Monthly Archives: May 2009

Star Trekkin'

Like a girdle-encased middle-aged gut topped by a ridiculous toupee kicking you in the face, JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" delivers the goods in spectacular, satisfying fashion.

The Good: The casting, the action, the acting, the spirit, the fun, and the special effects all come through with flying colors. The Holy Trinity -- Kirk, Spock, and McCoy -- in particular deliver performances that are truly inspired by (rather than a copy of) the original cast.

The Bad: The story is more full of holes than a Caddyshack golf course. Luckily it's enough fun that you don't really care.

The Ugly: Eric Bana's bland, utterly forgettable role as bad guy Nero.

More to follow after the jump (spoilers abound!).

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Random Panel: Legion after hours

superboy-mon-el

(Characters and image ©DC Comics, Inc.)

HM3: A few new body parts

I updated BodyMaleStandard for the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with a few new body parts just now:

newbodybits

They are a better forearm held across the body; arms extended straight out from the sides; crossed arms; a different set of arms held like the hands are on the hips; a new "show off your guns" flexed arm; some slightly different "one foot forward" legs; a pudgier torso; the flexed arm from the Zombie set; and a fitted skeleton. Hope you find them useful.

HM3: Pattern changes

I've just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with some bug fixes:

  • Made it so that you can apply Patterns to Hands and still mask Items into them -- no more full-screen free-floating grayscale patterns when what you really wanted was scales on the hand to match the forearm.
  • Changed the size of the mask on the Hands, so that long objects like swords or staffs shouldn't get nipped in half when placed and masked.
  • Changed the size of the default grayscale patterns (the ones in the Patterns tab) so they fill the whole screen. You can see this most easily when using the long cape in Backplane-Standard, previously all of the patterns would abruptly end about three inches before they got to the bottom of the cape. Now they go all the way down.
  • Changed the "Tiger Stripe" pattern rather significantly, lowering the alpha value to 40% instead of 70% and using a completely new drawing for them, hoping to make them look better.
  • Minor change to Save/Load, hoping to fix the layering problem. Let me know if this still happens -- I don't have high hopes I fixed it, but we'll see.

Let me know if you see any weirdness.

Also, a warning -- this isn't supposed to do anything bad to your previously saved characters, but I can't guarantee that. In general, until we get to a full release (or at least a solid beta), you should always make a JPG or PNG of any character you don't want to lose. I may have to significantly change something at some point that will effectively destroy your old saved characters. I don't PLAN on that, but you never know -- that's why it's still an alpha.

Random Panel: Reason #56 not to join the Army — you might bunk with THIS guy

exciting-comics-13-1941-dummy

(From "Exciting Comics" number 13, 1941.)

No heavier burden than a bad costume

There's a reason Pampers doesn't make leopard-skin diapers, and besides a complete lack of absorption that reason is this:

originalatlas-choice-comics-1

Because even babies wouldn't be caught dead looking that ridiculous.

Not so "Atlas" from "Choice Comics #1". I guarantee that somewhere the god who gave him the idea for his powers is about to hit the "Smite" button.

Why? First, putting green, red, yellow, black, and orange all in the same costume ought to be a hanging offense. Combine that with long sleeves over no pants and it should change to a shooting, then hanging offense. Top it all off with a big huge stiff collar and no cape, and you've got a crime against fashion that can only be expiated by tacking on a trampling by hillbillies on their way to a ten minute dollar sale at the Wal-Mart, then a shooting, and finally a hanging for good measure.

My favorite part, though, is how proud Atlas is of his big red belt and its enormous yellow "A". I imagine he's barely learned his letters, having just mastered the first one, and he wants to show it off.

So to recap, we have a color-blind illiterate wearing animal-print diapers and no pants, who forgot to attach his cape to his popped collar, which is a shame since it would have hidden the chest logo the nice man at the Logos-R-Us store promised was a fist but which is, in fact, a thinly veiled call to party with Hannah and her Five Sisters. And they wonder why the comic never took off.

Character Contest 4: Angels and Demons

With thanks to DJ for the idea, our next character creation contest tips the hat to Ron Howard's new film "Angels and Demons". And to honor the author of the original novel, Dan Brown, if you write a story to go along with your image you must make it as full of turgid prose and idiotic plotting as possible.

Sorry, sometimes that English degree can't be restrained.

Your entry must in some way be related to angels or demons, but don't think that means only the big feathery winged dudes or giant red monsters with horns and bat-limbs. Be creative, and above all, make a cool looking character.

The rules are simple:

  1. Make a character related to the contest theme;
  2. Leave a link to the character in the comments to this post, on a site that doesn't require a login to view (although the UGO Forums are fine);
  3. Any version of HeroMachine is fine;
  4. No PhotoShopping.

That's pretty much it! The winner will get to choose either one item to be included in HeroMachine 3, or they can have a caricature of their face added to the program for all eternity.

Good luck everyone!

Random Panel: On the mean streets of San Fran

exciting-comics-13-1941-toughneighborhood

(From "Exciting Comics" number 13, 1941.)

Character Contest 3: Robot Winner

First, I'm sorry to be so late posting this. It's been such a long day that it's actually tomorrow already. Or something. I hate time travel.

Second, THANK YOU for all the great entries! With almost 100 comments, that was one of the best responses ever, and the quality of the entries was very, very high. If you don't see yours listed as a finalist, that's probably just because I ran out of space, because I could easily have included a dozen more really stellar examples.

Anyway, on with your finalists!

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Random Panel: Other cultures are sure weird

exciting-comics-13-1941-hinducustom

(From "Exciting Comics" number 13, 1941.)