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Strip Search - Elimination #7
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You had some interesting points about the general likelihood of winners though:
I really don't want to insult anyone, so I want it to be super clear that I'm about to get very analytical about each artist's chances of winning based on previous performance and sometimes existing comics. So, if you're one of the remaining artists... well, who am I kidding, you're probably going to just keep reading. But you might regret it. I'm putting the rest in spoiler tags.
- I think that I agree that Tavis is weak compared to most of the others in elimination stage. Which is odd, since he's stated that he's used to not having much time to do his comic. Maybe next time he'll be more confident and prepared and rock everyone's socks off... but from what we've seen, it's hard to expect that.
- Katie does seem to be the strongest in social/competition challenges. Personally I'm not a fan of her sense of humour as displayed in Skadi, but a) that seems to be a minority opinion, and b) I'm not sure how much of that writing is her own, since she works with a partner.
- Maki is very strong in both types of challenges, although not necessarily the best in either, depending on your opinions. (Certainly I don't think he's a weak link myself, I was only thinking in comparison to the other 4 and based on the minimal real data that the other artists have. As compared to the abundance that we at home have
)
- I have a feeling that Lexxy doesn't have any sort of immunity for getting sent up again, at this stage with so few competitors to choose from. I think it's anything goes. She's done OK for herself in all types of competitions as well, but I think you're right in that eventually she will be up against someone stronger in the humour part of the elimination stage.
- I feel that Abby is actually the strongest competitor. She hasn't been winning the social/competitive challenges, but her sense of humour is bang-on with what Mike & Jerry like. I just don't see her losing an elimination challenge easily.
Of course you're right about how much of this comes down to unpredictable things. But I think they all have a sense of the "rules of the game" now, so to speak. One of them could still undervalue usage of the Ideas and/or humour and be out of there in an instant, or they could just let their fatigue get to them or have bad Ideas come out (perhaps twice, in the case of a Redraw). And of course we have NO idea what order people will get sent to elimination in. And I'm mostly not disagreeing with you. But you got me thinking, in general. Here's my take on the last days:Of course as you mention, any of them could keep winning immunity and therefore stay in until the final two. Or surprise us in an elimination stage. But I wanted to throw in my predictions anyway.
Lexxy's strip had a very strong Ren and Stimpy flavor to it. like the Log and "Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence" commercials in R&S. there's a bit of whimsy in oddball products. Lexxy's actual strip took that a bit further into Jurassic Park territory. i'm sure that appealed to Mike in particular.
i don't think it was humor that came down to the deciding factor though. Lexxy used the wastebasket ideas and integrated it into a humorous and well-executed strip. Monica took a narrative (albeit a heartwarming and compelling narrative) and clothed it in the elements of "rollerskates" and "dinosaurs". she did what Amy did with her elimination strip.
yes, the idea of being a rollerskating dinosaur is a quixotic dream that Monica was using as a metaphor for doing webcomics and art as a career. but so could being a ukulele-playing mermaid. i think it really came down to usage of the theme versus putting the theme on the skeleton of a slightly-related framework.
Monica's also had some readability issues, which hurt her. it wasn't just that the comic was complex and thought-provoking, it was that the panels and the flow were somewhat confusing to read. both pieces were definitely wonderful, but if it came down to having to choose one of the two, i can see why Mike and Jerry chose the way they did.
last, to the comments about the art not "being complete", this is simply objectively wrong. look at the comic artwork of Will Eisner or Osamu Tezuka or some of Neil Gaiman's black and white pieces. or look at Kate Beaton and what she does with her unarguably-complete strips. there's a concrete difference between "sketched" and impressionist or minimalistic style. Lexxy's two Strip Search pieces have been excellent minimalist pieces: light on linework, but the quality of those lines is damned impressive, and the expressive postures and faces shine through. it is different from the more polished stuff you might see from PA, or Kurtz, or other webcomics generally, but it is most certainly "finished work".
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You're using the word "objectively" wrong there, friend.
e: And her comment's cruel whether you think she was right or not.
I have no idea why I made it so big, you can probably tell by the last panel with the tent and the roller-plaza, that I was rushing and panicking, it's a touch 'loose'
"you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
from an objective standpoint, her comment isn't inherently "cruel". it took less time for Mike and Jerry to decide the results for this elimination than it did between Tavis and Lexxy. it "wasn't quite as tight" because Mike and Jerry did not have to take as long a time to deliberate. taking that into account, Lexxy is objectively correct without being cruel.
your opinion about whether it was cruel or not is a non-objective analysis.
