“A neoconservative is a liberal that’s been mugged by reality.”

—Irving Kristol

Forget reality, what we care about at Superhero Nation is mugging.  Within a week, you will be able to mug yourself by spending a mere $9 on authentic Superhero Nation mugs.  Some designs we’re contemplating are…

1. My own picture (I’m the guy in the middle of the header; no surprises there), with the tagline:  “Being bad has never looked this good.”
2. Perhaps a PG-13 one featuring some raunchy coffee-related puns.  (“I always take it black and sweet.  Wait, you mean my coffee?”)  We’ll see.
3. The Superhero Nation logo, with this tagline: “A neoconservative is a liberal that’s been mugged by reality; a Superhero National is a comic book fan that’s been mugged by political science.”
4. “The human brain only operates at 10% capacity.  Hence, coffee.”  — Catastrophe
5. “Death before dishonor, but nothing before caffeine.”

Clearly we need to have another editorial board meeting on this subject.  [For the love of Buddha, get the rights to a Paingod illustration.  If we can’t sell a mug with a quote from Paingod, we should just pack it up right now.– Cadet Davis]

The Superhero Movie trailer looks pretty poor.

1. It seems to be focused entirely on Spiderman jokes, but its Spidey jokes are not too good. OK, it’s hard for superheroes to get suited up… I hope they’re playing with more fire than that. (I predict two jokes about Green Goblin’s power-ranger mask… one of those might have been funny, except that it was so predictable).

2. Leslie Nielsen. He was hilarious in Wrongfully Accused and fine in A Space Travesty, but his presence does not inspire confidence.

3. Nielsen’s movies frequently confuse random bursts of activity with comedy. Sometimes that works, like when Irish terrorists burst into step-dance in Wrongfully Accused. Usually it doesn’t, like when the Spiderman knockoff starts break-dancing on a wall.

4. Time plays against Superhero Movie. Parodies in most genres need a conventional plot to meet their time limit. (How many underwear jokes can you do before people walk out?) The problem is that the trailer doesn’t inspire much confidence on that front. Wrongfully Accused and Airplane, for example, did a pretty good job putting together real plots to harness their comedy.

I expect that this movie will be a stream of disconnected and largely disappointing jokes.

If you want a funny superhero movie, I recommend renting Mystery Men instead. Alternatively, I’d recommend seasons 1 and 2 of Lois and Clark, which was a TV show that was closer to a romantic comedy than a traditional superhero action story. It was very well-executed and the acting was distinctly good. I don’t read many comic books, comical or otherwise, but I’d recommend The Hood for its comedic content. Its FBI side-characters were so hilarious that they actually inspired me to start writing Superhero Nation.

“Is the University of Florida a better university because the school’s basketball team won back-to-back NCAA championships?”  — George Leef

“Not merely a better university, the best university.”– Agent Orange, everybody’s second-favorite Florida Gator.  (After Albert, obviously).

“When you’re this good, you need to stand out.  That’s why I wear a lab-coat.”

–Catastrophe

Agent Orange:

“English-speaking mammals instinctively understand that gators are friendly and helpful. It’s no accident that, when you are lost, you call for a navi-gator. When you need to solve a mystery, you call an investi-gator. When you need to inflict unspeakable harm and misery upon your enemies, you call a liti-gator. English-speakers are similarly perceptive about crocodiles. For example, you might hear the phrase ‘what a crock’ used to describe something that is entirely without merit (see also ‘crock of shit’).”

“Kind of deep, and totally off the deep end.”

–a creative writing peer

According to Salon, “it’s really a hot media fantasy: Mutant Superdelegates Pick Nominee!” For the record, I do not think that mutants are likely to select the nominee. Unless Salon knows something I don’t…

Come on. If mutants did have the power to pick a nominee, why has Ron “Magneto” Paul done so poorly in the Republican race?

Today, I sought to write a chapter that was interesting but not action-orientated.  The resulting work, Gotta Kill ‘Em All!, is tangentially related to the Superhero Nation storyline.

You can download Gotta Kill Em All! here.  (It has footnotes, which is why I wasn’t able to post it online like a regular sample of Superhero Nation).

Yours,

J. Mallow

The co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons apparently critically failed a Fortitude check.

This article discusses why it is critical to think of your characters as distinct from you.

