Does anyone remember the Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge? The idea was that webcomic artists would hand over $20 to enter the competition in which they would have to update every single day (well, Monday to Friday to be fair) without any guest comics, missing days, etc. The idea had a fury of people questioning it when it started, I even remember a few webcomics moaning either in favour of the idea or not.
Well, if you remember it, remember the fuss, think… it's still going on… 23 artists still remain and it's been going over a year now, slowly getting into its second. 33 artists have been chucked out, so what happens?
Do we still have to wait for a contest that is already gone on maybe longer than I'm willing to wait (and I have a short attention span). Come on, isn't it time the Daily Grind actually Grinds down. In doing so I thought of a few suggestions that could do this:
1) Daily Grind, do exactly what it says on the tin. Expand it so people now have to update every single day. Screw Monday to Friday, we all know these last remaining 23 artists can do that, but can they do weekends as well? Sure they have lives but here in lies the challenge, can they go on for those two extra days?
2) Themed events. Have specific themes that webcomics must do during a week, month, day. Therefore that stops the people who churn them out and then shove a script onto their webcomic in order to have the comic ontime, on the dot. Things like "this week, your comic must feature a celeb or bunny rabbit". Those things will most certain knock a few of them out.
3) Expand the panels. Sure people can do a two panel comic without much meaning or thought. I could draw a stick man and have him say "hi" in one panel and "bye" in another. It'll suck but it'll mean I can still continue on. Maybe make people actually have a plot in their comic, make them do something within it and get rid of the "you can have a single panelled comic once every 9 strips if you so wish" rule, they can't, force them to actually do strips!
4) Vacation, Holiday, Not At Computer then out of the contest! Come on, if you're willing to win this thing you're willing to not have a life. You have to be able to be there, on time. Holidays, goodbye to them. You want the grand prize of $1,120 then sacrifices have gotta be made! You must write in a blog or little note below comments and you gotta be there for them!
Come on Daily Grind, make it difficult, make it different, make us interested in it again. One year on, we want some action!
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