Damien the Editing Widget had arrived!

(I’m happy to welcome the first guest contributor to the site, the guy you’ve known as Damien who puts together those wild and crazy characters. I’m delighted to have him on board helping out and hope you’ll welcome him with open arms! — Jeff)

You all know me as Damien, and I’ve been hanging around here for a while now, longer than some. I recently undertook a project on my own time to help Jeff out with Hero Machine by going through posts from January ’08 through March ’09, cataloging comments for HM items from almost every post he made over the last year and a fourth. The result was a comprehensive and organized list of what you all wanted, with the most popular requests marked out. When Jeff asked me what I wanted in return, I told him.

I wanted to keep doing it.

So here I am, a sort of Web Assistant. I like the name Editing Widget, because it sounds weird and because it describes what I’d be doing–namely helping to moderate link posts, answering questions, writing the occasional column, and whatever else he happens to need done. We’re even discussing some streamlining on things like item suggestions and program bugs. I asked for this because I enjoy having the power of life and–I mean contributing to this community that has lifted and supported me, and contributing to this program which has helped launch an attempted writing career. I’ll be able to do so much to help, and to me, that was the only prize worth asking for.

[Well, I could have asked for a cool custom illustration, but this lasts longer 🙂 .]

HM3: Ranged update

With thanks to Violodion for pointing out the problem, I have updated the ItemRightRanged set by making the patterns and masks align properly in the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. As always, holler if the fix broke something else.

Random Panel: Low moments in side-kickery

exciting-comics-20-1942-baby

(From “Exciting Comics” number 20, 1942.)

Poll Position: Resistance is to be hoped for

Much like the Los Angeles Lakers, the Borg in Star Trek come in two varieties: Pure, unadulterated, horrifying, assimilating, nasty, relentless evil and complete wusses who you still hate just on principle. To be clear, this week’s Poll Position is dealing with the former:

{democracy:85}

Because when you’ve got a creation as creepy and awesome as The Borg, you owe it to yourself to not let them become completely emasculated, impotent weenies, and if you have to invade some other person’s much healthier (read: violent) creation to make that happen, then so be it. Discussion after the jump.

Continue reading

Random Panel: It's my birthday!

gay-birthday

HM3: More ranged items

I’ve just made the updated “ItemRightRanged” set for the HM3 Alpha available, which includes a lot of the suggestions from Solander and others, primarily in the “Thrown Items” sort of category. It also includes the prize for our first Character Contest winner, Imp, who requested:

Okay, how about this: a bow that looks like a bat – the arms would be the ‘wings’, with a kind of webbed look – sort of like a more intricate, stylized Batman symbol.

It’s the last item in the set, and here’s what the lineart looks like:

batbow2

Congratulations to Imp, and I should get to those other prizes … soon. Yeah.

Random Panel: That's the X-Ray Tech, sir …

exciting-comics-8-1941-atomic-force-waves

Random Panel: Too … many … JOKES …

exciting-comics-18-1942-big

(From “Exciting Comics” number 18, 1942.)

HM3: Take a bow

I’ve just update the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the “ItemRightRanged” set, featuring all manner of bows with a couple of arrows, a boomerang, a sling, and a javelin “thrown” in for good measure.

If you have specific bows you want included that you don’t see, let me know. Your best shot at getting an item included (besides winning one of the character contests!) is to put a link to an image of what you want in your request, like Solander did. That’s no guarantee, but it’s a lot easier on me if I have an actual reference to look at.

Hope you like the new set of items! Next up is probably Shields, as it ought to be easy to knock those out.

Note that I won’t be converting these all over to “ItemLeft” til I get all the sets done. In the meantime, “flip” is your friend.

HM3: More glasses

With many thanks to Solander for an awesome set of links in the comments to the last “glasses” post, I have updated HeadgearGlasses with seven new items, including a monocle, a really nifty “x” set of sunglasses, a steampunk mask thingie, and several more. Hope you like ’em!