Aug 27 2008
This site provides writing advice and superhero comedy. If you're writing a superhero story, you will probably find our superhero-themed articles especially instructive.
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Aug 26 2008
Our website is a year old now. Without navel-gazing too much, I’d like to offer some quick visuals to suggest just how dramatically our crappiness quotient has dropped. These are our first six months worth of headers…
Aug 16 2008
My plane leaves Nagoya in about twenty hours and I will get back home roughly twenty hours later, thanks to an extended layover in Detroit.
Aug 06 2008
I don’t expect to post very much today, given that I’ll be in transit for 18 hours. However, in the meantime, I will leave you with this nugget of wisdom: avoid immortal characters. They’re terrible.
Jul 28 2008
Unfortunately, summer is about to end in roughly two weeks. Cadet Davis has received a new-and-improved position as a writing instructor and I have eight months to complete a thesis and graduate. Accordingly, I don’t expect that we will be able to keep up the frenetic pace throughout the year. We will probably scale back to several thousand words of posts and 1 webcomic each week.
Jul 13 2008
Over the past 6 weeks, our staff has written over 20,000 words of writing suggestions and advice, bringing us to about 45,000 (not including rewrites or deleted words). At this rate, we might actually have a manuscript-length compilation by the end of summer, but a manuscript for a nonfiction writing guide rather than the superhero comedy we had sought to write. I feel like I’m running out of time on this project.
CADET DAVIS: non-fiction’s a tougher market and both readers and publishers have higher standards. Also, not having been published will be a major liability. Right now, I can envision that you would pitch the writing guide to publishers as a freakishly prolific reviewer’s take on what makes sci-fi and fantasy books work, particularly in the superhero literature submarket.
JACOB: Oh, come on. We can do better than that. For example, you could slot me 10,000 words for a quantitative analysis of which titles are most effective…
Jul 03 2008
I submitted a potential rewrite of our introduction to the Critters Writing Workshop. It’s very short (2 pages) and I expect that we’ll eventually expand it to about 5. Currently, it’s rated PG-13 for adult language, but we’re considering modifying it to PG.
Jun 14 2008
Agent Orange, the mutated alligator, sought to name himself and was deliberating between Gain and Accumulation. Agent Black not so subtly steers him away from the latter. I was reminded of that exchange when I learned that “Increase” was actually the name of a prominent American reverend in colonial times. Go figure!
May 07 2008
Agent Black and everybody’s favorite mutated alligator, Agent Orange, have a strange conversation about killing terrorists with sponge-cake. And other questions you never thought to ask!
Apr 26 2008
This article looks at some rough drafts of Superhero Nation t-shirts and some of the marketing and business considerations of selling your own apparel.
For our first t-shirt version (the expensive one), I assembled a few cast-members on the front and a few funny quotes on the back. It’s a nice shirt, especially if you like the way our characters look, but I suspect that we will have pricing problems.
To see this image full-size, please click here.
Pricing, Marketing and Aesthetics
Currently, we’re looking at a reasonably high price of $20 $15 for this shirt. By selling on Zazzle, we have taken $5 off the price-tag (compared to CafePress). Have I mentioned that Zazzle’s design features are considerably better and more flexible?
We are also working on a cheaper, $10 alternative. I think it’ll look something like this one-sided shirt.
Theoretically, we could take prices even lower by cutting down the number of colors and printing/selling them ourselves. I doubt we have the time, money and salesmanship to make that work, though. As time allows, I will try to provide a rough business model for two different sets of entrepreneurs: those that sell goods through third-party vendors like CafePress, and those that actually invest money and try to distribute the goods themselves.
T-Shirt #3
The next one is a parody of the US Navy’s Accelerate Your Life slogan, brought to you by the conspicuously high-mortality Office of Special Investigations.
Finals is really putting a hurt on us, but within a week or two you will be able to buy the final versions of these drafts at our Zazzle store.
Apr 22 2008
Somehow, I suspect that the individual who got to Superhero Nation by Googling Air Force Office of Special Investigations business cards didn’t stay very long. [I hope he wasn’t at work– B. Mac]
We also got a query for do alligators have thumbs? . Turning to our resident reptologist, P.G…
No. Although alligator feet bear some superficial resemblances to human hands, they aren’t really used for much except traction.
Apr 07 2008
Over the past few days, our bounce-rate has spiked upwards from about 58% to about 70% and the average time-per-viewer has dropped by about 45% (ouch). The only significant change I can think of is that we moved to Wordpress 2.5 over that time. I haven’t noticed any major formatting problems on my computer, but if you’ve seen something that looks hard to read or otherwise weird, please let us know by leaving a comment or e-mailing us at superheronation_at_gmail.com (replace _at_ with @, of course).
Thanks for your help!
Apr 06 2008
I’m writing a comic-book script for Script Frenzy. Because the contest ends on April 30 and I’ve already lost six days, I’ll probably end up doing something related to Superhero Nation. That means I have to script four pages a day– something I think is doable even though academic work beckons.
Because the contest requires all-unique material, I’ll probably write a spinoff story, probably focused on Agent Black, Agent Orange, Paingod and a dark century-spanning conspiracy. This comic will answer all the questions you’ve never had about the nefarious links between the 1908 Tunuska explosion, World War I, the Black Sox scandal, the Empire State Building and rag-time (hint: bids for global supremacy).
Apr 06 2008
B. Mac gave me this to post. He says he will be healthy enough to return to full-time status within a few days.
Agent White, junior recruiter: Mr. Smith, I have no doubt that you are an excellent IRS auditor, but I’d like to know more about how an accountant might be qualified for this agency. What about killing. Have you done any of that?
Gary Smith: No, sir.
Agent White: Have you ever seen someone die brutally? A de-limbing, perhaps?
Gary Smith: No, sir.
Agent White: I see. You seem like an excellent fit… for the IRS. I’m going to do you a favor and ask that you leave now. You would break in ten minutes here and you probably wouldn’t even be the first.
Gary Smith: …
Gary Smith: Is that a request or an order?
Agent White: …
Agent White hits his intercom button.
Agent White: Agent Orange, could you step inside, please?
Agent Orange, a hulking mutated alligator, enters the room.
Agent Orange: Greetings, mammals! Mammal-White, Mammal-Smith.
Agent White: Sir, could you please describe to Mr. Smith what your job is here?
Agent Orange: Indeed! I’m the head recruiter and trainer. I determine who enters training and then how best to systematically destroy them. We’ve reduced our mortality/psychosis rate to a historically low 6%!
Agent White: Mr. Smith, so far Agent Orange has broken six Navy SEALS, five Force Recons, ten Army Rangers and so many Special Agents we’ve stopped counting.
Gary Smith: But no accountants, I bet.
Agent Orange: …
Agent Orange: When are you available to start?
Mar 30 2008
I am in a debilitating amount of pain right now and will likely be unable to blog for the next week or two. Until then, please enjoy the sparkling insights of the rest of the Superhero Nation writing staff. Thanks for your understanding; I hope to get better soon.
Mar 25 2008
Google Analytics reports that only 40% of our visitors on Tuesday were new. Previously, that number had never been less than 90%.
Mar 21 2008
I removed Mallow’s picture from the header. I’d like to see if that’s less off-putting to potential readers. I’ll let you guys know in a week or two.
This is the old header, in case you’ve forgotten.
