T w e n t y S i d e d

A month ago The Escapist launched the webcomic contest, which was an opportunity for someone to score a deal not unlike the one I have with Stolen Pixels. I made a comic that outlined the rules.

The contest is now closed and the contestants are waiting on the judging. The judges have been announced:

• Senior Editor Susan Arendt, Brand Manager Spinwhiz, Community Manager Kuliani, Affiliate Relations Manager Encaen.
• Ryan North of Dinosaur comics.
• Brian Clevinger of 8-Bit Theater
• Shamus Young of Stolen Pixels

This is the “secret project” I alluded to on Monday. And it really is a project. In total, people submitted three hundred and forty six comics, most of which were four strips each. Applying the power of mathematics to these numbers, we discover that there are 1,384 pages of stuff to review. Over half of the submissions came in the final weekend of the contest.

A few years ago most new webcomics revolved around the Two Gamers on a Couch trope. (The gamers were both dudes in 99% of the cases.) This year it looks like the new trend is “Two Dudes who are Game Designers”. Reading through the list, it’s interesting (and saddening) to see the same comedic mistakes made again and again. So many people, all freely and creatively choosing to tread the same ruinous path as a hundred other entries.

I’m not quite done going through the list. I think I’ve at least glanced at each entry once, but I’d like to give them all a second look. I try to read them in a different order each time, just to give them a fair shake. It’s easy to dismiss one as “crap art” if you were just looking at gorgeous artwork. I don’t want to miss some undiscovered XKCD because of this sort of thing. I’m reminded of the Penny Arcade story where their comic was rejected by an editor. From the perspective of Gabe & Tycho it was simply another trial to endure, another slope on the way to the summit. But for someone trying to pick a winner it can serve as a cautionary tale. Odds are very good that one of the three hundred and forty five non-winning entries will go on to find some sort of success. They’ll probably do it just to spite me. Their merchandising alone will exceed my household income, and their biggest selling item will be their logo with a “Rejected by Shamus Young” stamp over it, a satirical jab at my failure to detect their greatness. I’ll be known as the hack who didn’t realize that “Two Game Designers on a Couch with a Cat” was destined for world-class greatness.

That’s the nightmare I keep having, anyway.

I will say that good writers seem to be rarer than good artists. I’ve witnessed a lot of great art married to unworthy writing, but I can’t think of any instances of brilliant writing with terrible art.

I don’t know when the winners will be announced. I’m trying to get my side of things finished up this week.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

A few housekeeping questions from the past few days:

What’s the deal with those graphs in the corner?

They’re… comics? I guess? Little images designed to impart data of zero informational value? I don’t know what else to call them. I put the little branding on the bottom: “A Thing About Stuff”. That seems to be serving as a title for now.

A while ago I made this collection of silly graphs for Stolen Pixels. I enjoyed making them and they were well received. I had ideas for many more such images, but I didn’t think they were a good fit for Stolen Pixels in the long term. The comic is about videogame screenshots, and the graphs felt a little out of place. So I decided to make them a regular feature here on the site.

There are 15 of them right now, and the image changes once daily. Every once in a while I go crazy and make a few more.

Graphs? What are you on about?

You’re most likely using adblock. The comics are acting as a placeholder for ads.

What happened to the Team Fortress 2 servers?

I just didn’t have time to play. A lot of other people seemed to have the same problem, since the server spent a lot of time empty. Taking care of that server was like gardening. You have to prune the jerks and water the newbies, or the thing would lose its unique personality and be just another server. I felt like I didn’t have the time the thing required.

Hey! What happened to Spoiler Warning?

Randy escaped custody and fled to California. My bounty hunters (I keep some on retainer for situations like this) scoured the state, and after a couple of weeks they found him in a motel just outside of Barstow living under the name Marice LeVroom. Randy was recaptured after a brief gunfight and a car chase that resulted in the destruction of his rusty, dust-colored ’78 Impalla. I think a gas station was blown up in the process.

Anyway, we’ve got him again and as soon as he sobers up we’ll once again be making him play through Mass Effect at gunpoint.

Unless he escapes again. He’s wily, that one.

What happened to the rest of the Mass Effect 2 review?

The delay in the rest of the review was caused by the game itself. While playing ME2, I basically burned through all of my lead time in my various projects. (Comic, column, Let’s Play.) So I need to take a week or so and get caught up again.

What happened to the final strip for Chainmail Bikini?

The ball is actually in my court. Shawn has drawn the thing, and now I have to write some stuff. This is backwards from how we used to do things, but this is just a one-off thing. I’m just overcome with the need to make this one Meaningful and Witty because it’s the last. So I’ve been sitting on it for a week now, trying to come up with something to do it justice.

Also: Mass Effect 2.

Anything else going on?

I actually have another project I can’t talk about yet. It’s just a one-time deal, not an ongoing project. Still, it looks like it’s going to eat up a day or two this week. More on that tomorrow.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.