Amazon posts quarterfinalists in Comic Strip Superstar contest

Comments ⁹²

1. I.D. Bergren

   Walking Upright is done by Jesse Cline and is online at http://www.walking-upright.com/

2. Lucas Turnbloom

   Recognized a few of them. Best of luck, people!

3. Stephen Beals

   Holy cow, that’s a scary list. I must’ve been insane. Well, that’s a given ….

   I wish I knew where to find these strips, too. I have to say I’m disappointed that I didn’t see Guy In A Bush on there. It’s a weird, wacky idea and is perfectly surreal. Don’t stop it Brian!

   My strip is Adult Children. Be kind.

4. Scott Metzger

   Too bad they didn’t include the creators’ names. It would be more fun to look through the list. I scanned it real fast and did recognize Life of Lou (by Bill Bettwy). Been a big fan of that strip for a couple years. It’s on Comics Sherpa.

   Best of luck to those who entered.

5. Jesse Cline

   Creek is by my talented friend Brian Martin

   http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csmni&uc_full_date=20080917

6. Brian Martin

   There are a lot of great names on this list…Walking UpRight and Life of Lou are two of the best. Great writing and art
   Good luck to all

7. Wiley Miller

   “The last 10 will then be judged by the public.”

   Worst possible way to choose anything.

8. Brian Powers

   I guess I was 251. 🙁

9. Lucas Turnbloom

   Now, now, Wiley, the public gave us Taylor Hicks.

   Congrats Jesse, Stephen and Brian!

10. Brian Powers

    My new friend I met at the Las Vegas seminar, Ryan Pagelow made it to the final 250. He created a new comic strip idea for it.
    http://ryanpagelow.com

11. Alan Gardner  (admin)

    Great! Keep the links coming in and I’ll update the list later tonight.

12. Jim Thomas

    No link, but I submitted “Doubting Thomas”

13. Brian Powers

    Alan, if you go to the Amazon comicsuperstar page and look at the forum there, you’ll probably recognize a few names. Looks like Rich Diesslin made it as well. He was at the Las Vegas seminar. This is Rich’s site: http://www.the-cartoonist.com/

14. Brian Powers

    I just that Mike Kandalaft’s “That Monkey Tune” made it. He is still in Las Vegas until tomorrow and probably has no idea. I’ll call him. This is Mike’s website.
    http://thatmonkeytune.com/

15. Tony Piro

    Seth and Buddy http://sethandbuddy.com/

16. Tony Piro

    Ice Cubes http://www.icecubescomic.com/today/

17. Jim Brenneman

    There are a lot of great comics listed but I have to agree with Wiley on the idea of letting the general public vote on the final 10. My comic “Outbursts” have a look and maybe someday I’ll make the cut. Good luck to everyone involved.

18. Bridgett Spicer

    You can add Susan Camilleri Konar’s “Ella & Greta” to the list of Success in Comics Seminar’s alumni to enter the top 250! Congrats Mike (monkeytune), Ryan Pagelow, and Rich Diesslin! I hold good thoughts for you guys!

19. Graham Nolan

    I second that! Congrates to my new buds, Susan, Mike, Ryan and Rich! You all are awesome talents and good people!

20. Charles Brubaker

    #182 is mine.

21. Mark Magee

    ‘Ellen, Inc.’ is mine — congrats to the other 249

22. Shane Davis

    “Worst possible way to choose anything.”

    I have to agree with Wiley…as much as I hear some folks complain about editors, it seems a true professional would be more experienced and better equipped to know what will play in the market over the long haul.

    Throwing it up for mob rule seems to be letting only those with Amazon.com accounts (and their families and friends) choose the strip. That doesn’t seem to be a true representation of the market place, IMHO.

    I’d rather a guy like John Glynn make the final decision, not Rupert Sniptard of Monkeybone, Oregon and his extended family of latte suckers.

23. Jim Lavery

    <>

    What’s good enough for politicians is good enough for cartoonists!

24. Mike Cope

    I’m #4 … New feature, so no official website at the moment, but I recently posted an image of two characters on Facebook and my blog … http://copetoons.blogspot.com/

    Congrats to my fellow participants!

25. Chad Isely

    Sardonic Salad is mine (with writer Kit Lowrance). Quite suprised we made the cut. pulled a submission together 2 days before the deadline. Be kind to us hacks.

