Episode 572

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What? You didn't think he'd get invovled willingly this year, did you?

Episode 571

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Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the USA!

For those who don't recognize it, the card is from the classic Monopoly game. (Thematic, as that's a game we often played at my house while waiting for Thanksgiving Dinner to be ready!)

Episode 570

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Frogs are practiced martyrs. I think it comes from having to eat insects all the time.

Spooky Star Wars: The Winners!

Well, you've all been very patient - at long last here are the winners of the Reasonably Clever Spooky Star Wars competition!

It was a smaller turnout than we expected, but we were still pleased with the quality and variety of entries. The guest judges from Lucasfilm added a very interesting twist to the results - they were looking at the models from a different perspective than our usual crop of LEGO-addicted judges. Models that might not have even placed in earlier competitions scored quite high.

So: Here's the roll call of top finishers for our four categories!

Class One: Spooky Vehicle

CT-PT: Cthulhu Terrain - Pumpkin Transport

by: Polywen

2nd Place: EYE-Fighter by George Fox

3rd Place: Skull Interceptor by Luke Chapman

4th Place: heX-Wing by Greg

5th Place: Grevious' Sleepy Hollow Starfighter by Nioco

Class Two: Spooky Scene

The Legend Of Sleepy Endor

By Polywen

2nd Place: "Help me take this mask off..." by Sebastian Sand

3rd Place: Zombie Solo by Dave the Rave

4th Place: The Jawas of Death by S1MP50N

5th Place: Boba Fett Gets a Rock by Timothy Ratner

Class Three: Spooky Impulse

Ben's Trophy Room

by Dave Lartique

2nd Place: Death Star Seance by SuperDave

3rd Place: TAG (Twin Arcachnid Geeble) Fighter by Cadder

4th Place: A slight stomach ache by Generally Shrouded

5th Place: "One Things for Sure, We're all going to be a lot thinner" by Luke Chapman

Class Four: The Death of Jar Jar

The Successful Hunt

by Mr. Meep

2nd Place: Order 67 by Polywen

3rd Place: "Oops..." by Lt. de Martinet

4th Place: Jar Jars accident at the Jar Factory by Kaczor

5th Place: The Rack by rknum

If you look closely you'll that this was very nearly a sweep by Polywen - he entered three classes and took 1st, 1st, and 2nd in them. Luckily for the other contestants you can only win one Ranking award per contest! Polywen decided to keep the Class Two prize - meaning that the Class One award passed to the 2nd place finisher, George Fox. 

It's also worth mentioning that the Far Side Award winner Raxor (for his Candy Corn Star Destroyer) donated his prize to charity.  Since that was such a cool gesture I donated a couple of extra sets in his name as well.  Thanks for being such a cool person.

And that wraps up the Spooky Star Wars contest! Thank you to all who participated and all those who read along. The next contest will be announced in early January - stay tuned!

Episode 569

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Spooky Star Wars: Light Side Award

The final judge has reported in - and that means we can now unveil the winner of the LIGHT SIDE AWARD. The model that Mary Franklin (the Events Manager for Lucasfilm Ltd.)  liked best will receive a troop-building 7201 Final Dual

And the winner is:

The Legend of Sleepy Endor

by Polywen

This model was a favorite of all the judges - a great combination of building, character, and theme. Polywn, be on the lookout for an email from Ian as to how to claim your prize!

In other contest news....

I've updated the Entry Grids with Mary's entry commentary - take a look and make your predictions as to our final outcomes. Tomorrow at noon we'll announce the winners and top placers in all four classes! 

Episode 568

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Episode 567

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Spooky Star Wars: Far Side Judge Award

Today's contest announcement is the Winner of my personal  FAR SIDE AWARD. This is the model that I liked the best. The builder will receive 4916: Mini-Animals as their prize.

Let me say first that this was a particularly tough choice. There were quite a few models I really enjoyed. But only one took the contest in an unexpected direction for me:

Imperial Candy Corn Destroyer

by: Raxor

What can I say? There's no candy spookier to me than those icky candy corn thingies...and to combine them with the evil of a Star Destroyer? Pure genius. And the micro scale work is impressive, too.

Raxor, be on the lookout for an email from me to arrange shipment of your prize.

Episode 566

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Spooky Star Wars: Dark Side Judge Award

Today's contest announcement is the Winner of Steve Sansweet's DARK SIDE AWARD.

