Hello Ducklings,

I noticed that a lot of the contest in here seem to simply be “fan arty” type things. Does this reflect the community's interests or the maker's interests? I'd like to have a little conversation about this topic so let me know what you think.

Name a contest in the past you really had fun with. What type of competition would you like to compete in? What prizes are the best incentive for participation? (Art, Ad space, cash, reviews, public humiliation of an authority figure, or an 80s ballad serenaded outside your window?)

I feel like competition is a good way to keep on one's toes artistically and promote fun community ties. If there really is a healthy, competitive spirit among us, I want to feed it. :)

Story comics tend to run fan-art related contests. Creators like fan art, and fans like to show off their style too. I know I've gotten new readers because they saw fan art I made posted on another comic. (Plus, when I was starting out, I used to draw fan art to experiment with new techniques and for practice. It was useful to draw other people's characters. It helped me see the flaws in my art and work on them.)

Comic strips sometimes do caption contests. They post a new strip without any words (or with empty speech balloons), and people make submissions. Those are so much fun to be part of and see what everyone comes up with. I've not seen any story comics do it. I don't think it would work out well.

I've tried to give out physical prizes before (books, merchandise), but people mostly aren't interested. Maybe it would be different for more talented or better artists, but it doesn't work for me. Free promotion is more of an incentive. Banner links on your site or using their picture as your comic cover and linking to them go over well. Another prize people like is custom art, either fan art for their comics or a cameo of their characters in your comic. Basically, creators like fan art. So, art rewards for art are nice. Sometimes contests are basically a fan art exchange. The person running the contest will give a cameo or a piece of fan art to anyone who enters and then an additional prize for the winner.

I'm not saying there is anything particularly wrong with Fan-art related contests, I'm just pointing out that that's such a small piece of potential. Innovation and creativity go hand in hand. I was just surprised there wasn't more, hmm, variety? Then I started wondering the “whys” behind it.

Edit: I meant to add in that I was also thinking about different review games and promotional things to get people excited about reviewing other people's work. Has anyone talked about this sort of thing before? What sorts of community experiments could we try?

What about other types of contests? I know there are all sorts of things. “Artists at the Ready” and “The Real OC Tournament” are two I can think of offhand, which I believe are represented in “Fightspolsion”. (I don't know a lot about Fightsplosion, so if anyone knows about both and can point out any differences, that would be appreciated.)

What about multi-sponsored contests like scavenger hunts? A ring of private creators and volunteers get together. The initial clue is posted and contestants must riddle their way through different comics for the next clue. They would PQ their final answers and at the end of the allotted time, the winner(s) would be announced.

Several of the best community comic projects where themed around inserting people's characters in a sort of centralized stories. There are still multiple venues that could be interesting to see and explore. They are foremost for fun, but they still have a very good benefit of advertising yourself and your comic. One of my ideas is to have a sorta 4th wall approach, a comic about your characters and PR and their approach to advertising. Its would be a mix of late night TV and Talk Shows. Its ripe for humor, botch ups, and scandal, while being a useful advertising tool for everyone that participates.

I happened to be listening to the Quackcast about community projects the other day, I think I remember them saying there was a DD version of Big Brother, is that still going on? Is there a Survivor Duck? Or Fear Factor? Or, and this is my favorite, Duck Baggage? (Its a dating show where they put their baggage up front and the point is the have less “deal breakers” than the other contestants. At the end, the person choosing also has to reveal their biggest baggage.) I know there is/was a Drunk Duck Zombies, but what about a “Last Night on Earth” where teams of zombies and survivors try to out maneuver each other? Sort of like a collaborative visual role play?

Prizes are advertising tools when you look at it in a very cut and dry kind of way. They need to be scaled to the needs of creator, but essentially, its incentive for a number of people to do what you're asking. For a lot of people, offering a commission, or fan art is sufficient, but there are other options. The most popular ones on DeviantArt give away tablets or money. Obviously not everything needs to be on a large scale, but some of it really can be. There's no reason I couldn't advertise in all the other communities I'm in and bring them over here as potential new readers.

Also, I saw a really crafty comic book artist who gave people prizes and additional content for donations. One lady updated and extra page every time her donation meter got to a certain level. Some make side stories available only to people who donated or contest winners.

There's just a lot out there. What are all of you excited about?

Oh, I thought you were just asking what kinds of contests individuals usually run around here – not, like, the infrequent big things. :P

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A few years ago, there was a pageant, big community project. There were three categories: Formal, swimsuit, and talent. People entered their characters, drawing comics for each category. Everyone voted after each category, and points were assigned.

There were no prizes (even so, some people were crazy competitive about it!), just a for fun kind of thing.

Most community projects and competitions I've participated in on DD were the same way. I remember someone once ran a monthly art contest on the forum. A topic/challenge was chosen. People entered. Then everyone voted on the winner. The winner chose the next topic/challenge. People had a lot of fun with that.

You've come up with some cool ideas. :) I've seen a lot of neat concepts for projects in this forum, but they fall flat way too often. It's sad really. The first year I was here (2007), community projects were plentiful and active, but they aren't so much anymore. These days, I mostly see individuals running small fan art things or small scale collaborations. Not many “community-wide” projects lately. –If you start something up, I'll join. ;) I miss those kinds of things. (The scavenger hunt sounds cool. I also miss Comic Remix. And round robin kinds of things would be fun too.)

What happens when one dies? Is the community allowed to revive it if someone steps forward? It might be neat to revive some of the old things people loved as well as implementing new games and ides. Are there any of them that are still going that could use a hand?

I wonder if there is a why to get more people interested in talking about this too? I don't know if it's really “News worthy” though…

I'm willing to run things like this. I like event planning, lol.

I do like the sound of a scavenger hunt!

A scavenger hunt wouldn't be too hard to put together either. We would need clue givers and decoys and the clever riddles themselves. I could make little graphics for it. It would need a good deal of initial planning, but minimal effort to run. A good portion of that would be to advertising. There are probably a couple of different ways we could do it too. Perhaps, at the end of this discussion, I should make a new topic to further develop the idea and invite other's to participate. (Or should I do that now?) I just want to further discuss contests as well, lol.

The scavenger hunt sounds interesting. Give it a go, i'll happily get involved.

Alrighty, I made a seperate thread for talking about a Scavenger Hunt. :) If you're interested, go to http://www.drunkduck.com/community/view_topic.php?tid=56486&cid=236 to help plan.

There is still a lot of room for discussion about contests in general though. :)