Our Power User to profile this week is frequent commenter and excellent comics reviewer McKnight57! Which reminds me, I should add a question to the list like "How did you come up with the 'handle' you use?"
- Online name used in HeroMachine environs: McKnight57
- A photo (or drawing) of you in "real life":
- Real name: Andrew aka "Flash" (not kidding)
- Real city/state/country: Originally from Rome, Georgia. I now live in Carmel, California.
- Real job: student/grocery clerk
- Real age: 24
- Gender: I'm a dude
- Relationship status (married, single, in a long-term relationship, dating someone, "it's complicated", etc): single, though trying to change that
- Online archive of your creations: http://profile.imageshack.us/user/Mcknight57/
- The best piece of HeroMachine art you've created:
- Favorite all-time geeky movie if any: Here are the top 5. Ghostbusters, Batman, Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, Watchmen.
- Favorite all-time geeky book if any: Currently reading a collection of stories from HP Lovecraft, which includes Call of Cthulhu. Otherwise, Portrait of Dorian Grey will have to do.
- Favorite all-time geeky TV show if any: MacGyver, Batman animated series (I went fishing with the writer Paul Dini and his brother years ago) or Darkwing Duck.
- Favorite all-time comic book character if any: Split between Flash/Green Lantern/Batman/Grifter.
- If you could have one super-heroic power in real life, you'd choose: Super speed. Just imagine how much you'd save on gas.
- In your leisure time you like to: Read comics and graphic novels, write for my comic, play pool and visit interesting places.
- Character design turn-ons (things you love to see that make for a good design): Use of lighting, creating new pieces out of odd items, creative poses and images that tell a story.
- Character design turn-offs (things you hate to see that make for a bad design):Bland colors, images that look too "busy" and of course hands, arms or legs in poses that look out of place and general careless mistakes.
- Best tip for a HeroMachine newbie: Don't be afraid to create something with a blank background at first. You should work on your character first and foremost. Background will help the image but it's secondary. Don't be afraid to ask for critiques. These folks can help you and don't mind doing so. When discussing Poll Positions, be ready for Doom's new PR guy (Joshua) to chime in. Trust me, it definitely adds to the flavor the forum, only in the best of ways.
- Any personal message you'd like to share with the HeroMachine community about Geek Life: I'm going to teach by example for a moment. For the last year and a half now, I've been working on my comic. Sure, only 80% is done by now, but in putting all of my effort and love into the project, there have been quite a few lucky breaks I've caught in connection with it. The point is, find what you want to do and go at with all of the knowledge and dedication you have. When you really love doing something and put your full effort into it, new opportunities will present themselves. Embrace your inner (and outer) geek. You never know when it'll work in your favor. Also, take a look at the reviews for the last few weeks and please comment on them:
http://mcknightsreview.blogspot.com/
Never thought I'd get to fill one of these things out, by the way. I figure it'd be about 6 more months before I got a chance, so thanks to Myro and Worf for the endorsement.
Congrats, and you’re welcome. You’ve been contributing some great commentary (as well as a pretty interesting “vs.” list for the Poll Position). Let me know how the McKnight comic ends up going, I’d be interested in reading that.
Yeah, I do sorta need to rename it, or make a second run at a comic. The main one right now is Hero Corps, McKnight is just their version of Captain America or Batman.
I gratulate for the power user status.
Congrats on the profile!
Thanks guys. Just wanted to add something here, due to recent conversations with friends and “fans.”
Anybody who says that Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Daredevil, Elektra, Superman 3 or 4, Superman Returns, Spider-Man 3 or X-Men Origins: Wolverine is “accurate” as far as canon, should have their “Geek Card” destroyed on the spot.
There are more for that list, but I’ll stop there.
Pretty nice
Welcome to the Club McKnight57!
Welcome to the club, and you’re welcome for the nomination.
As far as “canon” movies go, who’s to say what different aspect of these age old characters are canon or not (That’s a discussion that could go on for days), but I don’t want to argue that point… All I need the movies to do is NOT screw up the essence of the characters and be good movies. Good writing, good photography and good effects. I don’t ask for much. I understand that it’s a different medium and it needs to be different from comic books, but sometimes I just want to stick my hands down the throats of these producers and directors and just pull their heart out.
PS. The jury is still out on J.J. Abrams and Star Trek… What he does on the next movie will tell me if he lives or if I’ll have to pay him a personal visit….
Worf (9): For his sake, I hope Abrams never attempts a Next Generation “reboot” movie.
Congrats on the power user status! Cheers!
McKnight57(9): If he does, he might get to see me do a “Full Klingon” on his ass. And that ain’t gonna be pretty (for him). 😉
Maybe this makes me a bad geek, but I liked the Abrams reboot :-/
Hey look, another goatee. Has there been one guy without one?
@Chisoph, yo. I barely have what you’d call peach fuzz, then again, I’m too young for a goatee.
I, like Jeff, actually liked the Abrams reboot. Personally as long as a movie tries to stay true to the theme of the original, than I don’t care if it makes minor abuses to Canon, especially if the movie is not meant to be in the same Canon, as the Abrams reboot was.
Lastly, congrats McKnight on the Power User status.
