Poll Position: Giant atomic monsters = love

To celebrate the New Year, I thought we should tip our hat to our Asian neighbors and … oh baloney, I just wanted to think about guys in tights beating the crap out of a giant laser-breathed lizard. Sue me.
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Random Panel: QUANTUM goats, sure, but not regular ones

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Random Panel: Great moments in VERY specific blaster settings

But Captain, mine only has stun and kill!

Watchmen sequel announced!

This just in: “Watchmen” creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons have just signed Rob Liefeld to write and illustrate the sequel to their all-time great graphic novel! I was able to obtain a sneak preview of the upcoming cover:

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I feel the extra costuming elements really add something to the characters; I know I look forward to seeing what’s in all those pouches, at least. And I got so tired of those Gibbons backgrounds, so full of detail and meaning. Give me good old-fashioned color gradients with lots of random lines hatching across it any day!

I also feel the change in writing duties bodes well, because who wants to spend all that time talking about history and relationships and blah blah blah? I say every page should be a splash page featuring The Watchmen jumping out of a helicopter in order to fight an opposing group of other super-powered characters, like maybe the zombie corpse of Moloch shooting laser beams from his undead eyes!!1!

This definitely is going to rock, I can’t wait to read it.

(I wish I could credit the original creator of the image but I can’t figure out who did it — I found it through one of those random Google searches and it didn’t have a source.)

Random Panel: Great moments in bad technobabble

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META: Installation upgrade

I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress today, and although it looks like it’s working you never really know for sure. So give me a shout if something is broken.

On coining sounds

You often find common words used as onomontoPOWia in comics, which is both understandable and lazy at the same time. Usually it doesn’t work, as we saw when a young Jim Starlin tried to use “BRONX” as the sound of Iron Man hitting a galactic vampire. Joe Staton swings and misses in the pages of “Millennium” as well with the same technique:

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Both are one letter off from common sound effects, and the effect is jarring. POW and BASH I can mentally translate into something I might hear. But adding a letter to turn each from a sound effect to an actual word decreases their ability to convey meaning. You can’t help but bring up the words’ definitions in your mind when you read them, and instantly you’re not in the realm of the auditory but rather the physical in one case and emotional in the other. You want to keep your reader in the moment, not break them out of it thinking, “That’s not what a plow is …”

Keep it simple, folks; sometimes more is less.

Random Panel: Bad reactions from old people to an X-Box 360 Christmas gift

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How to make paper minis with HeroMachine

instructables.pngI just found this neat article on “Instructables.com” giving step-by-step instructions on how to make paper miniatures for your gaming group. I’m impressed with the detail and nice photographs, it’s a well done tutorial. You can also use it with the Marvel Kids hero creator or the Brazilian Her-O-Matic.

If you’re looking for a fun holiday activity involving cyborgs and/or laser-toting elves, you can’t go wrong with this one!

Random Panel: May all your gifts make you as happy as this one is about to make her

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(Merry Christmas everyone!)