Quotes of the Day

This might surprise the millions of fans trying to guess who's the genius behind the hit Web series, You Suck At Photoshop, but no, it's not the comedian Dane Cook. It's not Will Ferrell, either.

So who is responsible for the success of the 10-part serial? The series features a hapless, angry, cuckolded, mad-Photoshop-skillz-enabled narrator named Donnie Hoyle and does three things amazingly well: it gives a terrific overview of some key Photoshop techniques; it has an oddly compelling narrative; and it's wildly funny. It started in December 2007 and ended earlier this month when Donnie suddenly disappeared. Some eight million page views and two Webby Award 2008 nominations (Best Comedy and Best How-To Series) after it launched, a mystery remains: Who is Donnie Hoyle?

Sample some You Suck at Photoshop

You're probably assuming that the series is the work of a pro, a well-known stand-up comedian…

Wrong! You suck at guessing. (Most of you, anyway.) The auteurs are two ad agency refugees from Covington, Kentucky. And today, they're unveiling a sequel to their magnum opus: Snatchbuckler's Second Chance. You can watch the first episode here. Then come back, and I'll tell you who's behind it all…

Ready? Troy Hitch, 37, and Matt Bledsoe, 39 — the guys responsible for YSAP and its sequel — met a few years ago while producing a radio ad in Cincinnati, which is 10 minutes from Covington. Bledsoe was the ad's creative director and Hitch, a polymath, was doing the voice-over (he's also the voice of Donnie and a real Photoshop expert). They quickly became buddies, started writing funny bits together, and partnered up at a creative agency Hitch later started, Big Fat Institute.

Enter Rob Barnett, a show biz guy who had worked at MTV, VH1 and was president of CBS Radio. In 2006, Barnett had decided to become a web video impresario and was looking for someone to design his site. A friend suggested he look at a number of hot sites — including Big Fat Institute. "It was hysterical," he recalled recently. "I was instantly engaged and emailed them 'WHO are you?' In 38 seconds, I get a response: 'Who are YOU?' We started flirting." The email led to phone calls and an invitation to visit Barnett: "A few days later, they jumped on a plane to Newark and we fell in love." The guys built Barnett's website, MyDamnChannel, and started doing comedy videos for it. Maybe you've seen "Itty Bitty Liddy," about a 6-inch-tall Gordon Liddy? Or Tim after Tim about, er, something else? Probably not.

Anyway, one night, they found themselves facing a deadline, with no content. They had long nurtured an idea for a character they thought of as "the Angry Photoshop Guy." Explained Bledsoe: "We had both been in the agency business so long that after a while we'd seen every kind of person in the advertising world." One of those stereotypes, he said, was the "insane designer, basically. He has horrible social skills and horrible things going on in his life and the only thing he has going for him is he can out-Photoshop the guy in the cube next to him."

Two and a half hours later, they finished the first episode. Hitch did most of the work, admitted Bledsoe. "The vast majority is improvised by Troy," he said. "I hate him for that."

"It was meant to be a one-off thing," said Hitch. "But two weeks later, we checked into YouTube and saw that it had 50,000 page views. We went to Rob and said, 'Hey, we might take a sabbatical from Tim after Tim.' " They launched the second episode of Photoshop and within five days, it had 400,000 page views. Digg dug the site, BoingBoing boinged it, and LaughingSquid inked the deal. A star was born.

Hitch and Bledsoe started to work other web artifacts into the series. They created a Facebook page for Donnie, which has 1,700 friends. They started a Skype chat account for Snatchbuckler, Donnie's World of Warcraft pal, and it garnered hundreds of contacts.

They even used eBay to advance the story: In one episode, Donnie shows viewers how to seamlessly remove the wedding band from his wife's finger. After doing so, he put the ring up for auction at eBay. "We actually really put the ring up for sale on eBay, and within four hours, 30,000 people had come by to look or bid on it," said Hitch. "The ring was bid up to $760." EBay shut down the auction after discovering it was performance art — a violation of the terms of service, apparently.

Snatchbuckler's Second Chance follows Snatchbuckler, who, shaken to his core by Donnie's disappearance, disbands his World of Warcraft guild, and enters a 12-step program for online gamers — at a virtual world called Peopleburg. The sequel takes place there. Will Donnie return? Says Hitch: "Anything can happen."

• Josh Quittner