26. Rich Diesslin

    Thanks Brian, Graham, Bridgett! Alan, mine is the Out to Lunch entry. I had mixed feelings about the contest but I finally decided I have nothing to lose and hoped to survive a cut or two (as the others who entered I’m sure). I have no delusions about making it to the top 10 or winning any kind of vote-off.

    So anyway – congrats to those who made this cut, and no shame / no loss for the trying for those who didn’t. After the Tundra seminar I realized that even though I’ve been at this for 10 years (full time anyway) that there’s still so many improvements that I can make to what I do, that I just have to keep pluggin’ away!

    My 2¢ anyway.

27. Charles Brubaker

    #153, Mulberry, is by Peter Paltridge. His website is at http://www.platypuscomix.net/

28. Joshua

    Hello,

    Comic strip #218, “Stuffed” is by Joshua Skurtu (which is me).

    Website link: http://www.theohnozone.com

    -Josh

29. Mike Witmer

    I have to agree with Wiley on this one. Letting the public judge the final is a terrible idea.

30. Jason Nocera

    The public is involved in the voting because this is a publicity stunt.

31. Jason Nocera

    I believe 200 of the comic strips listed are from Corey. (sorry, couldn’t resist)

32. Brian Powers

    I believe that Matt Daigle’s entry is “That Deaf Guy.” He was at the seminar in Vegas for the 1st day. http://www.mattdaigle.com/

33. Frank Mariani

    CLINTON’S DITCH is online at
    (editor’snote: URL has been removed)
    Web-based intro a little dated, but essentially the same stuff I submitted. Hey, whaddaya got to lose?

34. Brian Powers

    Matt’s cartoon site is this:
    http://www.mdaigletoons.com/

35. Frank Mariani

    Dang – did I just violate the entry rules by posting a link? Alan – please delete #32!

36. Frank Mariani

    I mean #33 — sorry!

37. Mike Beckom

    if they stage a public vote and nobody does….will it still count? I checked out most of the linked toons and can say without hesitation….there was only 1-2 that I’d spend the time to go ‘find’ on the internet ever again. Granted, all toons don’t have to be wonderfully drawn to be great. Neither do they have to all be wickedly funny. However, you’d think that they’d display one or the other. Sadly, most of these do not have either quality. Before I get ripped to shreds, let me say that these are only ‘my’ opinions. Judges and the public at large may disagree. I have my own criteria for what I deem to be funny. These don’t measure up. Just my 2 cents worth….

38. Frank Mariani

    Thx for URL deletion, Alan. Maybe other finalists should exercise caution with regard to the entry rules.

39. Les Taylor

    What entry rule are you referring to, Frank?

40. Brian Martin

    Mine is #55 “Creek”.
    If you want to check it, go to http://www.inkbeedesign.com.
    I’ve been using the comicssherpa link to display some of my other comics so it might be hard to get a good view of the strip.

    Congrats and good luck to everybody

41. Frank Mariani

    I was alluding to Mike Cope’s blog where he explicitly stated he couldn’t post his submitted work as stated in the Superstar rules — I haven’t personally re-scoured all the fine print, but Mike’s comment was enough to scare the bejeezus out of me. I’d rather get cut because my work sucks than on a technicality.

42. Les Taylor

    Oh, yeah, I knew that rule. But for instance on my website I don’t have any of the submitted work presented. I submitted totally new material. But if you don’t feel comfortable that’s cool – I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something I didn’t already know. 🙂

43. Brian Powers

    Many people submitted a new comic strip idea so some of these links don’t represent what is in the contest. They just represent their previous work.

44. Brian Dunaway

    Thanks Stephen. I didn’t make the deadline due to a family emergency. But I wish all you guys and gals the best and you better believe you will be seeing plenty of Guy In A Bush.

45. Ben Lewis

    There must be some kind of error… I didn’t see Guy in a Bush on there. Quick, someone get on that and fix it.

46. s.m. chavez

    #140 Love�Sick���The�Comic�Strip
    http://www.lovesickcomic.com

47. Les Taylor

    @Mike #36,

    I kind of agree you about the quality of some of the comics (I’ve only looked at a handful though). One thing I’ve considered however is that I haven’t see what everyone has sent in, and I know I spent more time on the ones I sent in than I do normally (to my shame, I know).

