AutoShoujo Cover Contest Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the AutoShoujo Cover Contest!

The rules of the contest were to generate a title from the AutoShoujo Random Title Generator, create a story about it, and then to create the cover of the book, manga, or DVD of that story.

FIRST PLACE: Clockwork Boyfriend Tomorrow -- Shira-chan



Rachel:  A brilliant mélange of shoujo plot tropes, from the "you must be my servant" bargain to the rock band to the tragic car accident, but the heroine holding the literal key to the hero’s wind-up heart elevates the whole thing to cracktastic genius.

wintersweet: One of the most expressive covers with great facial expressions and a really imaginative take on the title, which did a great job of working in established manga/anime tropes. It's also very well designed and laid out, and looks very professional.

telophase: Rachel and wintersweet cover it all: awesome graphic design and attention to detail, like picking the absolute right font for the title and echoing it on the back, intriguing characters, and a crack-filled plot!


SECOND PLACE: Number One Singing King -- AmbrMerlinus

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Rachel: I loved the wacky yet poignant premise, which mashes up two shoujo perennials-- genderbending and a talent contest -- into the tale of transgendered singer Thomas/Amanda, who may lose his chance at singing fame if he takes voice-changing testosterone, and pins his destiny to the outcome of a drag king contest. Truly a manga-worthy plight-- and one whose more detailed description seems supportive of all the myriad ways in which people can express their gender and their sexual orientation.

wintersweet: This entry was one of the ones where I focused on the story. It's intriguing and something I'd be very likely to pick up if I had a chance.

telophase: The design of this cover is simple and dramatic, showing that you don't always have to throw everything plus the kitchen sink into a design to make it effective.  I also love how the protagonist is faced with an agonizing choice to make between his dreams and his heart.



THIRD PLACE Absolute World-Class Childhood -- :dev-achiru-:



Rachel: The inventiveness of using more autoshoujo titles as individual episodes, the amount of work it took to generate all those screenshots, and the playfulness and charm of the art and story combine to make a remarkably plausible DVD.

wintersweet: This was my vote for first because of all the work put in on the screencaps (they even look like animation stills, not just small rectangular art), the use of even more Autoshoujo titles as episode titles, the believably bizarre "everything in a blender"-style plot, and the detailed design. It looks like a ton of work was put into it!

telophase:  Everything from the color scheme to the font to the graphic design of this entry screams professional. Add in a cracktastic storyline, and you've got a winner!

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We would like to extend congratulations not only to the winners, but to everyone who entered: you guys turned out a fantastic bunch of manga, book, and DVD covers and made it very, very hard for us to judge this contest. You should have seen the emails we sent back and forth lamenting that we couldn't give out more prizes, and whining about how hard it was to narrow our choices down!

We've included some Honorable Mentions on this journal entry, to single out some of the other outstanding entries, but, really, you are ALL wonderful and we thank you for sharing your thoughts, creativity, and hard work with us.  If you ever publish ANY of the stories we saw here, we'll be right there at the bookstore!


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HONORABLE MENTIONS and JUDGING PROCESS

You can find our honorable mentions and an explanation of the juding process at this journal entry.


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ALL AUTOSHOUJO COVER CONTEST ENTRIES

There was one non-DA entry, Will La Puerta's My Shinigami Secretary.  Below, find the rest of the entries posted on DA.

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