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Strip Search - Elimination #7
Posts
"Were you actually upset by Monica's joke about your mother? Some people seem to think so (not me)."
His response:
"Haha no I was not really upset."
That was a pretty terrible shirt.
You see, you've wanted to be a webcomic artist dinosaur on rollerskates your whole life, but the concept of being a dinosaur on rollerskates is frankly ridiculous. Especially for you. There's no way it could possibly work, not as a career choice.
Sure, you played around with being a dinosaur on rollerskates for a while as a kid, and maybe you were pretty good at it - maybe you even won awards. Your parents were supportive, but they knew that it just for fun, it didn't really mean anything.
The real world is a harsh place of course. There's not a lot of room for rollerskating dinosaurs. Sure there are a couple of famous ones, but it's not a career path. Not really. Your friends and family, those who are close to this realise this (As do you, deep down) so they urge you to get a normal proper job, like being a big stompy dinosaur in boots that eats other dinosaurs. They love you and care for you and want you to be happy, so they urge you to take the safe option. While this isn't what you want to do with your life, it's what's available, so you take the job. You do the sensible low-risk thing and slowly forget about your dream.
But, there are two interpretations of this ending. either:
1) You find yourself living the boring job as the stompy dinosaur that you don't want. At night you have dreams about rollerskating, but that's all it ever amounts to.
2) Deep down you want to rollerskate so much that it hurts, it keeps you awake at night, and you go rollerskating then just because you can't during the day.
I suppose we all go through this at some point in our lives. We all want to be the rollerskating dinosaur, but many of us aren't able to take the risk and are forced to throw that dream away. It's sad, but that's life.
In other words... I'd quite like a print of that comic.
That's why Lexxy's comic really had me rolling. She took what I expected -- the tired "fake product" joke format -- and turned THAT on its head in a surprising way. It was really smart.
That said, Monica's comic was beautiful and a very strong entry. I really think it could have won out against a lot of other entries we've seen so far in the show. Lexxy's was just that good. Sure, Mike and Jerry obviously have a bias toward humor but anyone who says Lexxy won *just* because she chose a joke format is doing a disservice to her quality work.
3) That same night where you friends and family were trying to make you feel better about the sensible decision you made you have a dream about that very topic. You wake up in a sweat, grab your skates, take a deep breath, and reverse that "sensible" decision. You then start grinding away to hone your craft and keep chasing your dream. You're not doing it only at night. You have embraced the quest anew. It just happens to be night.
I think one big thing holding the comic back on a first reading is how easy it is to gloss over the first panel and miss the skating trophy and medals. To fully understand the comic you have to know straight off that skating is VERY important to this dino. The trophy shows that, but it's easy to miss. A bit of color contrast (if she had had time) would have helped.
Every time I watch one of these episodes I gain a new respect for everyone involved--the artists doing the elimination challenge and Mike and Jerry. Fantastic all around.
EDIT: At least that's my figuring. Worth asking Mike how much of a factor that was.
That said, if Lexxy wins, I hope she starts doing a funny comic. Maybe that's why she's doing the Kickstarter. So that if she loses, she can do Cloud Factory, and if she wins, she can still do CF even alongside starting up a funny comic (which would be, after all, why and how she won)...
What about Jerry. He agrees with Mike 100% of the time. It's as though Mike takes gentle control or the situation, and Jerry is just his supporting character. WTF Jerry, grow some balls man.
http://twitpic.com/cqj5kb/full
Also the theme tune to Rocky is playing.
That being said, it is going to be nearly impossible for me to not be happy for whoever takes this entire competition. I believe in every single cartoonist left. Hell, that sentiment was true three eliminations ago.
Also I want to say that I've liked Lexxy way more since she came back. The sort of careful polite smokescreen seems diminished or gone.
Right here. I actually own a shirt very similar to the one Mike was wearing.
Way to cut me like a knife Monica.
Have you thought of that
Better fashion choices
Anyway my gut reaction actually was that Lexxy would lose, but I'm quite happy that she stayed.
#TeamLexxy
it is interesting how they all react differently in the final showdown.
but - dang, i don't think anyone has ever antagonized a judge like that...on like, any show i've seen.
novel.
