May The 40th Be With You

In case anyone wasn’t aware, today is the 40th anniversary of the release of the first film in the biggest science fiction film series of all time, one of the biggest film series of all time period. One this day in 1977, Star Wars (later dubbed Episode IV: A New Hope) had its theatrical release in US cinemas. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this film, the fact that the franchise is still making billions at the box office with new movies even 40 years after the first film was released says more than any retrospective or analysis ever could.

So Happy Birthday Star Wars. I made you cake, but an Ewok ate it.

Caption Contest #94 Results

Ok guys, so, last week I asked you all to come up with the best replacement dialogue for this here panel:

And our top 5 are:

CantDraw: I’m not a mutant, I just eat a lot of blueberries.

HerrD: Don’t you have any other colors?

Drinkfluid: Ok, why can I see your lasers? This room is completely smoke-free!

Lonewolf6155: I don’t suppose I can convince you guys that you’re looking for another armed blue mutant?

Jack Zelger: Uh… hey, fellas! Anybody a fan of Jennifer Lawrence? How about Rebecca Romijn?

And our winner is…

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Zach Snyder Stepping Down From Justice League Film

It has recently been reported that Superman and Batman vs. Superman director has stepped down from directing the upcoming Justice League film after the death of his daughter in March. The film is in the post-production stage with only a few additonal scenes needing to be shot for the final cut of the film, however Snyder has expressed a need to step back from the film in order to spend time with his family. Avengers director Joss Whedon is to take his place for the final part of the movies production cycle.

Our thoughts and condolences go out to Mr. Snyder and his family during this trying time for them.

Character Design Challenge #323 – RPG Character Classes: Round 1 – Fighters

To be completely honest, my understanding of RPGs and their characters falls just slightly above my knowledge of 20th century Russian politics. A number of folks have floated the idea in the past of an RPG series, so I did a little googling, as you do, and to my surprise I found the lists of classes and characters pretty intriguing.

So to start Round 1, your CDC this week is to write a brief synopsis that explains and describes the world of your RPG, and create a member of the Fighter Class. This is the group that includes Knights, Paladins and Barbarians, among others.

There is no limit on entries this week, so feel free to enter more than once.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warning. Only post characters that have been created solely using Hero Machine, and that you know for certain have never been entered in a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine :,ImageShackPhotoBucket, or whatever);

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • Please name your filesas [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. 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).

This contest will close on Sunday, May 28th at 9:00am Eastern.

Character Design Challenge #322 – Results

Runner up this week goes to Worf. The costume and work on the wings is great!

And the win goes to…

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The King’s Throne

What you see here is the place where virtually the entire Marvel Universe sprang forth from the brush and mind of Jack “King” Kirby:

I love this photo, and I want to tell you why.

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What Were They Thinking?: A Series Of Meaningless Events

Here on What Were They Thinking? (the place where we look at the stupidest, most ill-advised things in comic book history), we tend to look at individual storylines. We have, in the past, looked at the effects of long term business practices, such as the turmoil caused by DC’s New 52 or the battle for control over Archie Comics, but we hardly ever focus on how the creative directions of these companies affect not only their overall output, but their overall perception by the end consumer, i.e. you and I. Both of the Big 2, Marvel and DC have developed unfortunate crutches that they lean heavily on and have leaned on to such an extend over the last 20 years that they’re starting to crack. This week we’re looking at the Marvel Cycle (DC will come next week).

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Spoiler-Free Review

Hey everyone! Well, we’re back to movies again in time for the new offering from Marvel. As I said in my Sabaton concert review, we needed a break so we didn’t go to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opening weekend, but we’ve seen it now so let’s talk about it. As usual, things are spoiler-free! Let’s get to it!

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Caption Contest #94

Ok guys, time for another caption contest, where you have to come with the funniest replacement dialogue for a random comic panel of my choosing. This week you have to replace the dialogue for this panel:

Everyone can have a maximum of 3 entries, entries must be in by next Wednesday (April 24th) and All Entries Must Be PG-13.

Character Design Challenge #322 – The International Legion for Justice: Phase 6.

Major Patriot became aware of Vasily Kuznetsov in late 1942. Born in the Russian town of Uzlovaya to a chemist father and physicist mother, Vasily’s mutation was hidden by his family who feared for his safety. Vasily could sprout gold metallic wings at will and fly at astounding speeds. In 1943 he was recruited by Major Patriot into the ILJ at the age of 16 and adopted the moniker Imperial Eagle

Your challenge this week is to design Imperial Eagle’s ILJ uniform.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warning. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check. 

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine :,ImageShackPhotoBucket, or whatever);

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • Please name your filesas [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. 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).

This contest will close on Sunday, May 21st at 9:00am Eastern.