Winner of Amazon's "comic strip superstar" contest announced

[Dan Boris]

"Girl" by Dana Simpson is the Grand Prize winner of the Comic Strip Superstar contest.

http://tinyurl.com/lrbnfz

[Dan Boris]

BTW, I'm shocked that this strip won the contest. I would not even place that one in the top 5 of the 10 Finalists...
Just my humble opinion, of course.

[Jesse Cline]

Of the top ten, there were 3 I really liked...this was one of them so I am very happy to see she won! Congrats to Dana!

[guy]

I thought it was a nice comic. I'm not sure what the premise is. Is it just about a girl who talks to woodland creatures, or is there more? I'd like to think there's more to it, as the site only gives you a week's worth of samples. The art is just ok to me, but I really like her writing. I hope she takes it far. Congrats to Dana!
Guy~

[Dan Boris]

I wish Dana all the best also; it must be a thrill to win such a contest. As a reader, I just didn't find Girl very funny.
(I look forward to reading the Daily Cartoonist thread that this announcement should bring. ; ))

[Jesse Cline]

LOL considering the last thread ended with Ted Rall and Scott Kurtz literally comparing penis size (not making this up), I am almost afraid to look!

[Dan Boris]

Mark Tatulli, (creator of LIO and one of the judges), recently posted this on that thread:

"...I confess that this strip was not in my top ten, but I wish Dana the best of luck. The easy part was winning with 12 strips…now she has to deliver on the promise."

[ZingerSteve]

I wrote a commentary on my blog about the contest. It's been interesting to follow from the outside but also hearing from those on the inside. Thanks to everyone who submitted and shared their experience in these forums.

http://blog.zingerding.com/2009/11/10/comic-strip-superstar-contest...

[Joshua Skurtu]

Hey Steve,

I agree with your comments. It doesn't seem like they created enough hype with this contest. I think they did a much better job of pushing their Novel writing contest. I don't know if winning this contest is a good thing or a bad thing, based on the fact that it doesn't seem to have really drawn much attention.

-Josh
www.theohnozone.com

[Brian Powers]

I agree. There could have been more hoopla about this on Amazon's front page. I only saw promotions coming from Universal in an ad above my comic subscription of Lio and on the gocomics.com front page.

[Dan Boris]

Agreed. This contest idea could have been done so much better simply by attracting and getting more people interested and involved - same way American Idol created such a successful formula for Pop music. It can be done. Hopefully this is just the beginning, and a good learning experience.

[Jesse Cline]

very good write up.

[Mike Cope]

A very fair post-game analysis, Steve.