Btw, this photo is actually my costume for Halloween. I’m going as Tony Stark without the armor. It doesn’t have the mini arc reactor/artificial heart under the clothes yet, because I just MacGyver’d one up today. Any thoughts on it?
Congrats McKnight.
Also, I quite enjoyed the reboot too, despite plot holes, the thing with the black hole (why not a wormhole?), lens flares and the new ship designs which I’ve yet to come to like.
Folks, Star Trek wasn’t on my list here. That was mostly going off of Worf’s comment. I liked the reboot as well for the most part. There were just a few small things I didn’t like, such as Trekkie’s comment about the black hole should have been a worm hole. Also, Spock should not have gotten the girl (Lt. Uhura.)
Jeff, what need I doo to get to “Power User Profile”?
Jeff, good idea for the extra question. (My online name is a character from a book, with a string of numbers added. Simples! 🙂 )
If you’d like to add The Answer to the User name Question to our PU profile Jeff the answer is: Kaldath is the name of a character I used in a Play By Email Role-Playing game Kaldath Kel`Halavath who is a Half Human, Half Incubus Knight. After I created that character and starting playing him I Kinda liked the name ( which just came to be when I was making the character up ) and took it as my User Name on the internet. Pior to that I was Going by the handle of DravenDakar.
The reason for my online name here is (as some folks know) the name of my OC McKnight + my last name is similar to the Heinz condiment company so I added the “57” based on their 57 products.
Chisoph (14): Boom! http://www.heromachine.com/2011/04/16/power-user-profile-myro/ I’ve been the poster boy of the HeroMachine clean-shaven movement. I’m in the minority, but it bugs me to grow facial hair for more than a couple days.
McKnight (16): Actually, pretty convincing. The picture definitely makes sense now. Be sure to have a number of glib comments to throw out to stay in character.
And a few general comments:
In regards to the whole canon thing, I’ve never walked into a movie wondering how close to canon it will be, because I’ve always considered movies to be in a different canon than the comic books, so it’s never bothered me. If the movie sucks, however, that’s unforgivable. As for the Star Trek reboot, I’ve also considered that to be a different canon than the other movies and TV shows. I did enjoy it, although it was a little too slick at times.
And, as I’ve said before (although not recently), M-Y-R-O are the first four letters of my last name. Myro was a nickname I’ve had well before I even started coming on the internet.
Jeff: I missed the portion at the top when I was reading it before so thanks for the compliment on the reviews.
That brings me to a new question for everyone: Who has started reading (after this last week) the Shattered Heroes stories from Marvel. I just picked up my first marvel book in at least 4 months and it was Incredible Hulk #1 from Shattered heroes. Pretty good, considering Hulk and Banner are now 2 separate entities now and the Hulk has a bit higher brain function than he’s generally known for.
That leads into another question, after the events of Fear Itself and Schism and leading into Regenesis, does anyone have requests for reviews of any Marvel books? This will be straight to the blog, as the school only wanted reviews of DC and may or may not use my reviews for winter and spring semesters. So, who can think up a list? I’ll probably trim it to 2 or 3 reviews of Marvel per week based on the number of common titles between users here.
Just checked my blog and in the last 5 days (count ’em: 1-2-3-4-5), the pageviews have jumped from 328 to 453!!! If this is because of y’all, then THANK YOU!! That’s a hell of a spike in 5 days. and it’s not just for the last week, it’s for 2 months.
Congrats!
Congrats, McKnight57. Let us know when your comic hits the press!
*Deep within the recesses of Castle VonDoom, the bustle of the damned ceases. Where once Doombots goose-stepped in timed formation, now stand automatons whose first experience breaking past nominal A.I. into the realm of human emotion is fear.
Nyarlathotep, once a mighty outer god, now an emaciated creature whose haunted bellows fill the lower halls, he and various specimens taken from the Stygian depths of Yuggoth feel their blackened bowels clench in despair.
Any why? Because Dr. Doom strides past them with a shoulder so cold many would rather caress a hag’s bosom.
DOOM: Many here are mistaken about Doom. Doom needs not a voice to speak for him. Nay. Doom allows the footstool to serve as a barrier to keep the rest of you from sullying me. If Doom were not the greatest mind of all time, Doom would worry that he would catch ‘retard’ just by spending time here. BAH!
🙂
McKnight57, congrats man. Hope to see your work out on the shelves.
The Atomic Punk (27): I have a feeling it’ll be a while, like this time next year. More than likely it’ll get scaled back to just being McKnight, his grandson, the girlfriend and a few of the bad guys such as his son. Thanks for the support though.
Congratulations McKnight!
@Jeff & all: I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy the Trek reboot… I’d like to have seen a little more respect for science (black hole / red matter), none of that dumb ewok-like thing, and a better villain (Eric Bana didn’t convince me). I liked a lot of the tongue-in-cheek in-jokes and Spock getting the girl sat well with me. It was a good movie overall, but I’m still holding final judgement based on the next movie.
On McKnight’s TNG comment, for me, that franchise is still too “new” for a reboot, all the actors are still with us and I’m particularly fond of three of them that I’d find very hard to think of a replacement (Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner and Michael Dorn).
I just want it on record that, thanks to Myro, I just started a solo comic for McKnight.
Oh good, I did something. Anyway, I’d love to read it when you finish.
I’ll probably finish the first draft in the next week and a half.