Strip Search Episode 4, Elimination #1

Our two sacrificial cartoonists meet Gabe and Tycho in person for the first time. And the Waste Basket of Broken Dreams. Each Stripper must choose ideas from the Waste basket and draw a comic strip that incorporates both ideas in 90 minutes. The two ideas that were chosen, Table Tennis and Space.

Real talk, sometimes it takes me two to three hours to fucking write a strip. So I’d be completely fucked. Even Gabe admits that he couldn’t do what they’re asking the Strippers to do. So there goes any pretense of this show being a test of actual cartooning skills.

I don’t know if they were required to finish their strip on the Cintiq or if both of them chose to go digital. I hope we get to see some people doing things on paper for these eliminations, although it would be really sad to see an original piece get ripped in half as the loser’s strip gets torn asunder. I really would have liked more footage of them drawing since that’s kind of the entire fucking point.

It’s cute that both of our Strippers are pretty magnanimous regarding the person who sent them to their potential dooms. That’s us cartoonists for ya! It’s also kind of cute to see that Gabe and Tycho can’t really pull off the heartless judge routine as they spend a few minutes giving the loser an encouraging pep talk.

Time to Play the Game

So, now that we’ve seen an entire episode of Strip Search if it were to appear on a cable station, a few things become clear. This show isn’t about cartooning. It’s about the game. I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised. But I am terribly disappointed. It’s entirely my fault for expecting a reality show based on something I care about deeply to be different than any other reality show.

Since Penny Arcade is the standard by which webcomics are judged, I was hoping to gain some insight into what they think it takes to be a successful cartoonist.

Nope.

This is just a game. And the end of it, the one who plays it the best will win. Perhaps if the format were a little different, it might seem less like a game. Thus far, the Strippers have had no interaction with Gabe or Tycho. That sucks. I’m sure Erika and Kiko are amazing designers, but the Strippers are there because they are cartoonists. They don’t see Gabe and Tycho unless they’re up for elimination so they have little opportunity to interact directly from the two people they could learn the most from. They are also not judged directly by Gabe and Tycho unless they are up for elimination. Another missed opportunity.

By now you can probably tell that I despise the reality gameshow genre. The only one I can kind of watch without punching my eyeballs is RuPaul’s Drag Race because it’s so deliciously over the top. So I expect these reviews will become more and more jaded as the show goes along. But from now on, I’ll be watching it as a game rather than something to learn from.