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Seriously though, Lexxy's comic was fantastic.
As I recall from the New Hire episodes, one of the reasons Lexxy didn't get hired was because of her strong personality. Khoo thought that Lexxy was trying too hard to be the center of everything, coming on too strong, and there was already too many strong personalities like that in the office already. The only person Khoo had ever fired was over that sort of personality that Lexxy was showing in her interviews at PA. That's not to say Erika (the PA employee) wasn't the best candidate for reasons other than personality, but Khoo felt Erika would integrate a lot better.
Lexxy is apparently nice enough, a bunch of the other strippers have commented that they liked her personally, but I can definitely understand why some people find her a bit grating. Whether it's arrogance, enthusiasm, overcompensating for nerves, or just a strong extroversion, that's probably why some people don't like her.
I think the point about the Creators trying to find a way to hire Lexxy has some validity, since Mike liked her personality in the New Hire episodes (disagreeing with Khoo), and in Strip Search he seems to always take the lead on judging (I really wish we heard more from Jerry other than explaining jokes to his cohort). There's also the fact that in Lexxy's first elimination, they literally said they would find a way to hire her eventually.
I don't think that there's a vast conspiracy, but it always felt a bit weird that Lexxy was on the show to begin with (same with Erika Moen). Then there's the matter of her resurrection after a double elimination, when the Creators had already been displeased with both comics in past days. Add in her strong personality that gets on some people's nerves, and it's no surprise some people think something hinky is going on.
But no, the Creators' decision this time was perfectly valid as far as judging consistency is concerned. They are most interested in a funny gag strip, every time. It's why they eliminated Lexxy the first time, it's why they eliminated Monica this time.
(You just say the letters)
Thank you so much! Very kind words @lamp!
I'm normally an illustrator/designer kinda guy, but I've always wanted to try my hand at something sequential. I'm a big Penny Arcade fan, and Strip Search has really energised that desire. Once I saw other people having a crack at the Elimination Comics I thought I'd dust off the Wacom and have a go myself.
The first one I did (naughty/mystery) was featured on the actual site, in the little Home Edition update. Such an amazing feeling, very lucky!
This is my illustration site, I'm afraid it contains absolutely no chuckle material though. KScully
well, if your day job doesn't work out, at least you've got something solid to fall on to! :P
(serious though, those are some quality strips for 90 minutes!)
(also, the solid thing was somewhat in reference to your penis pattern strip ) :winky:
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I could point out that the judges were so moved by Monica's strip that they, just as in Lexxy's case, refused to destroy that strip. That sounds pretty equally tight to me! That sounds like strong evidence handed down from the judges that you're wrong, if you really want to play this game.
I could point out that Lexxy's round showed Mike and Jerry that they would have to eliminate people they did not want to eliminate, and that in the long run they had to harden their hearts to that fact, that now they simply bite the bullet and make the hard choices. Mike and Jerry made comments to this effect in the wake of Lexxy's elimination.
I could point out that Lexxy learned from her first round and used that knowledge to turn in a strip in this round better tailored to Mike and Jerry's preferences, perhaps raising the bar and creating fiercer competition than existed before. If Lexxy used new tricks to improve her odds of winning and if Monica still fought very close to a draw, wasn't the competition fiercer and tighter in that sense?
There are lots of things I could say! And nothing that we've said makes Lexxy's statement objectively true or false, because this is a subjective art competition interwoven with subjective variables at every turn! You might as well argue apples are better than fridges because you can't eat a fridge. It's a piece of evidence true as far as it goes, except that the underlying question (are apples better than fridges?) is rottenly subjective and open-ended. "Was the competition more tight", you say?
And really, this is all besides the point. It boils down to generic good sportsmanship. It's widely considered bad form to say much other than, "It was a good game, but I'm happy that I performed well and won." Comment on what you did well and how the game went, sure. But you certainly don't make comments implying your opponent was weak, even if you buried them on the scoreboard! That's not really what competitors do, unless you're ok with being a bit of a mean competitor.
