It wouldn’t be a story about Arrested Development if it didn’t have a problem involved. Fans of the cult series and physical media have been waiting well over a year for a DVD version of the Netflix-produced Season 4, which was originally supposed to have come out in June. There’s still no guaranteed release date set, but now 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and show creator Mitch Hurwitz are asking for everyone’s help in designing the Season 4 DVD set. It’s Art Tested for Relevance. Cue the ukulele.
The contest is being hosted at the Arrested Fan Art Tumblr page, and they're accepting submissions for what fans think the signature look of Season 4 should be, with all entries needing to be turned in by September 16. The winner will receive $1,000 and bragging rights that Mitch Hurwitz thinks his or her art is worth stealing. (He talks about it in the wryly amusing letter on the contest site; I’m not just calling him an art thief.)
Personally, I think Season 4 is summed up with the FaceBlock app, but I have no problem looking at what the rest of the world creates. And there are already some gems. This is probably my favorite, as it’s a perfectly unsettling way of depicting this family (and Tobias) that is instantly recognizable and Hitchcockian.
And while these next two equally don’t have much to do with Season 4, they’re still awesome and deserving of posters in their own right. Note: if you win this contest, you totally lose control of that picture, as mentioned in this lengthy rule list.
8-bit can’t come close to topping the awesomeness of a Carl Weathers reference, but the poster below is interesting, and makes me wish Arrested Development existed as a Nintendo RPG adventure.
There aren’t that many submissions posted yet, but I’m betting it gets as wild as Lucille 2 in there over the next few days. You can head over to Amazon to pre-order Season 4, and who knows, maybe it’ll come out by the time Season 5 starts to happen. I’m going to cross my hooks and hope.
