THE ROBOBLOG COMICS CONTEST - GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Well, it's the moment you've all been waiting for ... the winner of the ROBOBLOG COMICS CONTEST can finally be revealed! The winner of one copy of THE ART OF ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, autographed by your oh-so-humble host, is ...
GPPR of Robotecha.com, with her entry, "Memento."
"So, Jonathan, why does she win and I didn't?" you might ask.
1) It's self-contained. It gets in, tells its little story, and gets out. This is one of the few entries I got that was COMPLETELY self-contained, and it gets MAJOR bonus points for that. With, say, MedMapGuy's entry, I got to the end of it and felt like buying a plane ticket, flying out to where MedMapGuy lives, kicking down his door, and yelling at him, "KEEP GOING! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" This is not a problem here.
2) The presentation is polished as all hell -- this looks more professional than some of the material that came out of Antarctic Press in the late 1990's. Damning with faint praise? Maybe, but the point is, I've paid $2.99 for things that looked worse than this. (And weren't as well written, to boot.) Aaron and his crew on the Live Action Graphic Novel do some sharp work, but that typeface and those word balloons have ALWAYS bugged me. Maybe it's just a case of personal preference, but I think both GPPR and MedMapGuy's entries have a lot more polish to them.
3) What it has in common with BOTH the other two winners, though, is that there's some real meat on these bones. Different kinds of meat in each case -- the Live Action Graphic Novel team's story tastes like a moment torn from a twisty ROBOTECH RPG campaign to me. MedMapGuy's entry delivers a tantalizing taste of what could be a neat post-Masters/pre-New Gen tale of a society in chaos, the kind of thing you might've seen out of the ROBOTECH comics of the mid-1990's (only back then it would be in black & white and probably not as well drawn). And here ... well, the way I look at it, GPPR delivers Rick and Lisa's true happy ending, the one cruelly snatched away from them in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles ... but maybe that's just me. The point is, to the ROBOTECH fan, each of these pairs of pages has something substantive to offer.
Which isn't to say some of the other entries don't do the same, but to my eyes, the work of these folks here do it with more solid craft and style. Speaking as someone who's been spending a lot of time toiling away on comic art for the past nine or ten months, I know I probably couldn't do a better job than the people who I've hoisted up on this pedestal here.
And when you get right down to it, that's probably why they REALLY won. ^_-
If you missed 'em, here's links directly to the other two winners:
2nd Place - "Conflict" - Story & Art by MedMapGuy
3rd Place - "The Black Knight" - Written & Directed by Aaron David Cole and Lukus Traverso
Sometime in the next day or so, I'll be pestering each of the winners for their mailing address (yes, even if I already have it for some other reason -- my records are a mess, sorry) so I can get your prizes mailed out before ... well, let's just say before my life gets turned completely upside-down. So, probably before the end of the week.
More on that later. Now, a round of applause for the winners!
*clap, clap, clap*
GPPR of Robotecha.com, with her entry, "Memento."
"So, Jonathan, why does she win and I didn't?" you might ask.
1) It's self-contained. It gets in, tells its little story, and gets out. This is one of the few entries I got that was COMPLETELY self-contained, and it gets MAJOR bonus points for that. With, say, MedMapGuy's entry, I got to the end of it and felt like buying a plane ticket, flying out to where MedMapGuy lives, kicking down his door, and yelling at him, "KEEP GOING! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!" This is not a problem here.
2) The presentation is polished as all hell -- this looks more professional than some of the material that came out of Antarctic Press in the late 1990's. Damning with faint praise? Maybe, but the point is, I've paid $2.99 for things that looked worse than this. (And weren't as well written, to boot.) Aaron and his crew on the Live Action Graphic Novel do some sharp work, but that typeface and those word balloons have ALWAYS bugged me. Maybe it's just a case of personal preference, but I think both GPPR and MedMapGuy's entries have a lot more polish to them.
3) What it has in common with BOTH the other two winners, though, is that there's some real meat on these bones. Different kinds of meat in each case -- the Live Action Graphic Novel team's story tastes like a moment torn from a twisty ROBOTECH RPG campaign to me. MedMapGuy's entry delivers a tantalizing taste of what could be a neat post-Masters/pre-New Gen tale of a society in chaos, the kind of thing you might've seen out of the ROBOTECH comics of the mid-1990's (only back then it would be in black & white and probably not as well drawn). And here ... well, the way I look at it, GPPR delivers Rick and Lisa's true happy ending, the one cruelly snatched away from them in Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles ... but maybe that's just me. The point is, to the ROBOTECH fan, each of these pairs of pages has something substantive to offer.
