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[Mr Trout]

Is anyone else watching it?

It's a reality show produced by Penny Arcade. They found a bunch of web cartoonists they liked, put them up in a giant house Real World-style, and eliminated one artist per day.

I honestly didn't have very high hopes for the show. I don't really care for reality TV and I'm pretty picky about the webcomics I read. I have been a longtime fan of Penny Arcade though so I've been giving the show a chance. The latest episode has really sold me on it.

Without getting too spoilery, there was a moment at the end of episode 10 where the artist of PA lost it. It was not a flattering moment for him and they could have easily edited it out. The decision to keep it in was a fairly brave one IMO and it made the show resonate a lot more with me.

So check it out! You might hate it, but maybe you won't?

[wombat]

I read about this on Fleen and it sounded like a terrible idea. You stuck with it till episode ten despite not being sold on it till then? Are they really short episodes?

[Mr Trout]

To be more clear I wasn't sold on it when they were funding it through kickstarter. The first couple episodes were better than I expected (though I will admit I was mainly watching because I was expecting a train wreck) so I kept watching.

The show has gotten better with each episode. Even the episode with Scott Kurtz was well done, and I hate that guy much more than is necessarily rational. I feel like they also made some pretty good picks for the contestants.

I'm a pretty patient man though, and I have a lot of free time in the evenings so take all this with a grain of salt. Each episode is about 20 min long, BTW.

[pmcd9]

I hadn't heard of it, but I'll give it a try.

[Mr Trout]

So I've continued watching the show and it continued to get better as they eliminated people. I even got my GF into it (she is rooting for Abby, I think mainly because they share a few personality traits). Part 1 of the finale aired on Friday, and before they filmed it they sent the 3 finalists home for 2 months and had them each create an original web comic series. The results are pretty great IMO (I don't think any of you do, but if you care about spoilers stop here): http://penny-arcade.com/strip-search/spoilers/finale

I'm not sure who I am rooting for anymore.

[pmcd9]

I think Katie is the best artist, and I think her strip has a lot of possibilities even though what she turned in was pretty meh. However, when she's talking she ends every sentence with a rising voice so it sounds like a question.

I don't have any strong feelings for Maki personally. I think his strip is meh, but it's the best of the bunch at least as far as the writing goes. But it's just another strip about young urban hipsters and there are already about a million meh strips about young urban hipsters.

I think Abby has a good idea, and it's executed fairly well. I'm not crazy about her art style and her jokes are not terribly funny, but we are only seeing the first few pages of a long continuing story. She's actually very funny in person on the show and she's not intimidated at all by the Penny Arcade dicks who are running the thing.

Since all of the strips are pretty meh I'm giving the edge to Abby based on her personality on the show.