Monthly Archives: July 2010

RP: Wait long enough and they die. Problem solved!

(From "Lightning Comics" Number 3, from I would guess 1941 or so.)

SOD.205 – Bearicide

You spoke, I listened. We have now won the Internet.

Poll Position: Putting the funny in comics

With a special thanks to the HeroMachine Facebook group for most of these suggestions, our question of the week veers away from the various permutations of "Whose ass would Wolverine or Batman kick" to something more light-hearted:

{democracy:144}

I really wanted to open this up to let you add your own suggestions, but in the past that hasn't gone very well -- someone inevitably submits an offensive or wildly immature entry and I have to go in and delete it. But hey, that's what comments are for! So let me put on my Very Serious Scholar face and take a look at the options.
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RP: Dr. Decker? Sir … ?

(From "Konga" number 1, 1960, a movie adaptation comic illustrated by none other than a young Steve Ditko.)

Character Contest 40: Southern Fried Heroes

Sometimes regionally-themed characters can be great (hello Alpha Flight!) and sometimes they can blow chunks (hello Great Lakes Avengers!), but therein lies your challenge for this week: Create a character (or characters) based on the Southern United States, the fabled Dixieland of old, stretching from Louisiana to South Carolina, from Florida to Virginia, and all those rolling lands of gentility in between.

Buddy John Hartwell had a group of villains set in an alternate universe where the South won the Civil War, and it was a real hoot. I suspect that prompted him to suggest this idea and I am glad he did! The Sketch of the Day for today featured Gumbo, just as an example of something along the lines of what I am thinking, a character with Southern roots whose public identity is linked to their home in some way.

The rules are the same as usual:

  • All entries must be posted to a publicly accessible server like the UGO forums, PhotoBucket.com, ImageShack.com, or what have you;
  • A link to the JPG or PNG (please, no BMPs, they're too big) hosted on that server;
  • Next Monday I will pick the winner, the image that best conveys the concept of a character from the US South, and its creator will win a choice of either any item or any portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 version.

Good luck everyone!

Edited To Add for Clarity:The South isn't a list of states, it's not borders on a map, and it's not the Confederacy. It's a culture, based in a geographic area yes, but much more than that. It's gentility and manners and steel magnolias and chivalry and heat and mint juleps and sweet iced tea and race relations written right into your bones. Worrying about whether a STATE is in The South or not is to miss the point entirely.

Cowboys are not Southern. Ted Turner's TBS network, while based in Georgia (which IS Southern), is not Southern itself. Cattle rustling is not Southern. Dallas is not Southern. Tex Mex is not Southern. Pizza with artichokes on it is not Southern. This isn't a "Civil War" contest, it's a REGIONAL CULTURE contest, and the regional culture in question is THE SOUTH.

If you want to enter someone called The Texas Tornado, go right ahead and staple a copy of the Articles of Confederation to his forehead if it makes you happy, but I'm telling you right now he's going to lose.

SOD.204 – Gumbo

Good ol' boy from the bayous of Louisiana, Gumbo likes to mix a little bit of pain, a little bit of muscle, and a little bit of blood for that perfect bit of Southern hospitality.

Introducing your DinoMarines Squad

The votes are in for the most popular DinoMarines, and I've chosen the top 6 to form the Omega Squad (in honor of the original dinosaurs being wiped out, the DinoMarines rank their units starting with Omega and working backwards from there). If you have a good idea for their squad nickname, let it rip in the comments. I put the cut-off there because that seemed to be the major break point (38 votes vs the 33 for the next spot) that would allow in enough members to be a team, without so many it got unwieldy.

The totals were:

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Caption Contest 80 VOTE!

For my money, accounting for Veronica's scream of outrage posed the most difficult challenge in the panel for Caption Contest 80:

I thought the following six people did the best job of accounting for all of the various bits of the image, while managing to make it funny as well. Great job!

Vote for as many of these as you think are worthy of a win, and click on any image to see it at the original, larger size. The panel with the most votes as of whenever I check it next Monday will win for its creator the choice of either any item, or a portrait, to be included in the final release of HeroMachine 3.

Good luck!

[polldaddy poll="3524175"]

RP: Dick Grayson's therapist is a bad, bad man

(From "Gunmaster" Number 1, 1964.)

RP: La Vida Sidekick

(From "Gunmaster" number 1, 1964.)