which is decent) rather than the art (which could be better). I don't have much to say about this one, and freely admit it's one of the weaker ones I completed.
#2: I really like the concept here, though the finished product is again lacking. More than any others I probably cheated a bit with the writing on this one. Many of these I spent over 90 minutes on, but it's hard to quantify the time cuz I'd often get distracted by shiny things.
#3: Probably my least favorite as it features an unhealthy amount of voyeurism, but at a certain point I decided to actually draw what I had come up with instead of thinking what I would do given the prompt, and this was the best comic I could manage.
#4: Meh, fart jokes are so damn tired that I'm not sure what you can do with them, so I tried to set up some character work leading up to it. Meh, I say again.
#5: This was the comic that propelled me from thinking what I would do to actually drawing them. Something about "Not" Ariel swearing, I find extremely amusing.
#6: Feb and Sam are characters from the comic I did before
With Fetus (notice there isn't a link to it). Sam's actually made a cameo before in the background of
this comic seated next to her husband (the fact that she's not wearing her wedding ring implies this comic takes place before her wedding (and that Feb's not wearing bracelets this comic may take place before her suicide attempt, but the scars wouldn't be visible the way her wrists are positioned anyway)). Ultimately I abandonned that comic because Feb's frustration and depression over many aspects of her life (including her sex life) began to wear on me (not to mention other elements of the comic that had problematic relationships with my personal life), though I do from time to time miss the characters and they may show up in
With Fetus both in cameos and maybe as actual characters.
#7: This comic probably works as two panels, but I felt it'd be lame not to include panel 3. Initially the brontosaurus was just smiling and only wearing roller skates on his hind legs but I feel the roller skates on his front legs and the "whee!" add a lot.
#8: Around this point I realized some of the earlier comics were severely weakened by weak character designs, which became obvious to me after comic #6. So I tried to use specific character designs for this comic and the next by taking two minor characters from Feb's comic and switching their hairstyles. I think that worked pretty well. A joke about animal abuse? Ehn, hopefully it makes people laugh. It at least acknowledges such behavior is wrong.
#9: Yay, let's follow a joke about animal abuse with a joke about child abuse. Again, awareness of the wrongness of it is there (heck it's there in comic #3 too... kinda). The only real concern was trying to make sure the priest doesn't look like Fr. Dante. Hopefully it's clear it's supposed to be a different person, cuz Fr. Dante has issues but child molestation is not something he does.
