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TR Contest Special: Sci-Fi It Up, Sponsored by Once Upon a Time Machine

TR Contest Special: Sci-Fi It Up, Sponsored by Once Upon a Time Machine

By October 12, 2012 Comics, Miscellaneous 0 Comment


Let me start this week’s contest with a quick review: Once Upon a Time Machine is awesome. It’s a comic anthology Dark Horse released this week, edited by Topless Roboteer Andrew Carl, in which a variety of fairy tales, fables, tall tales and more are retold as science fiction. This means you have The Tortoise and the Hare as giant robots; Pinocchio as an artificial intelligence; the Three Little Pigs as rich bastards who have fled earth for their own highly fortified space stations, and much more. You can watch the book’s trailer above for a taste of the myriad art styles. It’s over 400 pages, is full color, and is somehow only $25 — it’s a steal (and Amazon currently has it for $13.50, which is even more absurd). Frankly, I loved it.

And I love this week’s contest, because four people will win Once Upon a Time Machine, signed by Carl and producer Chris Steven. And one person will win the book, signed by the same two blokes and every single artist featured in the book that they could track down at NYC, including Ryan Ottley and Jill Thompson, plus a set of five nice 11×17 prints (including two NYCC-exclusives), plus a set of 8 snazzy bookmarks.
Since the book is taking these timeless tales and retelling them as science fiction, I figured you guys could do the same thing for this week’s contest: Take an established book, movie, TV series, videogame, anime, whatever, and re-pitch it as a sci-fi story. I’m looking for the most clever interpretations here, so you can’t just say “Rizzoli & Isles… in space!” and expect to win. I wouldn’t recommend trying to pitch things that are already sci-fi as harder scifi, but you’re welcome to try.
In hopes of having a contest that surpasses 200 comments, I’m going let you guys enter as much as you want. But please, PLEASE, keep these pitches brief. 100-150 words each. I won’t count the words in each entry, but my eyes will gloss over entry that looks too long. That’s not a threat, just a fact. Also
The contest ends at 12:01 am EST on Monday, October 15th. Have a great weekend, everybody! And don’t forget The Walking Dead season 3 premieres this Sunday! Bring your tiny flashlights and spelunking equipment! 

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About The Author

Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.