Monthly Archives: January 2012

What, the young feel no pain?

(From "Badge of Justice:" number 2, 1955.)

All aboard the post-Apocalyptic Soul Train

Apparently there's no Macy's in post-Apocalyptic America, because given the chance we opted to run to the nearest store as soon as possible in our ongoing Freeway Warrior quest. In fact, maybe we should rename it Freeway Shopping Warrior, since we seem to spend a lot of time hunting sales rather than bad guys.

Bullets, wahoo! And a hammer. If this were the Eighties I'd be tempted to say it's "Hammer Time", but I suspect the supply of low-lying sequined pantaloons is at an all-time low right about now.

Good ol' Uncle Jonas, always there with a well-timed aphorism that makes you want to stab him in the eye with a fork. Although, let's be honest, he was probably the last surviving member of the Jonas Brothers band, and I bet he did so via the liberal use of a fork on his erstwhile bandmates, Donner-style.

Yes, that's a cannibalistic pop music joke. You can't BUY this kind of entertainment, folks!

Continuing our musical interlude, it's radio! This is one of the few times the adventure feels a bit dated, because frankly radio died long before the apocalypse. Not that Mr. Dever could have known that was coming in 1988, busy as he was planning to have Mr. Grant for dinner. Ahem.

[polldaddy poll="5879011"]

Your cheerful threat of the day

(From "Badge of Justice" number 2, 1955.)

Fashion courage

I'm not sure why patterns on super-hero capes went out of fashion after WWII. But I feel pretty sure I can understand why star-shaped masks didn't catch on, as you can clearly see from Captain Courageous:

It looks like Aquaman is playing a practical joke on him by commanding one of his undersea friends to give him a wet, sloppy French kiss. You should love your allies, but don't, you know, "love" your allies, Captain.

The patterned cape seems off-putting to modern sensibilities since you hardly ever see them any more. I suspect part of the reason is that they're simply too busy, taking attention away from the main figure. But also, I bet they're really hard to draw properly, considering how much capes get whipped around. You'll notice in this illustration how stiff it looks, partly out of the necessity to keep the stars all aligned.

The mask ultimately is what dooms this ensemble, however. I don't care what a big fan of Starro you are, you can't go out in your fan boy cosplay headgear, folks. Especially when you're beating up Nazis -- this ain't Dragon*Con, folks!

And so it begins …

(From "Badge of Justice" number 2, 1955.)

Nazgul vs Sith

Sorry so late today everyone, I'm still adjusting to the new schedule & job. But I think this is a good one!

{democracy:215}

(As you can see, I don't have PhotoShop installed on my work computer yet, so this is the best I could cobble together.)

This is a great instance of magic vs science. Can a light saber cut through magic-forged steel? Will the terror powers of the Dark Lords overawe the training of the Dark Jedi? Will the awesome facial tattoos of the Sith dominate the faceless masks of the Black Riders?

You decide!

But first get the blind guy offa lookout duty

(From "Badge of Justice" number 2, 1955.)

Character Contest 81: Greed

Next up in our Seven Deadly Sins series of character design contests is Greed!

Your design challenge for this week is to create a character or characters based on something related to the second of the Deadly Sins, "greed". Your character could be named greed, or you could build a mentalist who inspires greed in his or her victims; a classic "dungeon crawl" group of adventurers looking to plunder the nearest goblin cave; a gold-hungry Dragon; the Generalized Recovery / Exploration / Exploitation Device robot; or anything else you could think of related to the desire to own everything.

But really, it's up to you. Just make a great illustration based on the concept of "greed".

The rules are the same as usual:

  • All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like ImageShack, PhotoBucket, the UGO Forums, whatever);
  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • The image cannot have been used in any previous HeroMachine character design contest;
  • Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his "Bayou Belle" character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
  • Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). If you see "preview" or "rotate" somewhere in the link you're probably doing it wrong.
  • All entries must be in by next Monday, when I'll choose a winner.

The person with the winning entry as selected by our expert panel (i.e. me) will win their choice of a) a portrait to go in HeroMachine 3, b) an item to go in HeroMachine 3, or c) a custom black and white "Sketch of the Day" style drawing (also by me).

No limit again this week, knock yourselves out.

Good luck, everyone!

(Image via.)

Caption Contest 115 Winners!

We had a ton of great entries for the last Caption Contest, featuring this charming gentleman:

Without further ado, here are the ones that I thought were particularly funny:

  • alphaalpharomeo: This one time a band camp I tried eating a tuba
  • Gero: “What? Do I have something in my tooth?”
  • MrMikeK: What do you mean I’m lyin’ to you through my tooth?
  • 1rd2th3st: "… Long story short, I really like taffy.”
  • TOOL: That’s the last time I make a bet against the Patriots.
  • The Atomic Punk: Just take the picture already. I don’t got no good side.
  • Mr.MikeK: If it wasn’t for the dental plan, I wouldn’t have Ol’ Chopper here!
  • TheNate: Four out of five dentists say you should brush after every meal. I had the fifth dentist.
  • spidercow2012: Jeff! Jeff! I seem to be seeing a strange and wonderful picture of the past!
  • Dan Gonzalez: Look, I know my online profile said I was an 18 year old cheerleader, but we’re here, so…
  • BenK22: Get punched in the face by Superman. We’ll see how you look.

There can be only one winner, however, and for that I choose ... 1rd2th3st! I still am chuckling over that one, so nice job!

Many thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to both 1rd2th3st and all of our Finalists.

Except not on Monday. Sorry.

(From "Badge of Justice" number 2, 1955.)