Random Panel: Why Heff no longer invites Billy Batson to his pool parties

agc-3-1942-shazam-vs-impants

(From "America's Greatest Comics" number 3, 1942.)

Final Friday Night Fights I Results

Congratulations to the winner of the first ever HeroMachine Friday Night Fights contest -- Kaldath! Here's his final winning entry for posterity:

Kaldath wins a custom color illustration by yours truly of whatever he likes. Each of his rounds was a blowout, so either he's just that awesome, or he has lots of friends who like to vote, or a combination of the two. Well done, sir! For those of you who don't know, Kaldath also won the very first HeroMachine character design contest a while back.

To further honor his success, here are his other three winning FNF entries (click to see at their original size).

Week 1, Super-Hero (Ramses):

super-ramses

Week 2, Sci-Fi (General Falgar):

scifi-general-falgar

Week 3, Fantasy (Jenel-LaDamor-DeCaye):

fantasy-jenel-ladamor-decaye2

 

Our runner up, and the winner of a black and white custom character illustration, is none other than Imp! As always, his characters showed a lot of originality and excellence. Here are his four entries:

Week 1, Super-Hero (Crescent):

super-crescent

Week 2, Sci-Fi (Rough Night at the Office):

scifi-rough-night-at-the-office

Week 3, Fantasy (Barbarian Queen):

fantasy-barbarian-queen

Week 4, Open (Little Death Machine):

open-little-death-machine

Both of you guys were definitely worthy finalists, I am pleased as punch at the high quality of your entire slate of characters. Thanks to you both for sharing your creativity with us!

The same goes for so many of the other fourteen competitors as well. This wasn't an easy challenge, and there were some truly inspirational illustrations submitted. I salute each of you.

I did, however, want to particularly single out Zyp, who won the "West Coast Avengers" Open contest with his absolutely fantastic "Inferne":

I mean no slight to the other great entries, but this may be the best thing I have ever seen come out of HeroMachine. Zyp wins any item or a portrait to appear in the final HeroMachine 3 version.

Congratulations to Kaldath, Imp, and Zyp, as well as to all the great folks who participated! Hopefully we can have another set of Friday Night Fights after the holiday. Until then, keep creating!

Random Panel: Great moments in marketing fail

agc-3-1942-nothing

(From "America's Greatest Comics" number 3, 1942.)

Laying it all out

Hammerknight put together a series of comic book templates you could use in a paint program like Photoshop or MS Paint or whatnot to assemble your own issue out of your HeroMachine characters. Thanks once again, big guy! After the jump you'll find layouts for the cover and multiple different pages. Just click on any one to get a full-size version which you can save to your local hard drive.

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Random Panel: Great moments in bad super names

agc-3-1942-weeweeweehome

(From "America's Greatest Comics" number 3, 1942.)

Iron Man 2 Trailer

For those of you who have not yet seen it, the new trailer for the May 2010 "Iron Man 2" movie is out. I have only one word for it:

SCHWING!

The fall of Britain

Once the mightiest empire in the world, Great Britain's fortunes have ebbed and flowed over the centuries, so it's only appropriate that their national super hero has as well. I don't know that any character, however, has hit the extremes in terms of costume design like Captain Britain has. He started out pretty bad, with this muddle of an outfit:

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Random Panel: Unorthodox martial arts from WWII

agc-3-1942-tacklingnazis

(From "America's Greatest Comics" number 3, 1942.)

Character Contest 23 Winners!

I think maybe the holidays have gotten everyone a bit busy, as there weren't a ton of entries this week. In light of that, I wanted to thank those who DID submit an illustration by highlighting one design by each of them. So here go our highlights!

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Random Panel: It looks like it was an “ass-teroid”

agc-3-1942-assteroid

(From "America's Greatest Comics" number 3, 1942.)