This really should not sound crazy to people who, say, played in a soccer league when they were a kid.
and i am saying you are implying maliciousness where it is at worst unclear whether there was an underlying motive or not.
that is the very opposite of being "objective". that is a subjective interpretation.
but let's take this further. we know for a fact that at the point where the show was being filmed, all Lexxy knew about was what was told directly to her by Mike and Jerry and the amount of time it took for them to deliberate, which was less than Lexxy's last elimination outing.
we also know that by this point all the people in the house were pretty tight and respected one another. we can infer from the latter that none of the housemates would be inclined to shittalk any of the current or past competitors. there's also a reputational element in that none of the artists would want to be singled out as a jerk, but this is more of an inference.
on an objective analysis alone of all of this, it is very highly likely that 1) the competition wasn't as tight as last time because it wasn't, and 2) Lexxy was very likely not trash talking Monica in any way.
what i am saying is that you are inserting your opinion where the objective facts, and all we can infer from them, point otherwise.
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That's because much of the success of art has to do with being evocative, and conveying of character, mood, expression, etc. The quantity of non-expressive components (that you might consider necessary to be called "finished") is usually irrelevant to whether or not art is praise-worthy as art. Lexxy is very good at breathing life into the characters she draws. That also might be part of the reason she's so slow at it, considering all the decisions about details of the poses and composition.
That's not what happened. They wanted to eliminate two people. They brought her back in order to be able to eliminate them.
True, but again, see Mike's comments about how sad eliminating Lexxy made him, how it made him realize that he simply had to get used to the idea of eliminating one person when he had two brilliant pieces in front of him in the future, etc.
I am about 95% sure that she meant the competition between the two strips to choose one, which being shorter, was objectively (yes OBJECTIVELY) less tight of a competition. The harder the decision was, the longer consensus would take, which is, I'm pretty sure, all she meant by it.
To say that there was less of a competition to choose between the strips doesn't even include a value judgement about which strip is 'better' or 'funnier' or anything, merely which pair of choices (Lexxy v Tavis or Lexxy v Monica) took longer to resolve.
ok seriously?
malicious: Having the nature of or resulting from malice; deliberately harmful; spiteful
cruel: 1. Disposed to inflict pain or suffering. 2. Causing suffering; painful.
you might want to step back and figure out the meaning of words before you start accusing people of those words.
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Again, the mere fact that you point to objective evidence (apples can be eaten and fridges can't) does not give your answer to a subjective question an objective finality (apples are better than fridges).
And again, that is sideways to the real question of sportsmanship.
$15,000 is just starter money. It's not to live on. This isn't $15,000 and a vacation in Seattle. You get $15,000 to help with your move, to buy tools or supplies, servers, whatever, and then you WORK for a year with Penny Arcade teaching you how to make money off of your webcomic (and presumably you're successful at it with their support) plus their help with marketing you. The point is you're supposed to be able to use this as a launching point for a full-time comic making career. It's like any prospective businessperson dipping into personal savings a bit until their business becomes profitable. PA is just giving the winner that extra money to help ends meet until things take off.
There's nothing wrong with a winner or finalist seeking additional funding on top of the $15,000, but it does seem a little weird considering how valuable the final prize is in terms of apprenticeship, the free office space, and access to PA staff. If you can't make ends meet with $15,000 and all of that to help your business, you're really not using the opportunity very effectively. Penny Arcade apparently thinks $15,000 is plenty when added to whatever money they'll be able to make at comics, and they would probably know, right?
(You just say the letters)
No malice there in definition two. Cruelty doesn't require malice.
You're welcome to disagree that it was unsportsmanlike, but it's just silly to pretend it was some kind of objectively true statement just because the deliberations were shorter.
And again, you still haven't really touched that bad sportsmanship exists whether malice does.
If you'll persist in stating that you've objectively solved a painfully vague subjective question, I'll leave you to that.
i'm going to step away from this before Tube napalms the thread, but i'll leave with this: you are implying a lack of "sportsmanship" when the evidence points otherwise. you are impugning someone's character on shoddy proof. that's what's upsetting.
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Don't get me wrong, I don't think she meant it to be insulting - it's probably exactly what you two (and probably others I missed) said in that she just assumed from the quicker deliberation that the deliberation wasn't as hard for them this time as it was on her last go through the gauntlet.
That said, her last trip there was a few eliminations ago. They've had more time to come to terms with making hard decisions since then, which would quicken that judgement time regardless of how close the strips are (at least in theory) and, the thing I found most significant, they ended up giving Monica's strip back to her rather than destroy it, something they did for Lexxy during her first round in the challenge (and ONLY for her so far - the others would've mentioned seeing comics destroyed on their turns when they talked about it afterward, right?). To me, that detail suggests the competition was actually pretty close. Now obviously whether she's right or wrong doesn't change what she -thinks- is the reason she won, but I'm just saying it was...kind of a thoughtless remark to make, considering, and won't be surprised if/when people jump on her about it. *shrug* This is why PR agents make the monies! ;p
Regarding the conversation re: whether Monica's comic was better/should have won, Lexxy bias in judging, etc., I'd just point out that the elimination here basically played out the same way as the Lexxy/Tavis elimination: two great comics, one of them funny, one of them more artistic than laugh-at material, and the funny won. Funny is pretty clearly the way to go here; it's always had the edge in their conversations when one was just funnier to them than the other, pretty much regardless of other qualities.