    Anyway, there are also some really good ones. And between the ones I’m not impressed with and the ones I am impressed with, I’ve become bipolar in regards to my confidence of my own work. 😛

48. Brian Martin

    I would have to agree with you Les.
    There definetely are some comics that I probably wouldn’t give a second glance at but there are quite a few that I have been following for a while and I think are good, well developed strips.

49. Jim Thomas

    The one thing I am curious about is: of the 250, how many have submitted the traditional way before and how many are currently posting on the web? just curious

    I am a first timer (Doubting Thomas) but from what i am getting from the comments is that a good number of people have been at this for awhile…

    And yes, there seems to be some varying levels of proficiency in the top 250, but I think that is probably true for most submissions. Assuming they got 5000, ten will probably be about the right number of successful strips.

50. Les Taylor

    Brian, yours is one of the ones that makes me worry. Jerk. 😀

    Honestly if I get into the top 50, I’ll be pretty excited. I’m really wondering how many submissions they got though. If they only got 300 submissions, my ability to get in the top 250 isn’t exactly special. On the other hand, if they got a couple thousand, I’d be pretty excited to even make it to that 250 mark.

51. Andy Draper

    Great job by all. There’s an incredible amount of skill out there. I wish I could see this kind of work more often.

52. Sam Wallace

    #198 Scribbles & Sketch by Sam Wallace

53. Drew Price

    I’m #247. Good luck everyone.

54. Mike Cope

    @Frank Mariani #41 … Thanks for taking time to visit my blog, and sorry if I scared your bejeezus 🙂

    According to the official rules, only your cartoons submitted to the competition need to be unpublished. As others have pointed out, a number of the quarterfinalists are established webcomics, so you shouldn’t worry about being disqualified, so long as you don’t publish any of your submission.

    In my case, the feature I submitted is a new one that has only existed in my sketchbooks (and head), so I’m a little more limited as to what I can share right now. Having a set deadline was enough motivation to quit thinking too much about it and just draw.

55. Brian Martin

    #108 Hoxwinderâ?©Hall is done by Daniel Boris
    http://www.danboris.com

56. Adrean Clark

    Matt Daigle is a great Deaf cartoonist! His website is over at http://www.mdaigletoons.com (He’ll be updating it soon.)

57. Adrean Clark

    Sorry, forgot to add, he did That Deaf Guy. 🙂

58. Ioannis Milionis

    Well, mycartoons is mine and can be found at http://mycartoons.de

    And since I started translating stuff for the contest I translated some more and finished an english version of my website.

    I don´t think I can make it to the final 10 though. My humor and cartoons aren´t really the family friendly newspaper style 😀

59. Peter Paltridge

    #22: Iâ??d rather a guy like John Glynn make the final decision, not Rupert Sniptard of Monkeybone, Oregon and his extended family of latte suckers.

    Hey! Sniptard is a friend of mine and he doesn’t sip his lattes that loud!

60. Scott DaRos

    Stiw Kit is me, I’ve got some on http://stiwkit.blogspot.com

61. Steven Ingram

    I did the comic Wendell & G. I have a comic site at http://blurredlinescomics.co.uk

    Wendell & G isn’t on the site, but it contains plenty of my others comics, none of which are like W&G!

62. Daniel Boris

    Scott DaRos,

    Checked out your blog.
    I enjoyed your comic very much – especially your unique artwork! Very nice!

    Best of luck in the next round!

    – Dan

63. Daniel Boris

    Oh, and yes.
    As Brian Martin mentioned above.
    Hoxwinder Hall is me.

64. John Steventon

    The Inquiring Minds can be found at http://www.HappyGlyphs.com, along with another strip, Knight and Day.

65. Ioannis Milionis

    Oh, and I forgot:

    “Popel” is a german self syndicated daily newspaper strip created by a friend of mine, Thorsten Trantow. His strip can be found online here:

    http://popelig.blogspot.com/

    “Who`s perfect?” are the single panel cartoons of professional german cartoonist Martin Zak. His website with his latest cartoon online can be found at:

    http://martin-zak.de or http://whosperfect.net

    Both sites are just in German though.

66. Scott DaRos

    Hey, thanks a lot Daniel!

    My friend Will draws Ordinary Bill, and you can see it at http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cseee

67. Daniel Boris

    Hey Scott.

    Yeah, man. You’re very welcome. You have a real cool style there! (I’ll check out your friend’s site soon. Thanks.)

