Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

The Second Annual Great YAFGC Fanworks Contest!

The first time around we did cosplay, and that let the seamstresses and tailors shine. This time, it's the filkers, bards and skalds who are on the hook to provide us with amusement and glee! The game this time is filk. The prize is the chance to win yourself - or an original fantasy character of your devising - a cameo in YAFGC. The last champion's cameo became a semi-regular character, so you never know what could happen! The rules are as follows:

1. Write a song incorporating one of the lines appearing in April 25's strip. The line must appear as a complete entity (no separating out clauses), but can appear at any point in the text. The topic must relate to an event or character within the YAFGC universe.

2. The song can be in any style, but must be arranged to a piece of music. If it is filked to a pre-existing tune (and that can be anything from symphony melodies to honky tonk to rock and roll), please tell us what piece that is, and if possible, name a performer. If it is an original tune, you'll need to give us some way of evaluating that - include guitar chords, or a midi file, or heck! How about a YouTube video of someone performing it? Be creative!

3. E-mail your entries to dungeonmaster [at] yafgc.shipsinker.com before midnight Atlantic Time (GMT -4) on Saturday May 9th. That's three weeks, so.... go! Late entries will not be considered. If you're having technical difficulties, send an email <i>before</i> the deadline and we'll work something out.

4. Entries will be judged by a panel of three, with last competition's champion as our Celebrity Guest Judge. The panel's decision is final.

5. Entrants maintain ownership over their text; by sending in an entry, you are extending us permission to reproduce that entry in full or in part on our website, with appropriate attribution, as we see fit.

6. Songs must be semi-work-safe (call it PG-13), to the level of this website's usual content. Nothing too explicit, please!

7. The winner will be notified by email within a week of the competition's end, and an announcement will be posted on the website and forum at that time.

8. Profit!

So no additions to the line, either, to help make it fit the rhythm of the music?

Additions between the words, you mean? Nope. That's part of the challenge! Add whatever you like before and after, of course.

Okay, that's what I figured. I just wanted to be sure before I drove myself nuts.

It was a good question!

As a note, we've already had four entries, two of them multimedia, and I have to say this is shaping up to be unmitigated awesome. Keep 'em coming, you crazy bards!

Five with the one I just sent.



That will be hard to beat up. Hollywood always wins because of budget.

Only if you consider a webcam and YouTube or a computer mic high budget! But all entries will be judged on their own merits.

Surely a webcam is high budget for me but I did not mean to complain serioulsy. Just a pun.



That makes me feel much better.

Anyhow I do not expect to win (I'm not even a native English-speaker: got a hard time finding words and checking the metrics) just meant that the contest have some participation and had fun creating it (what really matters). I really expect some really good song to be the winner.

I drafted something including the line "Runtherd, Runtherd, little squire" after noticing that Ms Firelight's verse scanned to fit the tune but the program in whih was entering the text crashed.

It was very tempting to go for a many-versed epic, buthow long are the entries you are expecting?

Song length, so I guess that would be minimum three verses and a bridge, if applicable? If you can hum it in under a minute at true tempo, it's a limerick, not a song. There is no max length, but if you could enter it in NaNoWriMo and win, don't expect us to read it all in the time allotted for judging.

I'm hoping to make it in by the deadline, but I seem to be coming up against a roadblock. Namely... how exactly does one pronounce "Temshutep"? XD

In the game, we pronounced it exactly as spelled: Tem - shoo - tep. The 'oo' was the oo in 'foot' or 'book,' not 'hoop.' ("Temshu'tep"?)

The Winner Has Been Chosen! (news post will be up on the site momentarily)

Check out the results - and all of the entries - at http://yafgc.shipsinker.com/bardiccontest.html

Congratulations, Frank! Very nice tune, well played, and you've got a good voice. In the words of Cap'n Fang: *gasp* Apples!

BK, DM, and Kashim, that was a fun competition, and I had a great time writing my entry. I won't deny winning would have been great, but I am very happy knowing that I was in the top four.

Great job, everone. I'm off to the ale tent! Drinks are on Lord Ealing!

Good job all around, folks. There was a lot of talent in the mix for that one.