I feel like the blog is in need of some fresh material or new blood or something. Are there feature ideas you'd like to see? Anything you are sick of and want to retire? How would you feel about my adding one or more additional co-bloggers to produce entertaining material for you all, and what sorts of things would you want to see them cover?
Basically I'm trolling for new ideas and plan on stealing your brilliance to present as my own. It's a win-win! Well, technically a win-lose, but ... look, squirrel!
Sounds good to me bro. I personally would like to see more versus, and more in depth coverage of up and coming hero movies if possible. Other then that everything looks awesome. You really have a great site here.
I think that the Hero Of the Month Poll from the Forum that HammerKnight Handles Should be featured on the Main Blog page. I had considered making a monthly if not weekly contribution to the blog, but I am not sure what it would be and would have to give it some thought.
Perhaps more ‘open thread’ type posts (maybe alternating weeks with another feature) where we can discuss general geek stuff, like whether ‘Marvel NOW!’ (exclamation mark included) is Marvel thinking ‘hmm, DC’s reboot boosted their sales, maybe we should try that too!’ or not, or the latest episode of Doctor Who.
Or, you could start it with a few sentences about some geeky topic to prompt the rest of us into discussion of said thing.
Another idea I’ve just had is maybe alternating Bad Costume Wednesday with ‘Good Costume Wednesday’ or something along the lines of highlighting either a great costume or an amazing bit of comic art. There are plenty of great costumes and fantastic covers and panels sequences, and while mockery is always fun, it would be nice to showcase some of the truly amazing stuff that can be done in the medium of comics.
How about a comic book review? Movie reviews are hard because of spoilers. How about ” these are my influences…” type of entry were you pick someone’s likes or dislikes. I guess that would be the Power User Profile thing. How about a rebirth of that? Instead of pooping on bad costumes, how about the coolest threads?
I agree with Kaldath on the Hero of the Month poll would be a cool addition.
…and now that I read Trekkie’s post, which I just repeated, everything he said….
That’s a good idea!
And another!
So to be clear, if you specifically have an idea for a column or post(s) you want to write, I am all for that too. If you don’t want to post it publicly here, you can email me directly.
I’d be willing to participate in a regular “Ask a Writer” feature if there’s any interest on that.
I like the idea of bringing the Hero of the Month poll to the Main Blog. Good Costume, yes.
Some guest / featured bloggers would be good. Those interested toss their hats in the ring, Jeff reviews their blogs for appropriateness, then posts. Best would be Jeff sends and e-mail to someone with a deadline. If the blogger declines or misses the deadline, just move to the next in line. A regular rotation would mean we would have at minimum two blogs a month.
I would like to see collaborations where HM’ers are paired to design characters. One could write the origin or backstory, the other designs the character. Or, one designs the hero, the other the villain / sidekick / love interest / etc.
On that note, I like the idea of a HM community contributed story, whether it be down the one half – Jeff or a contributing writer (or even submissions from the mass themselves) posts say, three written options for a character background, and everyone votes on it; and then the next week everybody has a go at creating that character in HM. The design with the most votes becomes that characters image, and then week by week we continue to flesh out the story from there.
Heck, we could feasibly create a legit community comic with the shared ideas from everyone who contributes. HeroMachine: A Graphic Novella.
How about bringing back the Writing blog, where people post up their writings for people to review and give helpful advice, like the Open Critique day but mainly for writing
I have a few features you could add, 1) Double Mask- It would allow you to mask say Two swords to the same thing like a shield.
2) Mad Fold in – It could be cool for long or wide items.
3) Scissors
4) White out- say you want only part of a patern
I’d love to see an occasional feature where various established comic artists are profiled, e.g., Kirby, Ditko,
Liefeld, Infantino, Toth, to name a few, with examples of their work thru their careers, the context of their work for historical perspective, commentary on their style, techniques and “tricks of the trade” etc., maybe a bio –generally what it was that made them distinctive.It’s not something I could write, God knows, but I know I’d be interested, and it’s in keeping with HM’s raison d’etre.
As a variant on the Pop Quiz, you could call for something that doesn’t look rational at all, but fills a concept with the concept as title. 5 pieces or fewer only. Examples: silhouette of a witch masked with sand for a ‘sandwich.’ titled HerrD-sandwich OR a pet in a prescription bottle as HerrD-bloodpressurelowering because petting a dog supposedly helps with that.
I’d like to see discussions of what powers people think are overdone, what heroes people think are too different from the original, what stories people think have been rebooted too much, subjects not covered enough by geeky movies, what you think is missing from movies /books /comics /geek material that you’d like to see, how extreme powers should be allowed in what circumstances. How ‘lite and airy’ vs how ‘dark or gothic’ and why. What do you think about risk assessment by the publishing industry . . .
Perhaps, with a longer deadline, you could randomly pick 20 members for a specific comic page–each frame a submission. On accepting the challenge, they may solicit advice or help from anyone with the stipulation that all communication must be in the thread itself.
I’m sure an open inquiry by noobs about any specific pic in hm “How the $%^^@ did you DO that?” would be well received or a general “did you know what they’re doing over there” entry.
I’ll probably come up with more later.
rrrrmmm–with notice, I could come up with a guest column occasionally, but my schedule makes the discussion venue awkward. Generic writer, artist, multimedia advice or wacky and slightly surreal prose would be my speciality. I have no industry advice as I am currently disconnected from it. –not even ghostwriting right now.
Refresh the Hall of fame, please! There are a lot of wonderful works, but they didn’t go to the history.
Well you already know my ideas from that post the other day. I dont want to step on any toes but I wouldnt be heart broken if we got rid of RPG and I would like to see more art in hall of fame, I know you have done that already, and would like to see more PUP.