Mix March Madness 2015 Webcomics Tournament Sweet 16!

Luana Haygen

Luana is an animated movie and superhero enthusiast with an eye for detail. She has been drawing and creating fashions since she was a child. She has been routinely helping here at ComicMix since 2009.

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21 Responses

  1. Melanie Stewart says:

    Hi.

    I’m curious. Are you not going to give as the final results nor how the paid votes were like previous rounds?

  2. pat says:

    There doesn’t seem to be a metalink between this post category and all of the previous mix march madness tournament postings.

    Also, two days?

    • pat says:

      The archives tag is not present on this post. Just fyi. And this post is more for a follow up in order to present the authors with the appropriate term for their in house jargon and fyi. Just to make sure that everyone who is looking forward to round 4 knows about round four.

      Also, the link from the Mix March Tournament on the menu bar at the top of the screen does not directly link to the 2015 Sweet 16, but to a login for the bracket maker for the final four of the 2014 tournament.

  3. Pylgrim says:

    Paranormal, Guilded Age, Lackadaisy and Unsounded didn’t make it? Not to diss the efforts of their authors but most of these “sweet 16” are nowhere near the quality of those comics. Unsurprising results when vote-buying is allowed, I guess.

    Only comic of that quality level left is SSSS. In theory should be the winner now, but in reality money will speak.

    • pat says:

      Well, I will disagree with you a bit. Shotgun Shuffle is not only a Cinderella in relation to the tournament status, but excels in quality of art, character development, sorry telling, dialogue, writing, humor, drama, as well as interaction with the audience.

      Shotgun Shuffle best personifies for the Internet what some of the best writers in American literature haves been able to do. Hemingway, King, O’Neal, Clemmons, Fitzgerald, Lee, Steinbeck, Bradbury. As well as movie directors Spielberg, Lucas, Bird and Hughes.

    • Brunswick says:

      Wow,. That’s fairly insulting to everyone else still in the vote. The author of Shotgun Shuffle spends anywhere from 12-20 hours per comic. Property of Hate is absolutely beautiful. I guess “quality” to some only applies to artists that use the airbrush tool or a style “only you prefer.” Cel shader and flat color artists be damned.

      If you’re concerned with quality so much, vote for artists pushing their talents and striving to improve and perfect their craft vs become stagnant and cookie cutter. SSSS is a lovely comic, but don’t start soapboxing they’re the only one’s concerned over the look and appeal of their comics. Sorry your faves didn’t make it to the next round, but that’s no reason to dump on those that did with a jerkish broad brush. And saying “not meaning to diss on the authors of the other comics” doesn’t mean you immediately didn’t right after. You did.

      • Pylgrim says:

        Fair enough, it was wrong of me to generalise (though I did use the term “most of”) but I wasn’t specifically talking about SS or PoH which are quite ok in my book (if not better than the ones I mentioned). There are quite a few, though, that definitely I’d say don’t belong anywhere near a sweet 16 that doesn’t include the webcomics I mentioned (and which I won’t mention by name because my point was never offend the creators or fans of those comics). And it’s not that they’re bad, rather that there are others that are quite arguably better. My main point is that these contests should be based in merit alone.

        You, on the other hand, actually took a dig at me and the comics I like, of which you don’t seem to know much if the best you can say about them is something about “airbrush tool” (which few of them actually employ). Guilded Age uses flat colours. Paranormal is cel-shaded. 12 to 20 hours per comic? Lackadaisy Cats takes literally days and you can tell just by looking at it. And I challenge you to read any of those stories and tell me they or their art are “stagnant or cookie cutter”.

        Those who presume of slaying monsters need take care of not becoming a bigger one in the process.

    • Ash Blackwell says:

      I probably should leave this for the organizers to answer, but I’ve been getting very annoyed at all of the disparaging remarks about bought votes here and on some of the comics’ comment sections, and in this case the remark is mostly unjustified. While the third round paid vote totals have not been posted here, they are visible at the BracketMaker site by division- http://www.bracketmaker.com/find.cfm?location=NJ&sport=Other. Compare the totals for each comic to the results for the last round visible her on ComicMix and the number of bought votes becomes obvious.

      You mention four specific comics as if they were all forced out by vote buying. None of the contests for Guilded Age or Lackadaisy had bought votes on either side, and the last round for Unsounded had 25 bought votes for Unsounded that didn’t affect the final outcome and none for their opponent, Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. I will grant that Paranormal was forced out by Two Guys and a Guy by a $10 donation, but that pushed them over by a whopping 2 votes: 188+50 Two guys vs 236 Paranatural.

      I am certainly not throwing stones at your last choice for a “quality” comic, as that was the comic that drew my attention to this contest and I’m a daily member of the “F5” club and an occasional commenter there, but they have donated the most money to the Hero Initiative by title buying votes ($76) and none of their contests so far have been close enough that they’ve NEEDED to buy a single vote.

