Great moments in bad ideas

(From "Weird Comics" number 5, 1940.)

Neither black nor knightly

Granted this is incredibly obscure, but I think it illustrates a fundamental principle of super-hero costuming that I had to bring it to your attention. One of the primary rules of designing an outfit for your character should be that your costume should have something -- anything -- to do with your name. Witness the debacle that occurs when you violate this simple rule with the Golden Age villain "The Black Knight":

Note that the costume is neither black nor knightly. At least, most knights I've seen wear metal armor instead of leather, don't sport a full-on executioner's hood (in cheery fire-engine red, no less!), and a cape. Plus, of course, they're not usually afraid of rats.

If you didn't know this guy's name, you'd never guess it from looking at him. And that's not a good thing in the iconic world of super-heroes, folks.

(In my infinite unorganizationalitudiness, I've lost the name of the alert reader who sent this in. Dan? Myro? My apologies and thanks all rolled into one for whoever it was!)

(The kind person who forwarded this on was Frevoli! Many many thanks, Frevoli!)

Thor before he met the God of Tailoring

(From "Weird Comics" number 5, 1940.)

Poll Position: Superman vs. Galactus

With many thanks to frequent commenter McKnight57 for the idea, I present the following "Versus" matchup for your consideration:

What I love about this is that Galactus is (appropriately enough) a galactic-level threat, a being of such immense power that only one item in the Marvel Universe can threaten him. Superman can punch things real hard, but no matter how strong he is, can he really affect someone like Galactus?

On the other hand, Galactus has been defeated on numerous occasions by Earth's super heroes. Granted, those are Marvel guys, but Superman surely is faster, smarter, stronger, and mightier than most of them.

So what do you think, who would win in an all-out confrontation between these two titans of their respective universes?

{democracy:201}

McKnight57's vote counts twice since he's the one who thought of it, by the way.

Now have at it!

I guess just stabbing him was too complicated

(From "Weird Comics" number 5, 1940.)

Character Contest 73: Virgo

This week's Character Design Challenge is a bit late according to the Zodiac calendar, but nonetheless it's time for Virgo!

Yes, your challenge for this week is to design the coolest character image possible with the theme of "Virgo". You could design something reminiscent of famous virgin warriors in history like Diana or Artemis, or you might design a spacecraft named "Virgo", or you might draw inspiration from the historic origins of the name:

In classical mythology two prominent figures associated with the constellation are Erigone and Astraea. Astraea was the Roman goddess of justice and the administration of law. Sickened by the wars of men, she was the last of the celestial beings to leave the earth for the heavens and is often depicted with the wings that allowed her angelic ascension to the stars. It is said that Zeus placed her amongst the stars as the Virgo constellation along with her scales of justice to depict the constellation Libra.

Erigone was the name by which the first century astrologer Marcus Manilius referred to the constellation. As the sign of the harvest, Virgo held strong connections with the time that grapes were gathered for the production of wine and Erigone represents an aspect of this association. She was the daughter of Icarius, who received the secret of wine making from the Wine God, Dionysius, and was murdered by peasants who believed they had been poisoned by his wine. Erigone was led to discover his body by their faithful dog and hanged herself in grief. The gods were moved to pity over the tragedy and transported the family to everlasting glory in the heavens : Icarius became Boötes, Erigone became Virgo, and the dog Maera, the constellation Canis Minor.

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! No more than five (5) entries per person this week, folks, so make 'em count. I think this is one of the tougher signs to do, so I look forward to seeing who can nail it. Although that's probably a poor choice of words ...

Caption Contest 108 Winners

We had a lot of great entries for Caption Contest 108 (Talk Like a Pirate Day). As usual, I've gone through and picked out the ones I thought were the funniest for your enjoyment:

  • Dan Gonzalez: Whaddaya mean the Village People auditions were yesterday!?!
  • alphaalpharomeo: I have Davey Jones Locket
  • Rick: Raid! Pilfer! Makeover!
  • ams: All you can eat shrimp? Set sail to the Red Lobster, maties!!
  • Frevoli: Hand over the Black Pearl! It’d go great with my white gold earring
  • Frevoli: All me movies be rated arrrrrh!
  • Big Mac: I’ll be taking your treasure AND your booty, YARRGH!
  • Vampyrist: Flower Power, bitches.
  • The Atomic Punk: Shiver me timbers and minnie me pearls!
  • Knighthawk: I like big boats and I can not lie!
  • Rendu: Hey, everybody! It’s ‘Talk Like An Office Worker Day’ Let’s all enjoy free donuts in the break room!
  • Galactic Ketchup: Tis I, Captain John Swallow!
  • Sutter_Kaine: Arr! I be barred from coming within 20,000 leagues of an elementary school!

Out of those very strong contenders, I had to pick just one to be the overall winner. It was a tough call, but ultimately I went with ... Knighthawk!

Rendu was a razor-close finisher as well, but I just couldn't get the dialog to fit in the balloon without looking really tight.

Congratulations to Knighthawk and all the other Finalists!

But, that's clearly Sarah Palin!

(From "The Eagle" number 59, 1941.)

I'll take "double entendres" for $1,000 Alex

(From "The Eagle" number 2, 1941.)

This one time, at band camp …

(From "Eagle Comics" number 2, 1941.)