Category Archives: Challenges

Your challenge this week is to come up with the funniest replacement dialog for this classic Batman panel:

I don't know why Batman wore a disguise over his costume instead of, say, just taking off his costume, but I guess when you're the GD Batman you can do whatever you want. And why kill Robin while he's in his costume, for that matter -- if he washes up you've not only got a murder investigation on your hands, but some explaining to do as to why Dick Grayson was dressed up as the Caped Crusader's little buddy.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. For this contest, note that you have two separate dialog bubbles, so you'll need to fill them both in your entry, like so:

Balloon 1: See if you still think this coat makes my butt look big ...
Balloon 2: From the bottom of the ocean!

Otherwise the rules are the same -- keep it clean, put your entry or entries in the comments to this post, and have them in by next Monday. The winner will receive his or her choice of either any item they like, or a portrait, either of which will appear in the final HeroMachine 3 version.

Good luck everyone!

Sometimes regionally-themed characters can be great (hello Alpha Flight!) and sometimes they can blow chunks (hello Great Lakes Avengers!), but therein lies your challenge for this week: Create a character (or characters) based on the Southern United States, the fabled Dixieland of old, stretching from Louisiana to South Carolina, from Florida to Virginia, and all those rolling lands of gentility in between.

Buddy John Hartwell had a group of villains set in an alternate universe where the South won the Civil War, and it was a real hoot. I suspect that prompted him to suggest this idea and I am glad he did! The Sketch of the Day for today featured Gumbo, just as an example of something along the lines of what I am thinking, a character with Southern roots whose public identity is linked to their home in some way.

The rules are the same as usual:

• All entries must be posted to a publicly accessible server like the UGO forums, PhotoBucket.com, ImageShack.com, or what have you;
• A link to the JPG or PNG (please, no BMPs, they're too big) hosted on that server;
• Next Monday I will pick the winner, the image that best conveys the concept of a character from the US South, and its creator will win a choice of either any item or any portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 version.

Good luck everyone!

Edited To Add for Clarity:The South isn't a list of states, it's not borders on a map, and it's not the Confederacy. It's a culture, based in a geographic area yes, but much more than that. It's gentility and manners and steel magnolias and chivalry and heat and mint juleps and sweet iced tea and race relations written right into your bones. Worrying about whether a STATE is in The South or not is to miss the point entirely.

Cowboys are not Southern. Ted Turner's TBS network, while based in Georgia (which IS Southern), is not Southern itself. Cattle rustling is not Southern. Dallas is not Southern. Tex Mex is not Southern. Pizza with artichokes on it is not Southern. This isn't a "Civil War" contest, it's a REGIONAL CULTURE contest, and the regional culture in question is THE SOUTH.

If you want to enter someone called The Texas Tornado, go right ahead and staple a copy of the Articles of Confederation to his forehead if it makes you happy, but I'm telling you right now he's going to lose.

For my money, accounting for Veronica's scream of outrage posed the most difficult challenge in the panel for Caption Contest 80:

I thought the following six people did the best job of accounting for all of the various bits of the image, while managing to make it funny as well. Great job!

Vote for as many of these as you think are worthy of a win, and click on any image to see it at the original, larger size. The panel with the most votes as of whenever I check it next Monday will win for its creator the choice of either any item, or a portrait, to be included in the final release of HeroMachine 3.

Good luck!

A little different direction this week, but if you can come up with the best, funniest dialog in this Archie panel, you'll win your choice of any item or portrait to be included in HeroMachine 3's full release:

The rules are simple:

• Your entry or entries must be left in a comment (or comments) to this post;
• Keep it clean, appropriate for late-night broadcast television;
• Get your entry in by next Monday, when I will pick the finalists for everyone to vote on.

That's it! So put on your Jughead-style thinking cap and let the jokes fly! No limit on entries this week, but please be a good self-editor and don't post everything that crosses your mind -- only put up the good ones!

I could not have been more pleased with the excellent turnout for the "Dinomarines" contest, you all really outdid yourselves. And I appreciate Jack Zegler reminding me of one of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes panels, proving some ideas are timeless:

One of the challenges when I came up with this idea was that I didn't have any particular origin or overall theme in mind for just what in the heck a "Dinomarine" was. It was immensely gratifying, therefore, to see a number of great ideas along those lines, but one in particular stood out and I think should be the "official" backstory to our team. It's from Galactic Ketchup and explains who these guys are and why they exist:

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