Caption Contest 3: Three heroes walk into a bar …

Posted on March 18, 2008 by | Comments Off on Caption Contest 3: Three heroes walk into a bar …

The winner of Caption Contest 2 was Dan Swanson!

Spitzer is a bird brain

And here is the comic book panel you'll have to fill with witty repartee to get a shot at your very own custom drawing as well as all the glory that goes along with winning something on the Internet:

Three heroes walk into a bar …

Good luck! In your entry, please specify what person gets which line of dialog. For instance:

Green Lantern: I can't believe how long that guy is taking in the bathroom, what's the holdup?!
Six Pack 1: Why don't you just whip up a green latrine, GL? And make it snappy, my pants are already halfway down, and I don't know how much longer I can ...
Six Pack 2: ... ooops.

And as always, please try to follow the Sitcom Rule: Don't write anything that wouldn't pass a network censor. Yes, even the stupid ones.

The winning entry will receive a prize of one free custom black and white web illustration by yours truly, of pretty much whatever they want (within reason, so be reasonable Dan!). Here is the sketch I did for Hades, the winner of Caption Contest 1:

Hades

(Edited to rearrange the pictures and to remove the note about changing Dan's entry, which I ended up changing back to the original.)

(Top image from “Coyote”, Vol. 1, No. 9, ©1984, Stephen Englehart.
Bottom image from "Hitman" #11, ©1997, DC Comics.)

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Posted in Challenges

Mashup 3: Ranker than baked sewage

Posted on March 17, 2008 by | Comments Off on Mashup 3: Ranker than baked sewage

This week's "Random Monday Mashup", featuring one panel only from each of ten randomly selected comic books, begins in a seedy London bar with a conversation between a bartender and a thrill-seeking young motorcycle salesman named Tommy:

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The sounds of wanking

Posted on March 15, 2008 by | Comments Off on The sounds of wanking

As a special bonus OnomontoPOWia, I bring you the greatest sound effect panel of all time:

Captain America I command you to WANK

You may now stop reading super-hero comic books for all time, because no panel could ever be more awesome than this one. You have won the comics industry.

ETA: I didn't post this on a Friday because it's not one I discovered myself; it's been highlighted on a number of sites for a long time. But as the commenter pointed out, "Captain America, I command you to WANK!" is in fact why I brought it here. It may be the greatest command ever given by a super-villain.

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Posted in OnomontoPOWia, Super-Hero Stuff

Ka-Ramba!

Posted on March 14, 2008 by | Comments Off on Ka-Ramba!

This is the 100th post on HeroMachine.com, and nothing can express my celebration like this onomontoPOWia:

Ka-Ramba

We've partied so hard, we're bringing the building down with a mighty "Ka-Ramba!" Did I say ka-ramba? Aye, ka-ramba! Somewhere a Simpson is smiling, and I don't mean OJ.

Thanks to everyone who's taken part in the blog so far. I hope you're all enjoying it, and please send a link to any friends who you think might get a kick out of bad super-hero costumes, creating an online application, making cool drawings, or other random bits of comic book fun.

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Posted in OnomontoPOWia

Remix 1: Phobia

Posted on March 13, 2008 by | Comments Off on Remix 1: Phobia

As I've browsed through the archives looking for bad super-hero costumes, I've come across a number of characters previously unknown to me whom I had accidentally duplicated in my role-playing past. It's a bit jarring when it happens -- you're flipping through a comic and all of a sudden someone appears who you thought you'd invented ten years back. Only instead of a man it's a woman, and instead of being a villain it's a criminal, and their costume is just all wrong.

I thought I'd share a few of those, and going forward I might take a crack at re-imagining other established characters, sort of a HeroMachine "OtherWorlds" experiment. Here's the first accidental homage.

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Posted in Remixes, Super-Hero Stuff

Cats, bats, and clones, oh my

Posted on March 12, 2008 by | Comments Off on Cats, bats, and clones, oh my

OK, I know, he's supposed to be a Batman rip-off, but seriously:

Cat-Man

Cat-Man? Were Flat-Man, Fat-Man, Gnat-Man, Spat-Man, Hat-Man, and Rat-Man all taken by some other comics company and thus unavailable? I suspect this guy stole a Golden Age Batman mask and dyed it orange, because those ears look awfully similar, but the logo -- well now, the logo must be 100% his own creation. The big ol' C with the smaller M in the middle (his initials, get it? get it?) are the real stroke of genius that make it clear that this guy is no ordinary knockoff! I can't wait till the issue where we go to his secret lair, "The Litterbox". Or would that be the "Cat House"? I guess not, since he's based in New York and we all know how the government there frowns on that sort of thing.

