Maki Naro has been with The Lab since the very beginning. He’s written great articles. He has a wonderful webcomic. And perhaps most importantly, he is the caretaker of a magnificent beard. But do you know what else he has? You guessed it! A starring role on Penny Arcade’s reality competition, Stripseach!
Penny Arcade is a long-running webcomic that focuses on gaming and gaming culture.
From the Stripsearch! site:
In 2011, the Creators (a.k.a. Mike and Jerry) declared to the Penny Arcade office that a reality show based on webcomics must be done. After a year of research and a successful Kickstarter stretch goal (thank you!), the stage had been set for 12 Artists flown from around the world to compete for $15,000 in cash and a year integrated into the Penny Arcade machine.
Through a variety of events and challenges, these 12 will fight, claw, write, and draw until only one Artist remains. Friends may or may not be made.
Last week, I sat down to watch an episode or two and before I knew it, I had watched them all. One of my favorite things about the show is that it takes a lot of the conventions of Reality TV and has fun with them (just wait until you see how the elimination challenges are staged.) Also, I found the show to be really inspiring – the contestants all have a skill set that I envy – producing great artwork quickly. So I found myself grabbing my sketchbook as I watched, wishing I could work as fast as they did (I can’t.)
New episodes come out every Tuesday and Friday and are in the neighborhood of 20 minutes long, give or take. While I was writing this, the 13th episode was posted and it’s taking all my self-control not to watch it and instead get ready for work.
Even though the competition is already over, Maki won’t tell us who won. I’ve even tried to trick him into giving away vital information but he won’t have it. So I guess we’ll all have to watch together, until the end, and cheer for our favorite Maki.
Featured Image: Pineapple Maki, Design by Mac Schubert, Katie Rice, and Maki Naro
I will admit to being completely unenthused about StripSearch when it was announced, because I don’t much care for reality TV, and I like Penny Arcade’s 4th Panel and behind the scenes episodes. Also, I don’t like change. I have watched every episode, however, and I am very glad that I gave it a shot.
I totally agree that seeing the contestants bust out so rapid fire is really fun. It has roped me into doing a few ( http://miserlyoldman.wordpress.com/?s=stripsearch ). I’m really interested now that we got to see more and more artwork from everyone.
I salute Maki’s integrity for not giving up the goods. I hate to say that I kind of hope to see him go to elimination just to see what he can bust out. I really like sci-ence.org. My current Facebook profile picture is the section of the panel that includes “my mind is a twisted hall of mirrors!”