Well, that Halloween party sure didn’t work out as SADCAT had initially planned. Sure, a good number of guests were brutally murdered, and that had been the idea, but in the end the Master Ghost had been replaced with the ghost of a guest, and SADCAT’s grand palace was still just as spectrally infested as before.

Plus it seemed a few of the party-goers held some kind of misplaced grudge for being tormented and murdered during the party. Really, now!

“Nobody reads the fine print! It says on those invites, clear as day, ‘you will be killed if you attend this party’. Sure, it’s written in invisible ink and can only be revealed if soaked in the tears of an armadillo, but I can’t be blamed if some people don’t use their heads!”

So it fell to SADCAT to make an important decision. She could stay in the palace and deal with Asmodai’s strict rules against ghost-taunting (no calling a ghost “Casper”, no gloating about having legs, no trapping ghosts in the dishwasher, no summoning Zuul, no inviting Derek Acorah over for tea, no pointing behind a ghost and screaming "IS THAT A WHITE LIGHT?"), or SADCAT could pursue her other lifelong dream: owning and operating a year-round amusement park.

As luck would have it, the Indian burial ground opposite her palace was just the right size to build a glorious new theme park. But she still needed funds! Working through the phone book, she found a name that sounded trustworthy, and it was then that JJ “Fingers” McGee became her business partner. The two set to work building an amusement park like the world had never seen…

And certainly the world had not seen a park like this one. By their fifth week of being open for guests, they had averaged an impressive fifty ‘accidents’ per day. On top of that, rumours of ghosts haunting the grounds were starting to surface. It was almost as though every accident brought about an additional ghost sighting. Weird! The Indian Burial Ground Amusement Park and Year-Round Funporium was popular with daredevils, truth seekers, and lawyers alike!

Perhaps more so with the lawyers.

Unfortunately, despite the park being so hard-core that death was an actual possibility (some say, an inevitability), the lawsuits were beginning to take their toll. Word was spreading that the park lacked both mechanics and engineers ("Engineers? Psh, if I can draw a roller coaster, certainly I can build one!"). Daily threats from lawyers and city officials demanded the park be brought up to code, or else they would shut it down.

JJ sat behind the complaint desk, next to a newly-added wax creation (still with ticket in hand). “I have too much money invested in this place to shut it down now! Bloody lawyers, don’t they realize accidents happen?”

SADCAT grumbled while attempting to flush something she found at the bottom of McBloaty’s Unsupervised Wave Pool. “We have to convince the city that our park is a valuable tourist attraction! What’s so awful about a theme park where you miiiiiight go home in a body bag? It’s unpredictable! It’s got a level of excitement.”

“What about a contest?” JJ offered.

“A fabulous free weekend!” SADCAT replied, washing her hands.

“We’ll hide tickets in food! Bronze tickets!”

“It’s never been done!”

“Maybe they’ll make a similar but not necessarily related movie about it!”

The idea hatched, JJ and SADCAT sent forth their most dedicated helper. Bad Andy, the only park guest ever to have survived every ride and lived to return another day, had eventually decided not to leave, and built a nest out of caramel corn coupons atop Blunder Mountain. Andy, shimmering bronze tickets in hand, set out to hide the tickets in completely random food items across the world.

32 tickets. 32 guests. SADCAT had grown accustomed to that number. And certainly it wasn’t an omen of bad things to come.

Certainly history would never repeat itself.

Once contestants are chosen, the story will begin. In each round you will be provided with a short narrative to give you a starting point for your comic. Characters will then be paired off and each pair will be designated a different location in the amusement park (the Mystery Slides, Blunder Mountain, the Raptor Country Buffet, and so forth). While you will be given a vague description of the area, it will be up to you to bring it to life!

In your comic you must portray your character in a confrontation with the other, leading to the other character being ‘terminated’ in some way (your character might directly hurt or kill them, or they might be taken out by a ghost, a broken ride, a bottomless pit at the end of the inner-tube slides—be creative!).

You will have two weeks to complete your comic, at the end of which a panel of 3 judges (SADCAT, JJ, and Bad Andy) will vote on the winners and determine who will move on to the next round. Each round will have a deadline; if you fail to meet this deadline, you will forfeit and your opponent will win.

There will be five rounds in total, the final round involving the last two characters going up against an as-yet-to-be-revealed final boss.

Audition comics must be received by August 22nd
(11:59pm EST the night of August 21st)

The first phase of this contest consists of the Audition Round. As laid out in the introduction story, 32 characters will be chosen by means of a prize ticket to attend the Indian Burial Ground Amusement Park and Year-Round Funporium. These characters will then face off against one another in the next themed round as the spooky story continues to unfold.

Your audition comic can be as complex, as lengthy, or as simple as you like, so long as it consists of at least one page introducing your character into the story. It can be coloured or black and white (though colouring certainly wouldn’t hurt your score), but please no rough sketches.

SEND LINKS TO YOUR AUDITION PAGES IN A NOTE TO *SADCAT

Contestants will be chosen based on the following scoring chart:

Character creativity: /15
Storytelling: /15
Dialogue: /10
Ease of read: /5
Artistic skill: /5
Overall: /50

Your judges are:



###########Rules for Entry###########
There are only three rules one needs to follow when sending their audition.

#1 – Your character must be your own original creation.

#2 – Your comic, though encouraged to be as creative as possible, must somehow involve your character finding a bronze ticket in any food item (be as silly as you like) that says that they have won a weekend at the Indian Burial Ground Amusement Park and Year-Round Funporium.

#3 – Please create a folder in your DA gallery specifically for SADCAT’s Haunted Palace and place your audition there. Please also link back to this journal post in the description of each comic page.


###########FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS###########

Q: My character has a dual personality/second self/pet/possessed toy/etc., can I still audition them?
A: Yes. So long as this is how the character always appears, and the secondary self or creature is not a distinctively unique character on their own, that's fine. The one-character rule is in place for the sake of your opponents who will have to draw them.

Q: I've never drawn a comic before... can I still audition?
A: Sure! You never know how you'll do until you try.

Q: What kind of mediums can we use for our comics?
A: Traditional or digital medium is fine, so long as it's done in a comic format. No photography comics this time around, please.

Q: Can there be swearing in my comics?
A: Swearing is fine.

Q: Do I have to draw a comic, or can I submit written work?
A: Only comics, please! This is a competition specifically for comics.

1st Prize (Park Survivor) – 1 Year Subscription to DeviantArt; 1 DeviantArt Wishlist Print Granted
2nd Prize – 6 Month Subscription to DeviantArt




###########PARK LOCATIONS###########

In each round, contestants will pair off and be sent to a different location in the park (which will be picked for them at random). There are 4 lands in the Indian Burial Ground Amusement Park and Year-Round Funporium, with 8 locations in each land (32 locations total). The lands include:









If you have any questions, please contact either *SADCAT, =jenny-jen, or ~TheBadAndy!