Steve Sansweet dubbed this model to be “Most Sith-y” and its builder will receive....a special award picked out by TK-1420! (It's still a mystery to me!)

And the winner is....

Ben's Trophy Room

By Dave Lartigue

Dave, be on the lookout for an email from Ian to claim your prize!

Episode 565

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The Wizard Jeb walks a fine line between making a pun and speaking the truth.

Spooky Star Wars: The First Winner

It's time to start unveiling the winners for the Spooky Star Wars competition!

First, though, I'd like to note that I've posted the comments from the three judges we've heard from to the entry grids - there are some hints there on how things are shaping up, although it's still anyone's game in the final scores.

Anyway, our first announcement is for the Imperial Award. This is the model that TK-1420 liked the best  - and who's builder will receive some cool 501^st swag!

And the winner is....

THE RACK by rknum

TK-1420 comments: EVERY STORMTROOPER'S DREAM. Well done!!

Well done, indeed! rknum, look for an email from Ian in the coming days to arrange for your prize to be delivered!

Tomorrow: Steve Sansweet's DARK SIDE award!

Episode 564

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A classic problem with Festivals set up to mimic the realities of Medieval England - they had neither ATMs, nor phones, nor Port-o-sans.

On the other hand, who would want to go to a festival without those modern conveniences?

Spooky Star Wars: Winners to be announced!

Three of the four judges have reported in - and I hope to hear from the last one very soon. As such, I can start revealing the winners for the Spooky Star Wars contest!

Tomorrow at noon watch for the announcement of the first of Judge's Choice awards - we'll be starting with the coveted Imperial Award. The model that TK-1420 likes the best will receive some cool 501^st swag!

That's noon Eastern Standard Time, gang! Be here!

It's almost time...

Click to see what we'll be up to this year!

Episode 563

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The Fish-On-A-Stick is a part from the new 2009 Pirates line. I found a few of the smaller sets at Toys R Us on Sunday morning. As you can see, I couldn't wait to incorporate it into the strip. Because, come on, fish on a stick!

For my non-American readers, the State Fairs in the US have a history of producing a varitey of "foods on sticks" for the fairgoers to enjoy. I've seen everything from corn to pizza to, yes, fish.

Episode 562

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I live in fear of the Pun Police.

Episode 561

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This catches me back up to my normal update schedule. Thanks for your patience.

Episode 560

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Episode 559

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For my Non-US readers, Detroit has a reputation of being a "less than pleasant" area to live in. I currently live in the Detroit suburbs, and I can vouch for that description.

Hope to have a double comic post tomorrow to catch back up.

Spooky Star Wars

I've gotten a few emails asking when the winners of the Spooky Star Wars contest will be announced. Right now I have 50% of the judge's spreadsheets back - I hope to have the others by late this week.

Right now the only announcements I can make are two "Judge's Choice" awards - I may post those over the next couple of days while we wait on the full data to get here.

Comics Delayed

Hey gang - comics will be off by a couple of days this week - travel back from OmegaCon was a bit more prolonged than expected. You'll still get 5 this week so don't get overly worked up.

Episode 558

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Episode 557

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I'm on the road and may not have FTP access to the site until this evening. Until then, this post is the only way "in" to today's strip. I figured you guys would rather see things on-time, even if the normal links weren't functional.

Just another perk for those of you who check the blog...

Episode 556

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A small dig at Ian for making me wait so long to find out who shot Tryant.

Episode 555

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Episode 554

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Spooky Star Wars: Grids are Closed!

The Entry Grids for Spooky Star Wars are now closed. If you emailed me and don't see your model listed, please contact me ASAP.

The next step is creating the Ranking Spreadsheets and getting them to our judges - I hope to have that accomplished by tomorrow.

We ended up with the following breakdown:

• Class One: Spooky Vehicle: 22 Models
• Class Two: Spooky Scene: 25 Models
• Class Three: Spooky Impulse: 21 Models
• Class Four: Death of Jar Jar: 17 Models

That's a total of 85 Creations - a smaller turnout than I expected, but still quite nice. (I'm sure our judges will appreciate the lighter workload.)



I'm probably not going to run a November challenge - but I should have something ready for December. I don't have a sponsor for the next round, so I'll have to dig into the prize closet and see what's available...

Episode 553

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I nearly left off the part of the caption dealing with Scotch's wardrobe, but realized someone would bitch about it if I didn't explain why his outfit was suddenly different.

It was nice to return to an already-built set for this scene. Also note that Donut has his Sonic Martini out again.