(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc., "Who's Who" volume 4.)

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Posted in Bad Super Costumes, Super-Hero Stuff

Caption Contest 2: Bird Brains

Posted on March 11, 2008 by | Comments Off on Caption Contest 2: Bird Brains

First, the winner of Contest Caption 1 was ... Hades! There were a lot of really good entries, but for some reason this one made me actually laugh out loud. I know, I'm weird.

Steak n Shake

Hades, if you don't get an email from me shortly, please get in touch so we can start on your drawing. Hopefully it'll turn out well, and I'll post it next Tuesday.

And now, here's your challenge for the second contest, the winner of which will also receive a free black and white illustration:

Caption Contest 2

Like last time, please leave your entry in the comments below, with an indication of which dialog goes where. For instance:

Half-Brain Guy: You mindless twit!
Crow-Head Guy 1: ME, mindless!?
Crow-Head Guy 2: I think you should step over to this mirror, Gary ...

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with this week, thanks for playing!

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Posted in Challenges

Mashup 2: Pompous, Preening Animals!

Posted on March 10, 2008 by | Comments Off on Mashup 2: Pompous, Preening Animals!

Each Monday I try to make a somewhat coherent story by taking one and only one panel from each of ten randomly-selected comic books. For this second edition, I'm going to introduce a couple of brief text transitions, hopefully that's still within the spirit of the idea.

This week's random bag of fun featured demons from the pit of Hell, a Native American super-hero adventurer, aliens from Venus, and a children's book illustrator / freelance bounty hunter. Throw them all into a blender, mix with a couple of shots of Tequila, and you get the exciting adventures of an insane young man on the prowl for love in Sin City, Las Vegas!

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Posted in Mashups

White Guy Comics

Posted on March 8, 2008 by | Comments Off on White Guy Comics

I'm not the first person to notice that most African-American super-powered individuals have "Black" in their name somewhere (you never see "White Superman" or "White Flash" or "Pink Green Lantern"; for some reason it's only dark-skinned people that need to have their melanin level slapped onto their super identity). But I do think I've found what is either the a) lamest b) most egregiously offensive or c) funniest example to date:

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Posted in Bad Super Costumes, Super-Hero Stuff

Prince Chaos

Posted on March 7, 2008 by | Comments Off on Prince Chaos

I have uncovered the first hidden treasure in the Great Random Comic Book Pile -- behold the insane awesomeness that is ... Prince Chaos!

bad-princechaos.jpg

I'm tempted to love the mutton chops, or maybe the fur fringed, plummet-to-the-navel neckline, or even the strange hash marks all over the ruby red outfit. But I'm going to have to go with the tiny "Kilroy" type face peeking up from his crotch as my absolutely favorite bit of this ensemble. I like to think that in some future issue, this tiny man will get his own dialog, which, believe me, will rock.

The character is from issue number 13 of "E-Man", by First Comics. The original run of the series was artist Joe Staton's first big-time gig, and has a frenzied, crazy, "somebody's high" vibe that's hard to describe. For instance, the first few issues are narrated by a ghostly Albert Einstein. I am not making this up.

Staton later went on to work on Green Lantern during the years I was collecting it, and now that I have read E-Man I can see why they'd give him that assignment. GL's crazy ring-inspired creations (giant irons swatting villains, enormous glowing jackhammers digging out a mine collapse, catcher's mitts galore) are a lot like the various forms into which E-Man contorts his energy body. In just this one issue, for instance, he turns into a life-preserver with a duck head, a bouncing toaster, and a freeway overpass.

Again, I am not making this up.

In that kind of context, I suppose a mind-controlling, space-traveling, fur-clad, tiny-crotch-man-wearing lunatic actually seems pretty normal.

(Image and character © 1984, First Comics, Inc., E-Man, Volume 1, No. 13.)

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Posted in Bad Super Costumes, Super-Hero Stuff