Random Panel: Apparently pit-webs are quite the turn-on

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(Hat tip to SuperDickery.)

Patriot Contest Prize: Kaldath and Salara

Thanks to extraordinarily quick response times from Kaldath and great reference photos, I am happy to present the winning prize for the Patriot Hero contest:

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Many thanks to everyone who entered, and to Kaldath for a fun and interesting character concept to design around. He has the HeroMachine versions of Salara and Kaldath available online, if you want to see what they looked like coming out of the program.

Congratulations again to Kaldath, and I hope you all enjoy seeing his concepts in color. Don’t forget, your chance to win your very own black and white custom illustration is going on now thanks to the weekly HeroMachine Caption Contest, so head on over and try your luck!

And as a bonus, here’s a close-up of Salara:

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Random Panel: … by sharpest clock, no evil shall escape my …

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(Hat tip to SuperDickery.)

It was the ocean, I was ALONE …

The combination of pirates, the hurtling-into-the-sea second guy, and the gigantic pole in the background combined with the use of the onomontoPOWia “PUD!” in this panel:

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contractually require me to make the following joke:

“Now that’s what I call pounding the pud!”

Thus proving my high school motto: “You’re only young once, but you can be immature for the rest of your life.”

Random Panel: Sentences you never want to hear

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Costumes shouldn't be wallpaper

In my drawing frenzy yesterday, I missed “Bad Costume Day” here at HeroMachine, but I’m not one to let an opportunity for mockery pass me by. Luckily today’s example of Fashion Failure is really, really bad to make up for it.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us count the ways Captain Boomerang’s outfit sucks:

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  1. The pattern. You should never look like you’re wearing Grandma’s wallpaper pattern, and yet Captain Boomerang has fallen into that very trap. I bet if you got up close the boomerangs on the tunic would actually be white foil. Hideous.
  2. The hat. Oh Great God in Heaven, the hat. What kind of crazy super-glue or adamantium hairpins is he using to keep that itty-bitty cap on his bald head? Double-sided tape, maybe? Look, I mean no disrespect to the millions of past and present military folks who have worn just such headwear, but they were ordered to do it. I bet not more than three of them in all of recorded history got out of the service and thought “The gas in the trenches was horrible, but at least I get to wear this nifty pygmie-sized bag on my head forever now!”
  3. The hair. The cap is made worse when you look at his hair. Or lack thereof. I myself am follicle-challenged, but you don’t see me rushing out to the haberdasher to purchase a cap in the exact shape of my bald spot, cut in such a way to accentuate the wild, curly mane of fringe-fur I still manage to sprout.
  4. The scarf. I’ve mentioned this before, but that thing is like a mutant killer python just waiting to suck Captain Boomerang into the nearest jet engine. I’d put the over-under on how many times he’s gotten yanked back into a spiral of death via revolving door at an even twenty. It does match the sporty sash he’s got going on there, which I suppose is … “good”? At first I thought maybe they were actually one long strip of cloth, and if you yanked on the scarf end you’d be giving him a power-wedgie. I still hope that’s true, because I think the Flash using that technique to foil a crime would be Awesome.
  5. The dress. I’m all for cross-dressers’ rights, but look, dude’s in a mini-skirt. At least he has the decency to cover up the down-unders with a black leotard, but have some decency, man! Yes, yes, I know that’s probably a tunic, but no one in the Twentieth Centry was wearing tunics while there were lots and lots of men wearing dresses, so I’m going with the odds on this. Emphasis on “odd”.
  6. The shin guards. It’s like they started designing this from the top down, and by the time they got to the feet they were almost out of ways to humiliate this poor bastard. “How,” they thought, “can we make our intended audience of Americans hate this guy any more than they already do from the rest of this ludicrous outfit? Well, let’s see, Americans also hate … hmm … let’s see … I got it! They hate soccer! He’s from Australia, give him shin guards!” I’d finish with “Then they all went out and got drunk”, but it’s pretty obvious they did that before they started designing this costume.

Aside from the bad hair, bad hat, bad dress, bad shin guards, bad hair, and bad scarf, of course, you have to admire the pluckiness of a guy who goes after the Fastest Man Alive with a muscle-powered weapon. Ignore the fact that your opponent can, you know, outrun sound, you’re gonna nail him with a hand-flung piece of wood. Right.

But then, we already knew he was brave, because he showed up in that costume. Next to that kind of courage, battling the Flash is nothing.

Random Panel: "As a baby wields a butterknife"? Really?

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Combat mini figure 2

Which do you like better, the first proposed new HM-mini body template, or this one:

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This one has more “attitude”, I think. The first is workable, but it looks more like an avatar screen in a game or something, I suspect this one might make for better actual character images. The angle’s from just below waist-level, which might be different enough to cause some problems.

I don’t know, what do you all think?

UPDATE: With thanks to commenter TheNate and John, here’s an updated version with the right foot pointed in a more solid direction, and the right hand no longer stapled to the buttocks.

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Random Panel: How to tell you're in a bad hospital

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Caption Contest 30: Monkeys and clowns

In honor of the upcoming US Presidential election, I present you with a Caption Contest featuring screaming chimpanzees and gun-wielding clowns. Enjoy!

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I look forward to the inspired submissions sure to come in on this one! The author of the best caption will receive a free custom black and white illustration by yours truly of whatever you like (within reason). The rules are:

  1. Keep it PG-13 rated, appropriate for a broadcast television show.
  2. No more than three entries per person.
  3. Leave your entry in the comments to this post.

Good luck, everyone!