Which isn't to say some of the other entries don't do the same, but to my eyes, the work of these folks here do it with more solid craft and style. Speaking as someone who's been spending a lot of time toiling away on comic art for the past nine or ten months, I know I probably couldn't do a better job than the people who I've hoisted up on this pedestal here.
And when you get right down to it, that's probably why they REALLY won. ^_-
If you missed 'em, here's links directly to the other two winners:
2nd Place - "Conflict" - Story & Art by MedMapGuy
3rd Place - "The Black Knight" - Written & Directed by Aaron David Cole and Lukus Traverso
Sometime in the next day or so, I'll be pestering each of the winners for their mailing address (yes, even if I already have it for some other reason -- my records are a mess, sorry) so I can get your prizes mailed out before ... well, let's just say before my life gets turned completely upside-down. So, probably before the end of the week.
More on that later. Now, a round of applause for the winners!
*clap, clap, clap*
posted by Captain JLS at
11:28
7 Comments:
Congrats to gppr on her winning entry. :D
By
SailorCallie, at 16 June, 2008 18:28
Congratulations to GPPR, and great work! Polished is definitely an apt description, and it does look as good if not better than a lot of the “professional” Robotech comics out there (at least from what I have seen). The alpha fighter looks particularly nice, and maybe it is my imagination, but her rendition of Roy is very convincing as the child of Rick and Lisa Hunter.
I don’t know that you really need to justify your choices, Capt JLS, but I do appreciate the inclusion of your methodological approach. As an artist, I found it helpful to consider the factors you looked for in the comic, and hopefully I can improve if I ever do a follow up. Looking at the other entries, I am certainly inspired to do just that.
You bring up an interesting point about self-contained stories, which I would like to touch on without sounding like I am second guessing your preference since I think it is an interesting topic. I must admit that I am on the fence as to which I prefer in this case.
I think the ability to create a fully contained story that can stand on its own in just a page or two as GPPR did, does demonstrate a greater level of skill and capability. It is one thing to think up a cool idea, it is another to be able to follow-through with that idea. One does not have to look far to find example of books or movies that have great ideas but poor execution or conclusion. In that respect, I think great credit should be given to GPPR for pulling off a completely self-contained story.
That said, of the three finalists, I found GPPR’s story the least compelling. I’m not sure if it is an issue of the subject matter instead of an example of completeness verse open-endedness, but I think there is something to be said about leaving your audience wanting more. To me, your response to MedMapGuy’s story sounded like a highly positive endorsement (if somewhat frustrating as well), which made the last line unintentionally ironic.
But again, the obvious retort is that we don’t know what the final story is. It is left up to our own imagination to fill in the gaps, which isn’t a necessarily a bad thing, but it does raise a legitimate question as to whether this isn’t a copout on the creators part. Is the idea really brilliant, or is this open-ended approach just intellectual laziness? This is a legitimate criticism of open ended stories, even if it doesn’t apply to any of these excellent entries. I’m digressing a bit, but I thought it was an interesting topic.
Anyway, congratulations to all the winners. Will the other entries be appearing in emissaries? Will there be another contest – hopefully with less than half a year duration ;)
By
Niff, at 16 June, 2008 20:12
Congrats to the Live Action peeps, and congrats to the winner GPPR! I'll inform her in her deviantART account. (unless she's been informed of her winnings already... :-)
Thanks to Captain JLS for this great contest. It's actually pretty inspiring!
And finally, thanks for the kind words, niff. I'm glad somebody up there cares! My thumbs up to you.
As for the end to this story, I've really been meaning to continue it, and maybe if Captain JLS is gracious enough, he could post it. It's not going to be 'pretty', that's all I can say.
-ol' medmapguy
By
ChrisK, at 17 June, 2008 10:54
Congratulations GPPR, all I can say is wow! :) Thanks again for the kind comments guys.
-adc-
By
aaron@digitalcole, at 17 June, 2008 22:45
I really like the grand winner's work. I was actually visualizing a cartoon with that type of ending w/ this music http://youtube.com/watch?v=s7j_mEh_gmc
the imagery of Roy Hunter is really cool and the plot is really nice. Great job!
By
Unknown, at 18 June, 2008 12:40
WOW, wow, wow. I'm speechless! Thank you very much, JLS. :D (And thanks as well to everyone else who commented.)
Congratulations to Aaron and MMG. Those entries look sharp. I hope there's a chance for everyone to see all the entries at some point.
Keep up the great posts, contests and video, JLS.
-gppr
By
Unknown, at 25 June, 2008 21:09
wow those are some great entries, I'm happy for miss G though, she deserved it =)
By
Yours Truly, at 24 July, 2008 13:31
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