Jim Zub is the second hardest working man in comics, the first being Erik Ko.  It’s little wonder that the two hardest working bros in comics work at the same place, UDON Entertinament.  When Jim isn’t slinging noodles with the rest of the gang, he’s writing and promoting his own creator owned project, Skullkickers.

If you’re interested in publishing your own comics on the web or in print, you should already be following Jim Zub’s blog.  His candid posts about the industry are a MUST READ for any and all creators.  He recently posted about how Skullkickers has done financially since its debut and the results are sobering.

Jim is a great guy and absolutely loves comics.  He’ll tell it to you straight.  His advice on portfolio reviews is especially useful for any hopefuls out there.  So check out his recently post and then archive dive the hell out of his blog and get you some proper comic industry education.

The Magic the Gathering work-for-hire challenge.  The Strippers must design a skateboard deck featuring the red mage, Chandra Nalaar, with the tag line “ignite your spark.”  The deck will be given away at the VANS Warp Tour.  Each Stripper will be given a bag full of Magic goodies including a style guide and reference art for Chandra.  They are given ninety minutes to rawk out a sweet deck.

The discussion between the two reps for Magic is really insightful.  You really get a good feel for the kind of work they’re looking for to represent their brand.

Alright, as much as I can’t stand watching this show, this challenge was really great.  They got to interact with some really high level brand managers.  They got an opportunity to produce an actual product that’s going to be seen by millions on the Warp Tour.  They were given some fairly detailed parameters to work with which you rarely get from clients.  For once, I felt that the challenge really reflected a real life situation that actually tested their visual communication skills.

Next up, elimination time.  We’ll find out Thursday who’s up on the chopping block.

Oh great. A street art challenge. Cause that has to do with webcomics.

How about we not call it the “Street Art” challenge.  They’re not doing anything on a public space for all to see.  Just because it’s spray paint don’t mean it’s street.  I’m not a graffiti artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I find it kind of insulting to call what this is “street” anything.  So let’s call this the “Spray Art” challenge.

The Strippers are broken in to two teams and have an hour to throw up a piece on a garage wall.  Few of the Strippers are familiar with the medium so it makes for some terribly hilarious spraying.  It kind of sucks because it doesn’t really showcase the talent of the Strippers at all, but I have to say that Pineapple Maki is an inspired piece of spray work.  That needs to be the mascot of this damn show.

Every member of the winning team gets a booth at New York Comic Con.  I’m trying to figure out what spray art has to do with comics, but then I remind myself that this show has nothing to do with comics.

This is pretty fantastic. Cheeming Boey has made a big name for himself drawing on coffee cups. Now, he’s taking his art on the road. It’s an absolutely fascinating story and the work is lovely. Pretty brave to just go out there on your own with no plan, but he’s living his life like he creates his work. No plan. Just fucking doing it.

Finally, an elimination without Katie!  It’s Lexxy vs Tavis on the battlefield of broken comics.  Their mashup topics, the areola and circus.  *groan*

This is the third elimination and I find the banter between the Strippers and Jerry and Mike to be the least interesting aspect of them.  It’s their show so I suppose it makes sense to have them in it, but their banter during the drawing is really annoying.  And we still don’t get to see enough of the Stripper actually drawing.  It’s a show about cartooning!  Let us see them draw!

However, seeing them struggle over who to choose to send home was the best part of the episode.  Lexxy and Tavis both brought it and Mike didn’t want to send either of them home.  At one point, they have to turn the cameras off and Robert has to talk Mike down from the ledge.  But since this is competition, someone’s gotta go home.

Mike visibly feels like shit about the decision.

Up until this point, I’ve been begrudgingly watching this show.  And I’m not sure I’m going to last through twenty more of these fucking things.  But this was the best episode of the bunch thus far.  Seeing real emotions out of our hosts instead of their usual, detached snark was a nice change.