More or less randomly. I used a dice-rolling program. I did re-roll a couple of times because I thought that the matches were going to be unsatisfying in some way, e.g. paired contestants who I thought might have personal issues with one another. But I didn't bother re-matching this one, because I think it's probable that the outcome of this round will, in a certain sense, happen regardless of the pairings.
I also developed the rule sets separately from the brackets, so no one has rules that were specifically tailored to them. However, I don't think I could have planned matching crabby and this rule set any better. If he can resist the temptation to make something sophomoric and turn out a truly funny comic -- which, I agree, he's done more than once before -- then he'll really have earned some votes. And if he wins, it'll be the biggest upset since... I don't know, some other upset that was really big. And we here at Comic Cup Central are all about excitement.
Desc -- thanks for the warning. Tomorrow I'll make sure to stuff my mailbox full of a few reams from the constant stream of mail I keep receiving for the former residents. I hope it's a timed "present", so the mailman gets it.
---
The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!
