BY: BOOKMANS

We were blown away by the quality and diversity of entries in our first ever Reinvent BookMan contest, but in the immortal words of Highlander: there can be only one. Find out who's headed to San Diego this July for pop culture extravaganza Comic Con International 2008.

When we conceived the Reinvent BookMan contest, we weren't necessarily looking for a new mascot - we just wanted to give away a trip to Comic Con International in San Diego. So we needed a contest that could be open to all ages and skill levels, something that would get people excited and inspire entrants to work their creative muscle. And then we thought of BookMan.

It's no secret that BookMan is in need of a face-lift but we're not looking to ditch him just yet. This contest was about having fun and creating something fresh and new with a Bookmans classic; it was about seeing who really took the idea of reinventing to heart and captured our imagination with their overall concept for a new BookMan.

A few weeks ago the judging panel - which included our owner Bob and Red Meat mastermind Max Cannon - gathered in the conference room here at Bookmans HQ with the entries and proceeded to pick our favorites, debate, pit origin story against origin story, and generally have a blast wading through the nearly 50 entries. By the end, we had narrowed it down to two - and competition was fierce. The margin between the two top entries was nearly non-existent; the final decision came down to an old-fashioned raising of the hands.

So here it is, the winner of Reinvent BookMan! We were hoping to have our new website up and running before we announced the winners and could set up a sweet gallery of everyone's entries, but obviously we're not quite there yet. In the meantime, you can view everyone's art entries in our Flickr gallery. (Every person who entered the contest will receive a Bookmans gift certificate.)

The Grand Prize Winner
Mark Baker (Sierra Vista, AZ)
Favorite Bookmans: Mesa

Mark didn't think he had a shot at winning the Reinvent BookMan contest, thinking his entry didn't really fit the "mascot" mold. "All I know is that I didn't want my entry to just be another superhero in tights," he says, a retired Army Master Sergeant and artist behind the comic strip Pvt. Murphy's Law. "I went to bed thinking about doing something different and my story submission and drawing are what I woke up with."

What the judges found most remarkable about Mark's entry was not only the radical physical facelift - a true reinvention of BookMan (and at least half of us are big Iron Giant fans) - but the excellence of his origin story, the tale of a little girl named Kim who loves to read and is tormented by her classmates for it. When Kim discovers she has the ability to manipulate books, she creates "a Book-man." Essentially Kim herself is the heart and power of BookMan, proving that the true power of a book is in the hands of the person reading it.

Excerpt from the origin story:

...Kim looked around the room, at her bookshelves and desk. She could see the books start to move. Some just flipped open, other stood on end. Some were actually floating around the room.

"This is amazing!" she thought.

Kim found that is she concentrated hard enough she could make the books form into shapes of animals. She made a small book dog run in circles and bark soundlessly. She made a pony that was sturdy enough for her to climb on to. Finally she made a man. "A real Bookman," she thought, and watched him walk around the room.

The Bookman amazed her by kneeling down and speaking.

"Those kids won't bother you any more, Kim."

So what is Mark most looking forward to at Comic Con? "Meeting Jim Lee, of course. Gene Colon, too. And just the whole experience - it's been over 20 years since I've been to a comic convention. My daughter (also a big comic book fan) is coming with me and we are going to geek it up sick! We are so excited! The rest of the family just doesn't understand."

Congratulations, Mark! Enjoy the show.

Runner-Up - $500 Gift Certificate
Timothy Amundsen (Tucson, AZ)
Favorite Bookmans: Speedway

While the BookBot was endearing enough on his own to land Tim's entry at the top of each judge's list, it was his robot-puppy sidekick Flip (get it? Flip?) that made for such a difficult decision. While Tim may have lost out on the grand prize, we loved his entry so much that we decided a $100 gift certificate just wasn't enough.

"No inspiration, really," says Tim, whose projects can be found at Indie Only Comics. "I just love robots. I first thought to redesign the costume but couldn't pull it off. Then I realized I could start from scratch and make it my own."

Excerpt from the origin story:

Bookbot was created by an evil television conglomerate to destroy all the worlds' books, leaving only television.

The mindless robot crashed through the doors of the Bookmans used book store. Bookmans had been chosen first because its fantastic deals posed the greatest threat to TV-watching in the entire universe. Bookbot smashed through bookshelves and video game displays, ripping and burning every printed word in his path.

It seemed nothing could stop him. It seemed that this was the end of books as we knew. But as Bookbot grabbed another book to rend...he stopped. He held the book in his steel hand and stared at it for a long time.