You’ve probably already noticed some of the results of last year’s Penny Arcade Kickstarter. The biggest one is obviously the new ad free front page here. The comic strip itself actually got a bit of an upgrade as well. It’s displaying a full 150 pixels larger than it used to. Another of the big things to come out of our Kickstarter was Strip Search and I’m happy to finally be able to dish out a bit more information on that project.

First of all we’re super proud to announce that we’ve partnered with the crew over at Loading Ready Run to produce the show. Not only that, but LRR’s very own Graham Stark is hosting the show!

I can also finally tell you who our twelve contestants are. After sorting through nearly 1000 entries these are the six guys and six girls who we picked to live in a house and find out what happens when cartoonists stop being polite and start…actually they were all super nice.

Tavis Maiden

Nick Trujillo

Lexxy Douglass

Mackenzie Schubert

Maki Naro

Abby Howard

Ty Halley

Katie Rice

Monica Ray

Erika Moen

Amy T. Falcone

Alex Hobbs

As mentioned over on the Loading Ready Run site, the bulk of the show has already been filmed. I can tell you that it was an awesome experience and I can not wait for you to see this show. Speaking of which that should be sometime in the next month or so.

You might be wondering what Tycho and I were doing if Graham was hosting the show. Well if Graham was our Ryan Seacrest then Tycho and I were the Simon Cowells. I wasn’t actually in the house with the artists and only saw them when it was time for an elimination. I have to admit it was pretty difficult at first as despite what you see on the page, I actually find it very hard to be rude to someone in person. I was also blown away by the quality of the work that we saw and “judging” it was no easy task.

Like most of our kind I tend to suffer from a general lack of self confidence. The idea that I would sit in judgement over other artists didn’t sit right with me at first but once it started, I found that I actually do know something about this business I’ve been in for almost 15 years now. It turns out I have a lot of opinions when it comes to art and comics. I pushed past the fear of being “rude” and tried to be honest and give real feedback when I could. When I imagined this show I didn’t expect to have such a strong emotional response to the artwork. We had some no bullshit fights while judging a few of these comics. I remember one night, Robert actually had us all step outside to cool off for a bit after things got especially heated. The winner of this show will get fifteen thousand dollars and the ability to come and work at the Penny Arcade office for one year. So I expected Strip Search would be a life changing experience for the contestants, but I didn’t expect it to be a life changing experience for me.

-Gabe out