    Wish I could show you some of my comic strip right now, but it isn’t published anywhere on the web quite yet (although there is a glimpse on my website, under “characters” heading).

    Best,
    db

68. Rose B.

    The URL for #19 Beebleville is http://www.beebleville.com

    I’ve been following it for a while. A strange mix of random humor and story of the main characters family made up of mostly single panels.

    It’s been online for a few years now. The author is listed as Vince Cipriano.

69. Jeremy Burt

    My comic strip is “Jeremy And Tim” (#116).

    The website to view comics, read the story, and meet the artist is:

    http://www.jeremyandtim.com

    Thanks for putting these up, and good luck to the other quarterfinalists.

70. Jodie Sarah Masiwchuk

    Hi, My name is Jodie Sarah Masiwchuk and I am the creator of comic strip #219, Suburban Sarah.

    Suburban Sarah is about a modern woman’s quaint and quirky observations of daily life. I update the website with two new strips every Friday. It can be found online at:

    http://www.SuburbanSarah.com

    Best of luck to everyone! 🙂

71. Brennan Bova

    Mine’s ‘Sick Children’. Good luck everybody!

72. Leroy Brown

    A belated thanks to Tony Piro for posting my link! so jazzed to be part of the 250– now it’s time to get nervous 😉

73. Daniel Boris

    Like your comic, Leroy!

    Big weekend coming…
    Good luck all!

    Best,
    – Dan

74. Brian Martin

    A big weekend indeed….my tummy hurts….
    Good luck to all

    Hey, Daniel
    Your character’s hair turned out fantabulous!

75. Daniel Boris

    Thanks there, Bri.
    I worked hard on that character’s cool hair! You wouldn’t believe how much hair gel it takes to get it like that… Haha!

76. Faulkzilla

    Crayon Box is mine.

    http://www.faulkzilla.com

    I recognize alot of good people here, creek and walking upright definitely two of my favorites.

77. Chad Isely

    hey Faulkzilla – i almost crapped my pants reading your kool aid cartoon. well done!

78. Faulkzilla

    haha, why thank ya. but i gotta admit that the cursing ones are from years ago. i decided to veer off that path with the newer, more reader friendly comics. I left those up just to show the beginins

79. Brian Martin

    HOLLY POOPY PANTS…I did crap myself at the kool aid one…I guess my bowels aren’t as strong as Mr. Isely’s.
    Well done indeed Faulkzilla. Your strip is quite the funny one!!!

80. FAULKZILLA

    haha, thanks Brian. I’d love to work with you one day.

81. Rene Bakewell

    Hello… Comfy Kozy is my entry. I don’t have much to share because I only drew this up for the contest. Congrats to the rest of the 250! Good luck everyone!

82. Tricia C.

    Someone told me about and I thought it was funny and I always read it. And I can’t wait for the new one to show up. I wish him the best. I’m glad that he made it to 250 out of 5000. It’s a strange mix of random humor and story of the main characters family made up of mostly single panels. I hope he continues on would and up would with his work.

    Itâ??s been online for a few years now. The author is listed as Vince Cipriano.

83. Brian Martin

    anybody make it through to the top 50 yet?

84. Daniel Boris

    Could notifications be delayed because of Columbus Day holiday?

85. Ioannis Milionis

    Just got the email a few minutes ago. I`m in the top 50.

86. Scott DaRos

    Hooray! I made it, too.

87. Philip Farmer

    #72 Faust is published M-T-W-T-F at http://www.faust-the-comic.com.

    Follow the wild antics of Faust, a former government test ferret, and his other furry friends by visiting us at Faust-The-Comic.com.

88. Daniel Boris

    Congrats to those who advanced – Especially you, Scott DaRos! (As I mentioned before, you have a great style going there, man! Really dig it!)

    Best of luck!

    -Dan

89. Brian Martin

    A hearty Congrats to those who made it to the next round. Good luck to you all.

90. Jeff Cernauske

    #201 can now be seen at http://www.hyena-studios.com/jeff_cernauske_shepherds_grace.jpg. I think it would be interesting if everyone made their submission available. I know I would love to see them.

91. Daniel Boris

    Jeff,

    Nice work!
    Many (including myself) have posted their strips over on this message thread…
    http://tinyurl.com/yja9te6

    Best,
    -Dan

92. frank white

    Will there be a contest for 2010?