This week’s Sharing Day topic is simple:
Why is the story behind your online pseudonym (either here or one that you use the most often elsewhere)?
I bet you can guess where mine — “HeroMachine” — comes from, can’t you! I’ve also gone by “Grunch” before, which is a name I made up for a character in my aborted fantasy novel.
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. I’m travelling back to Durango today, so my access and responsiveness depends on how the WiFi is at various airports, so if it’s tomorrow before I get back to you, my apologies.
I look forward to hearing your stories!
Posted in Sharing Day
(From “Badge of Justice:” number 2, 1955.)
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Apparently there’s no Macy’s in post-Apocalyptic America, because given the chance we opted to run to the nearest store as soon as possible in our ongoing Freeway Warrior quest. In fact, maybe we should rename it Freeway Shopping Warrior, since we seem to spend a lot of time hunting sales rather than bad guys.
Bullets, wahoo! And a hammer. If this were the Eighties I’d be tempted to say it’s “Hammer Time”, but I suspect the supply of low-lying sequined pantaloons is at an all-time low right about now.
Good ol’ Uncle Jonas, always there with a well-timed aphorism that makes you want to stab him in the eye with a fork. Although, let’s be honest, he was probably the last surviving member of the Jonas Brothers band, and I bet he did so via the liberal use of a fork on his erstwhile bandmates, Donner-style.
Yes, that’s a cannibalistic pop music joke. You can’t BUY this kind of entertainment, folks!
Continuing our musical interlude, it’s radio! This is one of the few times the adventure feels a bit dated, because frankly radio died long before the apocalypse. Not that Mr. Dever could have known that was coming in 1988, busy as he was planning to have Mr. Grant for dinner. Ahem.
Posted in RPG Corner
(From “Badge of Justice” number 2, 1955.)
Posted in Daily Random Panel
I’m not sure why patterns on super-hero capes went out of fashion after WWII. But I feel pretty sure I can understand why star-shaped masks didn’t catch on, as you can clearly see from Captain Courageous:
It looks like Aquaman is playing a practical joke on him by commanding one of his undersea friends to give him a wet, sloppy French kiss. You should love your allies, but don’t, you know, “love” your allies, Captain.
The patterned cape seems off-putting to modern sensibilities since you hardly ever see them any more. I suspect part of the reason is that they’re simply too busy, taking attention away from the main figure. But also, I bet they’re really hard to draw properly, considering how much capes get whipped around. You’ll notice in this illustration how stiff it looks, partly out of the necessity to keep the stars all aligned.
The mask ultimately is what dooms this ensemble, however. I don’t care what a big fan of Starro you are, you can’t go out in your fan boy cosplay headgear, folks. Especially when you’re beating up Nazis — this ain’t Dragon*Con, folks!
Posted in Bad Super Costumes
Sorry so late today everyone, I’m still adjusting to the new schedule & job. But I think this is a good one!
(As you can see, I don’t have PhotoShop installed on my work computer yet, so this is the best I could cobble together.)
This is a great instance of magic vs science. Can a light saber cut through magic-forged steel? Will the terror powers of the Dark Lords overawe the training of the Dark Jedi? Will the awesome facial tattoos of the Sith dominate the faceless masks of the Black Riders?
You decide!
Posted in Versus
(From “Badge of Justice” number 2, 1955.)
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Next up in our Seven Deadly Sins series of character design contests is Greed!
Your design challenge for this week is to create a character or characters based on something related to the second of the Deadly Sins, “greed”. Your character could be named greed, or you could build a mentalist who inspires greed in his or her victims; a classic “dungeon crawl” group of adventurers looking to plunder the nearest goblin cave; a gold-hungry Dragon; the Generalized Recovery / Exploration / Exploitation Device robot; or anything else you could think of related to the desire to own everything.
But really, it’s up to you. Just make a great illustration based on the concept of “greed”.
The rules are the same as usual:
The person with the winning entry as selected by our expert panel (i.e. me) will win their choice of a) a portrait to go in HeroMachine 3, b) an item to go in HeroMachine 3, or c) a custom black and white “Sketch of the Day” style drawing (also by me).
No limit again this week, knock yourselves out.
Good luck, everyone!
Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges
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
