Monthly Archives: October 2009

Character Contest 20: Costume crossover

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | Comments Off on Character Contest 20: Costume crossover

Ordinarily I'd be hosting a Caption Contest this week, but with Halloween I just can't resist. Your challenge for the week is a little more complicated than usual, because we're going THREE DIMENSIONAL! I'm looking for the best HeroMachine recreation of an actual, real-life Halloween costume. You'll need a photo of the costume in question, and then the HeroMachine recreation/update. You could try to go for an exact duplicate, or you could take the basic idea and make it better, whichever you like, but there has to be a real costume your design's based on.

To review, here are the rules.

  • Each entry must consist of two images, one of a real-world Halloween costume, and one of your HeroMachine reinterpretation/duplication of it;
  • Both images for each entry must be posted to an online web site somewhere that I can get to (i.e. PhotoBucket, ImageShack, the UGO Forums, whatever);
  • No more than five entries per person;
  • All entries must be left as comments to this post, with links to the images in question;
  • No editing in PhotoShop or whatnot, except for basic cropping (or putting the two images into one side-by-side, that kind of thing).

The winner will be decided next Tuesday by me, Jeff Hebert, Bald Guy, and will be awarded the choice of either a portrait of their face as a line drawing or any item of their choice, to be included with the HeroMachine 3 full release.

Good luck everyone!

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Posted in Challenges

Character Contest 19 Winners

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | Comments Off on Character Contest 19 Winners

Without further ado, and with many thanks for all those who shared their creations as part of the event, I present the Honorable Mentions and the overall winner of Character Contest 19.

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Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges, Cool Characters

Random Panel: I don’t think Zod did it this way

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: I don’t think Zod did it this way
bulletman-9-1942-picnic

(From "Bulletman" number 9, 1942. How often do you get to combine Superman II and a backhanded country song title? I love my job!)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Stan Lee interviews Rob Liefeld

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | Comments Off on Stan Lee interviews Rob Liefeld

If you get the chance, head on over to Comics Alliance to read Chris Sims' take-by-take breakdown of great early Nineties video of Stan Lee interviewing Rob Liefeld. Chris is a very funny writer and the whole article is a quick and amusing read. Choice bits include:

3:09 - We've got to admit, there's something utterly hypnotic about watching Rob Liefeld draw pouches and armbands on a guy, and it's only made better by the pure joy in his voice when he explains to Stan that they're full of explosive boomerangs.

5:04 - As Liefeld rushes to finish the drawing on Stan's deadline, Stan starts joking about how his suggestion to add spikes makes Cross a collaboration, and starts referring to him as "my character" and "our creation." He's laughing. Rob's laughing. Steve Ditko is gritting his teeth.

Chris also makes a very telling serious point, though:

0:25 - This is quite possibly the most mind-blowing moment of the video, as at this point, it comes out that the latest issue of "X-Force" had sold OVER FIVE MILLION COPIES. Just to give you an idea, Diamond Comic Distributors' best-selling comic for July 2009 was "Captain America Reborn" #1, which came in just under 200,000.

Comics were big, huge, ginormous, incredibly big business. Like the real estate market, some of that was artificially inflated by speculating investors buying many copies of each big issue, but still, the industry today is a fractured, tiny portion of what it was then. Five million copies of X-Force, folks, that's a lot of paper being pushed to the public.

You can view the video on YouTube if you like. Chris' regular site is "The Invincible Super-Blog" and is a daily must-read for me, the guy's a hoot.

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Posted in Randomosity

Poll Position: Safety in numbers

Posted on October 26, 2009 by | Comments Off on Poll Position: Safety in numbers

Our Poll Position for this week asks you to put yourself in the position of a super-joiner:

{democracy:106}

Discussion after the jump.

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Posted in Versus

Random Panel: Because spandex > school

Posted on October 26, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Because spandex > school
bulletman-9-1942-rot

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Posted in HeroMachine 3

Random Panel: Great moments in awkward banter

Posted on October 25, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Great moments in awkward banter
bulletman-9-1942-pencils

(From "Bulletman" number 9, 1942.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

HM3: Prize item updates

Posted on October 24, 2009 by | Comments Off on HM3: Prize item updates

I've just uploaded a lot of Contest Prize items to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha that I hope you'll enjoy. Previews, links, and images to follow after the jump.

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Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3, Previews

Random Panel: They might start shooting at something besides our heads!

Posted on October 24, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: They might start shooting at something besides our heads!
bulletman-9-1942-gunfire

(From "Bulletman" number 9, 1942. The crooks must be the same ones who used to shoot at Iron Skull.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Thundering manpower

Posted on October 23, 2009 by | Comments Off on Thundering manpower

Imagine a comics panel. You've got a dramatic visual layout, the brightly-colored and powerfully muscled Bulletman barreling into hapless thugs with lowered shoulder. A vigorous starburst explosion heightens the impact of the crash, separating men from hats and setting limbs akimbo, thugs flying. A simple black and white divider in the background enhances the tension.

Meanwhile the caption at the top spells out what we're seeing, employing powerful words like "fury", "thundering manpower", and "hammer". All of which sets us up nicely for the ensuing onomontoPOWia. Perhaps a WHAM or the traditional POW? Or, more daringly, a BOOM or SHA-KOOOM?

bulletman-5-1941-manpower

No. Oh no. Because in a world with ninja tanks and villains slapped silly, a world where the two most powerful heroes get flung around the skies by their necks, limbs flapping like chickens spun at the end of a farmer's arm, "thundering manpower" goes "POOOOFF".

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Posted in OnomontoPOWia