DC Comics Harley Quinn contest

[bayonetbrant]

So DC Comics is running a contest for artists to draw Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn is no stranger to a little breaking and entering for a good time and now, she's going to help one talented artist break into comics with DC Entertainment's Open Talent Search. That's right, we're looking for someone to draw one page of HARLEY QUINN #0 alongside some of comic's most amazing talents, including Amanda Conner, Paul Pope, Bruce Timm, and a few other surprises, maybe even you!!

Beginning this November, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner will be writing the madcap adventures of Harley Quinn and they'll need all the help they can get to handle her, so they're opening the invitation to one undiscovered talent to join them. If you think you've got what it takes to be published in this special issue, then put on your working hat and start drawing now, because an opportunity like this doesn't come along very often.

Submissions can be Pencils, Pencils & inks or Pencils, inks & colors. Please keep in mind, the level of your work should be of professional-quality, so don't feel the need to ink or color your work if you're only confident in penciling.

Oh, and did we mention that we'll be reviewing the submissions ourselves to personally select Harley Quinn's new creative accomplice? 

Harley Quinn. One page. Published work. Breaking into comics was never this fun. ;)

— Jim & Dan

Here's how to enter:
1.  Read the rules & regulations listed below to confirm that you are eligible to enter DC Entertainment's Open Talent Search and agree to the terms and conditions.

2.  Read the following script page and give us your original artistic interpretation of what those four panels should look like on a single page:

PAGE 15

4 panels

PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.

PANEL 2
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.

PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale's mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.

PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of "oh well, guess that's it for me" and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.

3.  Please have your final artwork fit the following specifications:
•.jpg
•11" x 17"
•72 dpi
•Preferably 500 KB, no larger than 1MB.

4.Fill out the form below by 10:00am PDT on Tuesday, October 1, 2013, attach your artwork, and click "Submit."
- See more at: http://www.dccomics.com/node/305151#sthash.uCM3ONdT.dpuf

so the takeaway here is that they want you to draw 4 panels of her committing suicide.




Artist Jeremy Holcomb is not a happy contestant

An open letter to DC comics.
Help me out here, im a bit confused. When i heard that there was a contest to draw harley quinn, and that one of the images requested was of her naked, committing suicide, i thought, well, fan fic will be fan fic. When i read your site and found it was how you wanted to seek out a new artist, i was stunned. Interestingly, the reason im pissed off seems to be different than what has everyone else pissed, but more on that in a moment.

First, lets look at what we have here. Harley quinn is one of the most iconic, powerful women in your entire mythos, and indeed in the super hero genre. She has been imagined in different ways over the years as befits different media and styles, but her overall story is consistent - the tragic femme, her rational mind (she is/was a brilliant therapist) broken by descending into madness in the hopes of curing the joker. In some ways, you get the impression she still feels she can redeem "Mr j", that her training and will can bring him back from the darkness.
On the other hand, her heart has given her over to the joker. She is mad, but not mad like the jokers personification of chaos, she is the madness of letting love prevent you from seeing anything else. This half of her seeks to 'cure' the joker in that she wants to settle down with him, have 3.5 kids and a puppy with dynamite strapped to it.

Like all good characters, harley is multi dimensional. She is sexy, in the way strong women are sexy, and the way battered women inspire a white knight response. She is weak enough to fall into the madness, and strong enough to take the punishment the joker inflicts on her, directly and indirectly.

In short, shes interesting. And that's what blew me away about your contest. Everyone else got up in arms about the bathtub because you specify shes naked. I'm up in arms because you are asking for a new artist to communicate who harley is and you have her committing suicide in every one of your four frames.
Every.
Single.
One.
Frustrated suicide by lightning.
Silly suicide by alligator.
Happy suicide by whale.
Resigned suicide by bathtub.

I find myself needing to ask - what the fuck is wrong with you?

However. We should all strive not just to criticize, but to help. In that vein, im going to run my own contest. If you think you can draw harley, and want to show both the depth of the character and your own talent, here are four images:

Harleys dream ending.
Show harley in her -white picket fence- home with the joker. Shes happy as a clam, content to have cured him and blind to the madness that is still all around her.

Harley gloats.
This is harley standing over the batman after he has fallen into a trap. Her 'mr j is smarter than you' we beat you win. Maybe shes dancing, or jumping. Girlishly happy. This is an image that would be pared with a 'villain speech" text bubble.

Prepping for the caper.
Harley is setting up for a crime, picking out what to bring from closets and tables full of weapons, traps, exploding rubber chickens, whatever. This is "kid in a candy store" - " i could kill them with this. Or this. Oh, or both of these...."

Taking the heat
This is harley being verbally abused by the joker after some big plan fails. Its likely that the failure isn't quinns fault, but she'll stand there and take it anyway, just to be near the joker.

There. That took me about 10 minutes to come up with. It certainly doesn't show the full depth of quinn's character, but i feel you get a lot more story, and more ability to evaluate and artists ability, than four frames of different flavors of suicide.

Oh yeah, they announce this contest about 3 days before National Suicide Prevention Week starts.

There's not enough faceplam for this one

[DoctorQuest]

So DC Comics is running a contest for artists to draw Harley Quinn

Um, Ok. I am not authorized to access this page. That bad, huh?

[bayonetbrant]

me either anymore - I guess the contest expired and they closed the page