HeroMachine 3.0 begins

Today I am officially starting on HeroMachine 3.0; I even created a folder for it on my hard drive, so you know it’s serious!

It will be built on the same code base as the recent Warrior and Horror Minis, meaning it will have all of those features (scalability, custom colors, line colors, movable items, rotation, transparency, multiple items in a slot) and more. During the discussion of those minis, I kept a list of feature requests that seemed like particularly good ideas, and I am listing them below. Take a look and let me know any other stuff you’d like to see HM3 have.

  • Magnifying glass zoom feature
  • Pre-set pose/body style buttons to recreate classic builds.
  • Preview mode.
  • “clone” button
  • On the scaling tool, a button “keep proportion” would be useful.
  • Pop up asking if you really want to delete ALL items.

I’ve still got some work to finish on both the Zombie Mini and the general Horror Mini but hopefully that’ll be done in the next two weeks, and can go on concurrently with the HM3 stuff.

I’m very excited, and I have high hopes that this will all come together very quickly!

Random Panel: Bygones

skyman-1-brooding

Contest 41 Winner: Thunder

John D and I have finished his commission for winning Caption Contest 41, of his character “Thunder”:

You can get your own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like by winning Caption Contest 44, going on right now!

Random Panel: I'll take "Subtle racial slurs" for $1000, Alex

indian-girl

KARRUNT

I’m not saying Adam Warlock is getting smushed by a giant stone vagina here:

warlock-4-karunt

I’m just saying, if you’re NOT getting smushed by a giant stone vagina, you’ve got no business going “KARRUNT” with those kinds of visual effects on it.

Also, I would pay cash money for a comic book featuring as its main character a Thing-like ambulatory pile of hard-hitting stone genitalia. Because that would be awesome.

Random Panel: I think "pull a hitler on the clown" is a great euphamism for something.

mystery-v4-1-pullahitler

(Mystery Comics, vol.4, no. 1, 1941.)

Retroview: Comic Book Villains (2002)

Comic Book Villains DVD coverI recently rented 2002’s “Comic Book Villains” and I hated it, not because I felt insulted by their depiction of anyone who loves comic books and super heroes as pathetic, anti-social losers, but because I think entertainment in any medium should be a) entertaining and b) not crap.

“Comic Book Villains” failed on both scores.

Poorly written, poorly plotted, haphazardly acted, and offensive when not insufferably stupid, I found very little to like in this movie aside from a couple of good performances from actors who, frankly, should have known better than to take this job.

The plot was insipid, as if the worst parts of super-hero villains were tossed into a blender and only the most inane of their world-beating schemes allowed to escape. Nothing anyone did at any point made sense if you thought about it for more than a second. The characters’ motivations were confused and at times self-contradictory.

I got the feeling the director couldn’t decide what this movie was supposed to be, whether it was a dark comedy or a drama or an outright farce or what. Ultimately I was left with a feeling like “Fargo” had gone under the knife for unsuccessful reconstructive surgery, and what I was left with was a shambling horror with awful bits of its predecessor grafted onto its grotesque corpse.

OK, that’s probably a bit over the top, but I really found myself getting angry while watching “Comic Book Villains” because it had many elements of a good movie. And none of them ever bore fruit. It was a very frustrating experience, and I can’t recommend this film to anyone. For any reason.

Random Panel: Lost, armless lepers in the subway is quite a call …

mystery-v4-1-armlesslepers

Mustang Sally deconstructed

I thought you might like to see how an illustration is put together. After the jump I’ll post an edited image I created while putting together Ian’s prize for winning Caption Contest 42.

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Contest 42 Prize: Mustang Sally

Ian and I have completed work on his prize for winning Caption Contest 42, a character named “Mustang Sally” from his forthcoming novel:

mustangsally

Your chance to win your own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like is going on now, with Caption Contest 44, so head on over and try your luck!

Edited to add: Original HeroMachine version after the jump if you’re interested.
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