That's an... interesting interpretation, but yes I think you are mistaken. For one thing, dinosaurs don't breathe fire. It's not fire breath, just his regular breath showing in the cold night air. Even if I imagine that was the bizarre angle Monica was going for it wouldn't fit because the lamps ahead of the dinosaur are clearly already lit. They're just lamps.
As for Monica's comic, I though it was pretty deep and "classic" Monica. Her phuzzy comics seem to often revolve about poignant or comical aspects of her own life, and I thought her comic was funny and touching. More touching than funny, but Monica's comics often deal with daily struggles so it seemed appropriate for her to remain true to her own style. Unfortunately, she didn't have any warning that its hard to win the elimination if you don't make Mike and/or Jerry actually laugh, and that it might have been better for the elimination to try to be more funny than touching. Still, it seemed like she remained true to her own style and that's totally cool I think. I think almost everyone can relate to Monica's comic on a personal level and with respect to her fans/readers, that is appealing over the long term I think.
As for Lexxy's comic, it was funny both in itself and as a parody or commentary on over the top child-targeted commercials. Can't argue with the decision to keep her since it seems a very consistent decision based on Mike and Jerry's comments in previous eliminations.
I'm sad to see Monica eliminated but I think it was one of the better episodes. One last thing I thought was interesting was that while Monica seems really defensive until she gets to know people, she also appeared to get comfortable with a group of new people pretty quickly when those people were nice and had common basis for friendship or personal interaction. I think that she would have fit into the PA family very well once she felt confident that they weren't really going to bite her head off so hopefully there will be the potential for some future collaboration there.
Monica and Abby have been my favorite in the eliminations so far
Great. Now I want to see Abby and Monica go on one of Gordon Ramsay's shows.
i onno...
The heckling is great TV but in the moment, with the pressure on, I don't blame her.
For a person to pick that up would require them to pay a lot more attention to said person or see their work enough. :P
Up next, the Final Five compete! Okay, so Lexxy is Tory Foster, Maki is Chief Tyrol, Tavis is Samuel Anders, Abby is Saul Tigh, and I guess that makes Katie Ellen Tigh? Okay, so maybe the analogy breaks down pretty quickly.
So from that perspective, yea maybe Lexxy had a funnier one-time individual strip but I think it totally missed the boat with regards to indicating which artist could create a high quality periodic strip for any length of time. From that perspective, I think Monica's strip was clearly superior. After reading Monica's, I want to read her NEXT strip. I don't have anything to look forward to after reading Lexxy's, except maybe another gag. Now Lexxy's previous elimination strip... That was a completely different story. The clown bit with the clearly defined individual characters could be developed over as long a run as Lexxy could think up new ideas for them to explore. I want to know what those clowns are up to next. But for this one, I think Monica's strip was a much stronger long-term indicator of quality webcomic potential.
I thought the giant 6ft tall cardboard cutout was a bit of a giveaway, myself.
The joke in Lexxy's comic was lazy. The beats were predictable and there wasn't anything surprising about the finish.
Monica's was interesting. My brain had to move out of idle to read it at least. A great joke will win every time with me- but a lame one will lose to interesting.
Monica's was very clean, and certainly had a great story. It wasn't funny though. It was like Katie's second comic, really. Kind of sad. I understand why the Creators didn't pick hers to win, though personally I'd rather read a comic like Monica's over Lexxy's any day. Even though Monica lost, she's won a fan in me already.
As for Monica's shutting down when Mike was asking her questions she didn't want to answer, we all should've been expecting that. Remember her interview on the second day's elimination challenge? She doesn't feel the need to respond to anything she doesn't want to. Good for her, even if it was uncomfortable to watch. I was really expecting her to be funnier, but I think she was just stressed. I'm glad that at the end of it, she seemed to be feeling pretty good overall. At the end of the day, she went 400% on her indiegogo, won a lot of new fans, and I do believe she'll be able to continue rollerskating as long as she wants. I will miss her on the show, though. Let's all shit our pants in memory of Monica.
I think Tavis will be the next to fall, not that I want him to, but really with five left every elimination is going to be tough and I think he's the weakest link now.
(You just say the letters)