The Nerdmudgeon Podcast
Three middle-aged nerds (including yours truly!) review all of the MCU movies in chronological order. Short, funny, and full of good vibes, check it out and let us know what you think!
Nerdmudgeon.com
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Random Panel: So that's why my body never gets chosen. Thanks Dad.
Comments Off on Random Panel: So that's why my body never gets chosen. Thanks Dad.
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Caption Contest 12 Prize
xStacy and I have completed the prize for the Caption Contest 12 winner. The description was:
Female, light hair, in standard gunslinger gear--boots, jeans, shirt, tied-down revolver, duster, a Confederate cavalry hat--with a fan of five cards in her left hand. Maybe facing off with a giant tarantula or two somewhere in the Arizona desert.
I wasn't able to work in the giant tarantulas, but here's what I did come up with:
Thanks to Stace for coming up with a cool concept. And don't forget, if you want to win your very own custom illustration, you can try your hand with Caption Contest 13: Naked Guy Edition going on right now!
Comments Off on Caption Contest 12 Prize
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, Cool Characters
Printing fix
Thanks to several alert readers, HeroMachine 2.5 Online has been updated so that the entire character, including the name box if visible, will print out on one sheet. Previously the new "ad" format had chopped the character off at the ankles when printed.
The solution was inelegant, at best. I introduced a dialog box in the app when the print button is pressed. The character area is shrunk down while it's up and processing the print request. Whenever the character is done printing (i.e. when you've clicked the OK button on your system print dialog box), you can clear the HeroMachine dialog box and the character resizes correctly.
Kludgey, but it works.
This is actually an improvement over the original release in terms of the actual printing, as the bottom edge of the name box was always chopped off before. So that's nice.
Let me know if you see any problems with it.
Comments Off on Printing fix
Posted in Bug Reports & Fixes, News & Updates
Frozen moments and sound
A good onomontoPOWia doesn't have to be flashy or obnoxious; sometimes subtle works better, as in this example from "Hitman" number 9 (DC Comics):
This panel encapsulates a lot of what makes comics as a medium so powerful and unique. It captures the moment of maximum effect incredibly well, by which I mean that you see everything at its most dramatic possible instant. Look at the policeman in the back -- if he leans any further to his left he'd fall over. He's been captured at the very moment of maximum movement.
So is the female detective's punch. In the very next moment the arm will begin to swing back away from the reader, momentum slowed and its power completely spent. Were she drawn with the fist earlier in the punch, there would still be too much energy to come, spent on potential rather than kinetic visual impact.
And of course, the tooth. Captured just as it's about to leave the panel completely, trailing blood making for motion lines, almost leaping from the page.
In this context, of a timeless moment of intense drama with every movement captured at maximum intensity, the "KRAK!" in intense red, filled with sharp angles and an aggressively pointed "A" is the perfect cherry on top, the extra garnish on the plate that makes the meal. Anything more would be too much, anything less would be disappointment. Sound can only exist in time, and yet it's been captured here in static form. When you put that time-dependent element into a tableaux that is frozen time, the contrast is uniquely "comics".
And uniquely onomontoPOWia.
Comments Off on Frozen moments and sound
Posted in OnomontoPOWia
Random Panel: Things you shouldn't say on a date
Comments Off on Random Panel: Things you shouldn't say on a date
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Dr. Strangeporn
I'm the last person in the world to complain about an artist using reference photos for their comic book layouts, because I do it all the time. But women in comics are treated poorly enough without having your entire reference file consist of images from "Playboy", as appears to have happened in the pages of Doctor Strange (issues 10-14):
Comments Off on Dr. Strangeporn
Posted in Bad Super Costumes, Super-Hero Stuff
Random Panel: The day Michael Jackson came to town
Comments Off on Random Panel: The day Michael Jackson came to town
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Bugs Bunny super heroes
I am pretty sure I saw something like this in a Bugs Bunny / Daffy Duck cartoon:
Apparently, though, this guy is "Chondu the Mystic", whose origin seems as mashed-up as his body. He's "The Mystic" because he dabbled in the arcane, but science transplanted his brain into one of the Defenders. Later of course (of course!) magic once again stepped in to re-transplant his brain into the body of a fawn (Dr. Strange is a right cold bastard sometimes), and it was only later that his former friends re-re-transplanted his brain into the current monster form. Whether that last was through science or magic is unclear, which is saying something given the insanity that has already been described.
In the high-falutin' world of art criticism (and stop me if this language gets too technical for you), this character design is what we would call "Bad". Generally you want to keep it simple, pick a theme and stick with it, but sometimes when you're on deadline and you're riding the Heroin Horse, you get a result like this.
More likely, someone created a "Comic Book Affirmative Action Committee" and they were given the task of putting together a character who could stand for the traditionally underrepresented parts of the animal kingdom. Thus:
- Equines: Unicorn horn, check.
- Reptiles: Snake tongue, check.
- Bowels of Hell: Demon wings, check.
- Avians: Eagle legs, check.
- Sea Life: Lamprey arms, multiple, check check check check check check check check. (Seriously, lampreys for arms?!)
I'm fairly disappointed that they kept humans as the Mammalian representative here; surely the powerful Bacterial Lobby could have done more to make their case.
(Image and character © Marvel Comics.)
Comments Off on Bugs Bunny super heroes
Posted in Bad Super Costumes, Super-Hero Stuff
Random Panel: Get me some jaggedy lines, STAT!
Comments Off on Random Panel: Get me some jaggedy lines, STAT!
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Caption Contest 13: Naked Guy edition
Come up with the most creative caption for this captured comic and win your very own custom black and white illustration by a professional artist of whatever you like (within reason)!
As always, the rules are 1) keep it suitable for a broadcast sitcom, 2) a limit of three entries per person, and 3) leave your entry in the comments to this post.
A sample entry might be:
panel1: So this is how you like your wall art, eh?
panel2: Yes, well hung.
Good luck everyone!
Comments Off on Caption Contest 13: Naked Guy edition
Posted in Challenges
