Monthly Archives: May 2012

Pop Quiz: Setting the Scene

Happy Saturday, folks! Your one-day quick-fire challenge is:

"Rocky Background" by AMS

Make an environment or setting!

In other words, I just want the area where a character might be seen, but without the character. You can get some great ideas from the UGO Forums' Custom Backgrounds topic or the somewhat less-populated HeroMachine forum on the same subject if you need examples. Like the Fortress of Solitude without Superman, or a forest glen without the fairy, or a computer without a fat bald geek sitting at it writing this ... here ... paragraph. Hm.

Anyway. You only get one entry -- that's right, just one! So make it your best. Most of the other rules are the same as for a regular contest, but instead of a whole week I'll announce the winner either tonight or first thing in the morning.

  • 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;
  • 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). Here's a quick-start guide on how to do that for various image hosting services.

The winner will receive their choice of either one item or one portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 release, or one Sketch of the Day style drawing where you pick the subject and I draw it how I like.

Good luck!

I don't think I want to see The Peeping Streaker's "surprise"

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 1, 1941.)

Sharing Day: Memorial Day Edition

Here in the US, Monday is Memorial Day, where we take a moment to remember those men and women who have died while in military service. Men and women like my uncle Marshall, who passed away while in the Army (though not in combat). All Americans owe a huge debt to those who gave their lives to protect our freedoms. So I wanted to take this Sharing Day to share my gratitude for all of our fallen soldiers, and for their surviving families who have had to carry on without them. Thank you all.

So to me, our military service members are like real-life super-heroes. But since we're in the imaginary super-hero business, I want to ask you the following:

If you could have one super-heroic power in real life, what would you choose?

And no "The power to have any super power I wanted" nonsense! Although if that's your play, there are sort of ways around it, as you'll see.

Tempting answers for me are time travel, invulnerability (with the hope that incudes being invulnerable to the ravages of age), flight, hyper-intelligence (Reed Richards or Tony Stark style, so you could invent yourself stuff that would replicate a bunch of other powers), etc. I am not so much tempted by psionics, since I am pretty sure I don't want to know what other people are thinking. I've seen enough of that on Internet comment sites to last a lifetime.

I'm instead going magical. And it's the same power I'd use a Wish for if I could. Namely, I'd want the power to reach into any pocket or container and pull out anything I wanted that would fit in that container. So I could produce a wad of hundred dollar bills, or a vial of immortality serum, or invulnerability cream, or a nice BLT. Because I love me some lunch.

If you like, in return for answering my question to you, you may ask a question of me on any topic and I'll do my best to answer honestly and completely. Just leave your reply (and question, if any) as a comment. The goal is to learn a little more about our community!

So what would you choose as your one real-life super power?

Wild guess, but … poison?

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 1.)

To Boldly Go or To the Library We Go?

When last we left our potential future super-powered individual (as chronicled in the excellent Chooseomatic book "Thrusts of Justice", which you should totally go buy your own copy of since we're only scratching the surface of the hilarity enshrined in these pages), we were trying to decide which established character we should pursue. And we went with ... The Cosmic Guardian!

Continue reading

This one time, in band camp …

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 1, 1941.)

It's a blaze of something, that's for sure

Continuing our "Worst Moments in the History of Avenger Costumes" in honor of the movie, we arrive at that beloved icon of national pride, Captain America, at that unfortunate moment in history that he had some disease whose symptoms included massively impaired fashion sense and having his nose eaten off:

I'm glad the armor lets Cap move, so hopefully he can haul his star-spangled butt to the nearest Gap. And I think if I had to choose between dying and being seen in this costume, I'd have a hard time choosing.

My favorite part of this design has to be the fact that they armored the floppy boot tops. That's like having a metal cape where they build in the folds -- it just makes no sense.

I would like to see him stab-kick someone with the pointy metal tips on those suckers though. He needs something EXTREME to go with the bionic unhinged jaw-scream he's sporting.

I shall call it … television!

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 1, 1941.)

Phantom Menace vs. Batman and Robin

Midichlorians vs. armored thongs

We all know that few things rival a full-on nerdgasm for sheer, frothy power, the kind of perfect storm achieved while watching Captain America and Iron Man go at it in "The Avengers" or waxing poetic about why "Lord of the Rings" is the greatest thing ever.

One of those rival feelings, however, is a full-on nerd rage. Talk about sheer frothy power! I sometimes think we like tearing things down more than we do building them up, which is a shame because it makes us like the rest of humanity. And that's a downer.

Two geek films in particular have, over the years, taken up a pre-eminent position in the pantheon of nerd anger: "The Phantom Menace" and "Batman and Robin". What I'm interested in is not so much bashing either of these movies (that's been done to death), but rather why these two in particular are such hot buttons. I mean, there are plenty of other "franchise destroying" films out there, from "Superman III" to "X-Men 3". They come in for their share of revilement, sure, but nowhere near the level of the other two.

And it's not even like either of these actually destroyed their franchises. The last time I checked, both Batman movies and Star Wars projects were doing just fine, thank you very much.

So my question for you is really two-fold. First, which of these two did the most damage to their franchise in your eyes. And second, WHY? Why do you take it personally in a way you haven't for other wretched geek movies?

Also, let me apologize in advance to frequent commenter Nick. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, I'm honestly curious as to what elevates a film from not being just another bad movie, but to something almost personally offensive. It's fascinating to me.

[polldaddy poll="6250306"]

I didn't know Conan could even draw a map

(From "Target Comics" volume 2, number 1, 1941.)