Marksman Evan W. with an early entry – featuring the Steam Powered shirt. (Click photo for bigger)

Break out your cameras! I’m pleased to announce the first-ever Wondermark Classy Photo Contest!

The rules are simple:

1. Take a classy photo featuring yourself (or other humans or animals) along with any item from the Wondermark Goodsery: a book, T-shirt, poster, etc. Multiple items in the same photo are OK. Be creative! Pretend you’re doing a catalog shoot for the item. You can define “classy” however you want — it doesn’t necessarily have to mean “wearing a top hat” although that is probably fine.

2. Upload your picture! Join the new Wondermark Flickr Group, upload your entry, and tag it “wondermarkclass”.

3. Write something in the description — about you, about the photo, how you thought of the idea, where you took it, etc. I want this set to be fun for folks to browse and read!

4. REPEAT UNTIL EXHAUSTED OR DEAD

Photos will be JUDGED and PRIZES AWARDED. Scoring will be based on:

20% Classiness
30% Quality of photography
50% Creativity
+10% Extra credit for description

I will award at least one BEST IN SHOW award of $100 cash, and (depending on number of entries) I also expect to award other prizes as well, including a Best-in-Category Prize for the best photo of each particular Wondermark item. So your odds will be better if you choose one of the less common items!

If you do not have any Wondermark items to take pictures of, I will also accept entries that recreate, in a photograph, any single panel in Wondermark history. Your choice! (In the description on Flickr, please cite the comic you’re recreating.) There will be a special prize category for these entries.

If you don’t have a Flickr account, you can still enter the contest by emailing me your entry; I’ll upload it for you. Send it to dave at wondermark dot com, with the subject line “Classy Photo: [Some brief description].”

Put in an actual description, not the actual words “Some brief description”, even though it would be a hilarious joke.

More Rules

1. You may enter as many times as you like. Collaborative entries are OK too.

2. Remember that part of the judging will be on photo quality, so webcam and cellphone shots will likely suffer on that score. Take as nice a picture as you can!

3. There must be someone in the picture — I can take my own pictures of my stuff sitting there alone. Animals are OK; people are better.

4. The use of photomanipulation is OK, so long as the subject of the picture is clear. I may award both a “best manipulated” and a “best naturalistic” award, depending on the number of entries.

5. You agree that by submitting a photo, I’m allowed to repost it here on Wondermark, or on TopatoCo. (You of course retain the copyright to it, unless you choose otherwise.)

6. The deadline to submit or upload photos will be the end of the day (midnight Pacific time) on Monday, November 7th. So you’ve got three weeks!

SIMULTANEOUS CONTEST ALERT

We are also holding a nearly identical photo contest over at Machine of Death! You can also enter that one if you want to win another $100 cash prize.

The rules are all the same, except instead of a classy Wondermark photo, you must submit a Machine of Death Evidence Photo. This should be a single photo that tells the story of a Machine of Death prediction — most likely come true in an ironic fashion. (More info on what that means.)

Our favorite MOD photos will win prizes as well, and will be shown at the upcoming Super-Stupendous Machine of Death Magic & Variety Show! Oh did I mention that I am putting on a magic and variety show? I am. It’ll be in Hollywood, CA on November 17th. Details here, with more to come!

Upload your MOD photos (tagged “modevidence”) to the just-as-new MOD Flickr Group, or email them to submit at machineofdeath dot net, subject “Evidence Photo: [Some description].”

The deadline and other guidelines are the same! This is what we call SYNERGY. Any questions? Leave a comment. Can’t wait to see your photos!