The Second Annual 30 Second Recap Contest!

So long, 2007! It’s been rad!

Yes, in preparations for the Invincible Super-Blog’s Third Awesomeversary, I’m taking the next week off, but to commemorate the occasion, I’m going all out with another end-of-year contest, where you can win Fabulous Prizes!*

That’s right, folks: last year’s contest was so fun that I’m bringing it back, so break out the stick figures and make your own 30 Second Recap of a comic book storyline, in the same vein as my utterly shameless summaries of Infinite Crisis and Civil War!

The rules are simple:

 

1. They don’t necessarily have to be crayon drawings, but some artistic work is necessary..

I’d prefer them to be hand-drawn, but if you don’t have a scanner and knocking something out in MSPaint is more your speed, feel free. Using panel scans or any other published artwork is right out. Lettering can be done by computer or by hand–although obviously, it oughtta be legible–and you can find plenty of free comic book lettering fonts available for download at Nate Piekos’s Blambot website. Use of Comic Sans will be grounds for immediate disqualification.

 

2. Entries can be posted on your own blog, website or reliable image hosting service and linked to in the comments section of this post or, if you don’t have the hosting or just want them to be a surprise, sent to me directly using the email address in the sidebar. Rest assured, I will read and post everything I recieve, so if you’re going to email them to me, try to keep the file size manageable, and make sure to put something like “30 Second Recap Contest” in the subject line.

 

3. Entries should contain no more than eight to ten panels. Brevity is the soul of wit.

 

4. What you choose to recap is up to you and recent stories are fine, but please, don’t do anything that hasn’t actually finished yet. It’s tempting, I know, especially given the inherent comedy of scenes like this…

 

 

…but I’m sure you’ll be able to get through.

Spoilers, of course, will be the order of the day around here once I post these.

 

5. Not only does the art for your entry not have to be good, but by all rights, it should appear hastily done and pretty low-quality. Take as much time with it as you want, but if you can’t get Batroc’s legs to work quite right, don’t sweat it. What matters is that it’s fun.

 

6. There was apparently a little confusion about this one, but just for the record the story you recap doesn’t have to be from the past year. Newer stuff is always fresh on the mind, but if you’ve got a funny idea for Watchmen in ten panels, then go for it.

 

7. Since the ISB’s Third Awesomeversary is Sunday, January 6, the deadline for entries will be Saturday, January 5 at midnight EST. Of course, getting them in earlier will give me more time to look at ’em, but that ought to give me enough time to deal with down-to-the-wire entries. Especially now that I’ve actually looked at a calendar to come up with that date.

 

And that’s all there is to it! So what do you get if you win?

Well, I’ll be sending you probably just some comics I have laying around an amazing prize package containing:

 

A signed copy of Prism’s 2007 LGBT Guide to Comics, containing three magazine-style quizzes I contributed that you can’t find anywhere else!

A signed copy of the 2007 ISB HeroesCon Special, containing an all-new chapter of The Chronicles of Solomon Stone: Book One: Enter: Solomon: Stone Me Deadly, featuring illustrations by Dave Campbell! And as a bonus, I’ll be including a (terrible) sketch on the back of a character of your choice!

A signed copy of the script for my upcoming FlashBack Universe comic, “So Falls The World!”

And whatever else I can scrounge up and shove in a box to distract you guys from the fact that I’ll be playing Mario Galaxy for the next week instead of writing jokes about ROM.

Now get to it, and I’ll see you next year!

 


 

* – Prizes will not be fabulous or amazing. Although there is a slight chance that they will contain the unfathomably awesome WILD DOG!

50 thoughts on “The Second Annual 30 Second Recap Contest!

  1. Just tell us you’re playing Mario Galaxy. Anyone who takes exception to that probably doesn’t have a soul anyway.

  2. A whole month without a Week in Ink update? I don’t think I can make it Sims. Do you think if I give Dave Campbell a dollar (or perhaps a PICTURE of a dollar) he’ll pretend to be you just so I can keep the shakes at bay?

  3. I’m sorry if I missed it, but what’s the deadline? And would it be acceptable if I took a picture and MSPainted stuff there? I have an idea, but I wanted to check with you first. My artistic skills suck, but I’m great with the Pixel Challenges over on the Television Without Pity forums.

  4. I was just about to ask about a specific deadline myself. I missed the last one but I have what I think is a fun idea…

  5. How awesome! Wow, I’m probably going to put more thought into this than I should, and it still won’t be that great, but you know what? I don’t care! Any excuse to bust out my childhood crayons will do!

  6. The ISB’s anniversary is next Saturday, so the deadline is next Friday, at midnight EST. That would’ve been a good piece of information to put in the post.

  7. If someone did a recap of a story last year (2006), can I use the same story for my 2007 entry? Or do I have to find a new one?

  8. I better get cracking!

    Hey Chris, my wall calendar says that Jan. 5 is Saturday, not Friday. It seems to be right. When is the deadline?

  9. I’ve done six panels already. Bit of an advance warning: it might be a little scary, given my lack of artistic talent.

  10. I had a whole year to think of what I could do to follow up my honorable-mention-winning entry last year, and around September, it hit me: “Why not subject myself to grief and heartache by trying to draw overly rendered mid-90s Image characters in crayon? Why not then select a story with a lot of talking, no strong visuals and a troubled behind-the-scenes history?”

    With that, I present Shattered Image in 30 Seconds. If I’ve botched the html coding, the web site under my name should work.

    (And yes, I have been anticipating this contest for months now. Crayons are FUN darn it.)

  11. “It’s nothing but George Lucases all the way down.”

    Pure, unvarnished truth.

    (Loved it, Brian!)

  12. I’m much obliged! And this gives me an opening to praise my favorite line from any entry thus far — the History of the DC Universe’s “We’re not leaving until I know who wrote on my table.” It’s like it answers a question I never knew I had.

  13. Allow me to demonstrate mutual admiration for your Shattered Image. I wanted to do an Image style work but I couldn’t quickly think of a way to make them look overrended and poorly drawn at the same time.

    I mean other than drawling like Rob Liefeld.

    Anyway yours is very cool and I liked how you captured the Image “style” in crayon so well.

  14. Er… I don’t mean to slight anyone by not throwing out praise there. I’m enjoying all of the entries so far and can’t wait until we get to see the whole field. This stuff is just too much fun all around.

  15. Heimp, I really really loved that. Genuinely funny stuff.

    Also, Billy F: the payoff for your strip made me laugh out loud.

  16. The DC History is hilarious. Between Schroedinger’s Sidekick and all the rest… hehehehehehe.

  17. I was looking at mine again (which I e-mailed in) and I’d like to apologize in advance for the many spelling and grammar errors. It was like 3 in the morning when I did the lettering.

  18. And…it’s a 30-second recap of “Welcome Back Frank” except it’s more like 3 minutes and very ugly.

  19. Damn, I didn’t see the deadline, and I was late! Oh, well. For any none who’s interested, there’s a would-be entry on my LJ.