Edit: sidenote, thanks to Kedinik for living up to my expectations on the kind of hostile twist I thought would be attributed to that comment. xD
I had no problem understanding Monica's strip or with its flow, it felt like they were trying to find any criticism to avoid saying that it wasn't funny and that's the reason it's out.
"Did it take longer to deliver a judgment?" isn't the same question as "Was the competition tighter", though, right?
Surely the amount of time taken to judge can vary even if the level of competition is similar.
For instance, a close call might take a long time when the judges have no experience at deciding close calls, and less time when they have more experience at deciding close calls.
They had no experience deciding close calls when they saved Lexxy's strip, and much more experience deciding close calls when they, again, decided to preserve the loser's strip here. All else being equal, they're better judges, they've been in this situation before, and it should take less time, no?
And given that, doesn't it seem pretty meaningful they preserved Monica's strip?
When making a sketch, a first draft, or penciling a comic, whatever you want to call it, you use the same gestures, body language, and design as you will in your final work. That's kind of the point. I don't think anyone is saying she's not capable of doing great art, or that she can't draw. What people are saying is that she's not able to complete her drawing in 90 minutes up to what she'd normally consider a final product. It's a comparison between what she produces in the elimination chamber, and what she produces when she has unlimited time (her cut-out, her contract work, her cloud factory samples).
Lucky for her, art has always taken a backseat in this contest to humor. Also lucky for her she got brought back after losing on comedy grounds, so she had another chance.
(You just say the letters)
lol, and Kurtz was the guy they got to "judge" the Twitter challenge..
Knowing you have hundreds and hundreds of fans who are dying to throw their money at you, and taking advantage of that, is a weird decision? I frankly find it puzzling that some of the other contestants have done virtually nothing to capitalize on their Strip Search appearance.
Edit: Not to mention that (in the case that she wins Strip Search) it allows her to, yknow, actually HAVE a webcomic by the time she goes to Penny Arcade so she can focus on monetizing and developing it instead of just getting off the ground.
When it looks exactly like the sorts of sketching you see other artists making before they do their inking, it's not really a unique style, it's just a sketch. If these were done in light blue, and she had more time to do what she wanted, it'd be a lot more obvious to everyone else, I guess. Again, I'll point to the clear differences in her work in the eliminations and her work elsewhere (including the Cloud Factory samples). I'd also point to her own statements about time management, her expressed wishes she had more time to work, the fact that she hadn't slept and was still doing contract work when they came to get her at the hotel at the start of the series, and on and on. What she's turned in twice now is her own equivalent of penciling. It's hard to deny that in the face of so much testimony and evidence she's provided herself.
Nobody is saying she's not a good artist. She's just not as good in a 90 minute deadline. She has a higher potential than most if not all of the other strippers on the show, she just doesn't live up to it in the eliminations. To all the people defending her art, I hope you're not too disappointed when she does more than sketches for her Cloud Factory project. It won't look like these elimination comics, because she won't have only 90 minutes.
(You just say the letters)
Absolutely. This is why artists of all kinds generally don't do their work with an artificial time limit and a room full of hecklers :P
I'm sure it threw Monica, and she did what she does to adapt and survive, just as she did with the interviewer. She was a bit more polite with the interviewer though. Mike really started to get to her by the end, I think. Still, she pulled off an amazing piece. Not perfect, of course, nothing ever is, but that was probably the hardest strip she'll ever make in her life and she did it very well. She just didn't know the comic had to be funny in order to win.
As I've said before, it's not about the best comic, it's about the right comic. Hers was not the strip they were searching for. If she had gone with her usual funny comic style, she'd have probably blown them away, but she went with a more serious tone and that's just not what the Creators want to promote at Penny Arcade for a year. Lexxy's had humor and violence, right up Mike and Jerry's alley. Oh well, Monica is still going to enjoy plenty of success. She's got the skills, she's made a bunch of really great new contacts in the biz, and she's won a lot of new fans from her time on Strip Search.
(You just say the letters)