Friday Night Fights 3 Round 3: Mentalist

Posted on October 14, 2011 by | 15 comments

With great pleasure, I present Round Three of Friday Night Fights 3, featuring the following fantastic fights:

As a quick review, there are two head-to-head contests this week. You can vote once in each matchup for your favorite. The winner of each fight will duke it out head-to-head next week for the Championship.

Good luck to our Final Four! Note that you can click on the image in the poll to see it full-size, and that once again results will be hidden until the polls close next Friday at 1 a.m. Mountain Time.

Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Challenges, Friday Night Fights

Friday Night Fights 3 Round 2 Results!

Posted on October 14, 2011 by | 9 comments

The second round of Friday Night Fights 3 has ended and I now proudly present the results! Congratulations to all of our winners, condolences to those who are not advancing, and many thanks to everyone who took the time to enter in the first place. Winners are in bold.

  • Headlessgeneral – Jana: 107, Asder – Hitman: 46
  • Martian Blue – Gale: 116, PapaKrok – Tracer: 30
  • DiCicatriz – Specs: 113, Tarkabarka – Solaria: 36
  • AJW – Corona:17, AMS – Battalion: 134

So advancing to the next round are headlessgeneral, Martian Blue, AMS, and DiCicatriz. Congratulations! And since they are all quarter-finalists, each of them has already won their choice of a custom HM3 item, a portrait of themselves, or their choice of a general subject for me to do a “Sketch of the Day” drawing of.

Here’s how the brackets look:

Our Consolation Round 2 champion, who wins their choice of a new HM3 item, a custom portrait of their face, or a black and white illustration on a theme of their choice, is … Vampyrist – Supernova of “The Exemplars”! Congratulations to him, and thanks again to all of the contenders in this round. Here’s the complete list of results:

Round 3 will be going up in a couple of hours as I set up the polls, upload the characters, and format the post. Thank you for patience, and good luck to everyone going forward!

9 Comments

Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges, Friday Night Fights

Super heroes make lousy handymen

Posted on October 14, 2011 by | 12 comments

(From “Weird Comics” number 9, 1941.)

12 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

The perils of a teenage boy sidekick

Posted on October 13, 2011 by | 6 comments

(From “Weird Comics” number 9, 1941.)

6 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

You ARE the Critic, Black Condor Edition

Posted on October 12, 2011 by | 37 comments

For this week’s “Bad Super Hero Costume” edition, I thought I’d turn it over to you all to provide the critique. Our subject was suggested by Kaldath, and I think it’s a great example. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Black Condor!

In the comments to this post, take your best shot at explaining why this is (or isn’t!) a bad super hero costume. It’s going to be hard to pass up the “jazz hands” look of this specific drawing, but that’s why we’re paying you the big bucks.

Have at it, intrepid fashion reporters!

P.S. It isn’t relevant to the costume necessarily, but it probably bears mentioning that in this guy’s original origin story, he learned how to fly because he hung out with condors. Not magic condors, or alien condors, just regular old endangered species condors. Apparently just living close enough to living beings that have an ability is enough to grant you that ability, although that fails to explain Pauly Shore.

37 Comments

Posted in Bad Super Costumes

ZINGOW!

Posted on October 12, 2011 by | 16 comments

(From “Weird Comics” number 9, 1940.)

16 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

Poll Position: Superman vs … Superman?

Posted on October 11, 2011 by | 41 comments

I thought we’d take a break from “Who can beat the crap out of whom” series of Versus Poll Positions and instead focus on one of our favorite subjects — super-hero fashion! Thus:

{democracy:203}

Here are the major differences as I see them (actors aside):

  1. Cavill’s midnight blue vs. Routh’s more primary tone;
  2. No undies vs. Undies;
  3. Hex texture vs Spandex;
  4. No belt vs. Belt;
  5. Fatter, more traditional “S” logo vs. more angular, smaller logo;
  6. Wrist cuffs vs. No cuffs;
  7. Squared-off collar vs. tighter round collar;
  8. Piping details vs. No piping at all;
  9. Costume-sculpted abs vs. What God Gave ‘im.

For me personally, I think I prefer the Cavill version for one reason — it tells a story. The problem with the “Superman Returns” costume was that it was just a redesign, but it didn’t really tell you anything about the man (or alien) wearing it. When I look at the costume from the upcoming “Man of Steel”, I get at least a general “Kryptonian” vibe from it, which tells me that this is someone trying to retain some vestige of their history, their culture, their heritage. I don’t know in what way or how it will translate into the story, but I get the feeling there’s thought and story behind the choices that were made, and not just “Let’s modern this baby up some”.

But that’s just me, I’d love to hear how you voted and why!

41 Comments

Posted in Versus

Good point

Posted on October 11, 2011 by | 15 comments

(From “Hard Ones” number 1, 2011.)

15 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

Character Contest 74: Libra

Posted on October 10, 2011 by | 132 comments

This week’s Character Design Challenge brings us the conclusion of the Zodiac Cycle with the final sign, Libra!

Libra usually shows as scales, though sometimes that’s joined to the Roman concept of the goddess of justice. You could design a character named Libra, or twins who are diametrically opposed (balancing each other out), or a massive weapons system code-named Libra, or a straight-up set of cool looking scales, or anything else you can think of that fits in any way into the name, concept, or history of Libra. This is your last Zodiac, so be sure to make it count!

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). The rules otherwise are the same as always:

  • All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like ImageShack, PhotoBucket, the UGO Forums, whatever);
  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • The image cannot have been used in any previous HeroMachine character design contest;
  • Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
  • Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). If you see “preview” or “rotate” somewhere in the link you’re probably doing it wrong.
  • All entries must be in by next Monday, when I’ll choose a winner.

Good luck everyone! Since this is the last one, no limit on entries. Knock yourself out!

132 Comments

Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges

Caption Contest 109 Winners!

Posted on October 10, 2011 by | 7 comments

Thanks to everyone who entered Caption Contest 109! We had some great submissions, including this selection of Finalists:

  • TopHat: You’re the one who wanted to meet in ‘Stinky’s Bar’.
  • Twiggyseed: Are you gonna join our gang of horrible neckwear or not?
  • Dan: “They should really start handing out Right Guard at these Comicons.”
  • Watson Bradshaw: Sorry, Willie Nelson scented candles seemed to be a good idea.
  • sean from edwards: Then maybe the sewage treatment plant wasn’t the best place for a wine tasting.
  • TheNate: “You can’t unring the Taco Bell.”
  • TheNate: That’s how it works here. I toot, he shoots.
  • Joel: “Hey, when you called the assassin’s guild you asked or some one silent but deadly.”

Those are all a hoot, but ultimately I decided to go with three-time Caption Contest Winner, TheNate, for a clever and completely appropriate take on a classic saying:

Congratulations to TheNate and all of our Finalists!

7 Comments

Posted in Caption Challenges, Challenge Favorites, Challenges