      I could maybe see complaining about the vote buying if you were voting for XKCD like I was last round- they went from a 717-689 win in the contest against Misfile to a 742-939 loss, but most of the vote buying has been modest: $5 to $10 dollars a title a contest.

      In 15 contests within the last the last 3 rounds, 18 comics have had money donated to the charity in their name, and it’s been a deciding factor in only 5 of those matches:

      First Round
      Exiern vs Gynostar 56+105 (161) vs 76 $21
      Homestuck vs Superbitch 90 vs 75+30 (105) $6

      Third Round
      Two Guys and Guy vs Paranatural 188+50 (238) vs 236 $10
      Misfile vs xkcd 689+250 (939) vs 717 +25 (742) $50 vs $5
      Girls With Slingshots vs Twokinds 209 vs 174+51 (225) $10.20

      Sorry to ramble on like this, but I find it hard to say that this contest is rigged by the money vote when none of the acknowledged front runners (Stand Still. Stay Silent, Shotgun Shuffle, Girl Genius, or The Property of Hate) have had a single contest decided by the money their fans have donated. I just hate seeing a worthy cause like the Hero Initiative disparaged by someone who dislikes the donations to a good charity granting additional votes.

      • Melanie Stewart says:

        Exactly my thoughts.

        I will add that it’s important to look farther than the art style when judging a comic. The 2014 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story winner, xkcd, is a good example of that.

        • Ash Blackwell says:

          Definitely agreed on that! I still have “Time – at your own pace” bookmarked and I’ve re-read it 3 or 4 times now.

          I personally run a mix of long term story and short strip jokes in my web comics (I had a damn hard time deciding if I wanted to vote for XKCD or Scandinavia and the World in the second round) and I still have two of my favourite webcomics in the top 16, but I never would have heard of Shotgun Shuffle if it wasn’t for this contest, and I’m liking what I’m seeing so far there.

          That’s probably the best thing that’s coming from this contest outside of money raised for a good cause- the exposure to comics that folks otherwise never would have found.

      • Pylgrim says:

        This is very valid criticism. Thank you for taking the time to put it together, as I was ignorant about some of the points you raise.

        I’d contend that saying “just $10” misrepresents the magnitude of the issue as the problem, I believe, it is that it out-weighed the votes of 50 people, almost a whooping 20% of the total votes, in the case of Paranormal. However, your case is so well researched and exposed, that I’ll gracefully bow out and admit defeat.

  4. m-cubed says:

    NOOO. Paranatural is my favorite…. Suppose I’ll have to check out these others now. Which are actually good and which are just hype? (Also when did Ava’s Demon get knocked out and by what?)

    • Ash Blackwell says:

      I like Stand Still. Stay Silent and Girl Genius out of the titles left in the contest and I’ve started digging into the backlog of Shotgun Shuffle and I’m liking what I see there right now, so I’ll probably vote for them as well until they are kicked out or get to the finals. ;-)

      Ava’s Demon made it to the third round where Ava’s Demon netted 247 votes to Gaia’s 445 with no additional votes effecting the contest.

  5. Jon says:

    Please consider disabling paid votes when we get to the Final 4, it is going to get nasty at that point if we have paid votes.

    Everyone has their preferences, and mine is Not a Villain, so I am thrilled that it has gotten so far.

    • Melanie Stewart says:

      I can understand you, but we are talking about raising money for charity here, I will bet that you would agree that it is important.

      Also that was the intention and those were the rules from the start, all the authors knew that when agreed to participate. NAV could make use of them too, you know.

  6. AmityM says:

    Let’s not get testy! There are plenty of cookies for everyone. Yum! Cookies!

    And don’t forget, no matter what comic you favor or how it’s been doing in the rankings, there was someone somewhere who had never heard of it until they came here, and now is a regular reader.

    Even if they came here to vote for something else!

  7. Tales says:

    To any that complain about paid votes, congratulations on being entitled, but you know what I’m going to vote and donate money for votes to Webcomics I read and enjoy on a continuous basis, sorry that I did that for Two Guys and Guy, Misfile, and Twokinds.

    (I’m really not sorry)

    • Ash Blackwell says:

      I’ll go so far as to thank you for donating to the charity even if I wish XKCD had won rather than Misfile. I had to pay taxes this month, or I’d be doing the same for the titles I like.

      • Tales says:

        Yeah I honestly just have no idea what is going on in XKCD, maybe I’m part of the unusual humor warning and/or I don’t understand advanced mathematics (not a liberal arts major I swear).

        To me though in Misfile it actually feels like it’s going somewhere and has an eventual end (all good stories should come to an end) even if it takes 10-20 more years to get there.

        • Ash Blackwell says:

          It’s definitely an acquired taste, and I can see where your mileage may vary.

          I don’t always get the joke with XKCD myself without doing some googling- my science education is a bit more than 20 years out of date now outside of reading a few blogs by scientists on astronomy, chemistry, geology, and medicine- but I get enough of the jokes that it’s worth it for me to come back three times a week… and even when I don’t, I learn a lot from the google run it sends me off on so I consider the comic a good read regardless.