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I saw this note in the Washington Post:

“California’s North County Times has fired an editor with a warped sense of humor. As a joke, the unnamed editor mucked with a wire-service account of a news conference on pet spaying at which a Los Angeles City Council member ‘held a kitten,’ changing the verb to ‘strangled.’ The paper apologized for the ‘terrible mistake.’ ” Whoops!

In addition to writing articles, I work as one of my newspaper’s wire editors. Although I can’t recall any “strangled a kitten” moments, we do frequently put typos in our headlines. In the average edition of our paper, a wire editor only types 75-100 words. Though I don’t recall committing a headline typo, my event articles are usually riddled with poor writing. (Event articles are written the night the event happens, so there’s less time for me to think through my outline).

This piece describes how to write the right amount of action for a book.

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Well, maybe not… but Superhero Nation now has its own Gmail account, SuperheroNationATgmail.com . That’s breathtakingly creative, I know… just remember to replace the ‘AT‘ with the @ sign. If you have any questions, comments or requests for beta reviewers, you can address those to either the website as a whole or your favorite contributor. (Me, obviously).

In theory, the Office of Special Investigations employs all of the US government’s supernatural employees. Several examples suggest otherwise. In WWII, Sgt. Audie Murphy found 80 Nazis and took them as prisoners of war – alone. Several DEA agents can smell narcotics through layers of clothing and, in one case, a Mr. Potato Head toy. And everyone knows about the Navy SEALS, whose “Hell Week” is the single best argument that only mammals can be ninjas.

However, in only does one agency– the US Secret Service– does the presence of undeniably unnatural agents shape agency procedures and contingency plans, particularly regarding the Football, the laptop with the President’s nuclear launch codes. SS regulations require that the agent protecting the Football must flee if the President is attacked. Furthermore, statutes require that the Football always be within 30 seconds of the President.

One wonders what’s the point of fleeing if the agent plans to stay within 30 seconds of the President. He would presumably be within 30 seconds of the attackers, right?

That’s where RB (pronounced Arby) comes in. We haven’t bothered measuring what his land-speed is. What we know is that’s he fast. Really fast. In a test-run, he went from the Oval Office to Arlington, VA in approximately three seconds. (He blames most of that on closed doors). The Secret Service and relevant Air Force bodies have constructed safehouses within 30 seconds of the White House. Although they had not anticipated building such sites in Colorado or Montana, no one is disappointed.

The problem is that RB only works twelve hours a day, seven days a week. For the other half of the workweek, QB (cuby) controls the Football. He’s a Ph. D in particle physics and he looks more like one of the guys that designed the Football than one of the agents that guards it. However, he does have the ability to teleport… However, his teleportation has a roughly five percent chance of destroying everything within a hundred miles of his “landing zone.” Accordingly, contingency sites have been constructed in American Samoa…

–Captain Carnage

• Riots broke out in (the Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia because Greece has declared that it will oppose attempts by FYROM to join the European Union and NATO unless FYROM surrenders its claim to the name of Macedonia, a region claimed by Greece.  Both nations want to control the name of Macedonia because that’s where Alexander the Great came from.

• A Venezuelan man woke up as an autopsy was being conducted on him. Uhh, whoops.

“What does the ‘B’ stand for in B. Mac?”

Our staffers have some theories.

“Bombing.”

–Cadet Davis

“Bumptious.”

–Jacob

“Awesome.”

–O.J. [I wonder who’s going for a raise– B. Mac]

Interesting theories, but the correct answer is that the ‘B’ stands for ‘BMacalicious.’

Bill Buckley died today. (He authored God and Man at Yale, which inspired the Superhero Nation chapter title “Gods and Supermen at Yale”). We weren’t very close; in fact, he was something like my archenemy. However, he was as good an adversary as anyone could hope for, unless you’re able to get Bernard Lewis.

I don’t mean to demean the risks of a terrorist attack or chain-saw murder spree, but Americans have generally discounted the threat of a death by face-leech. There are worse deaths than a face-leeching, but most involve IRS audits.  And blenders.

–Agent Orange

How to Improve Your Characters

1. How to Introduce Major Characters
2. How to Name Characters (Superheroes and Otherwise)
3. How to Save Mary Sues (Insufficiently-Challenged Characters)
4. How to Develop Interesting Characters
5. 15 Interesting Motivations for Villains and Heroes
6. A List of Character Attributes
7. Writing Male Characters
8. Please Don’t Model Your Characters on Your Friends
9. Don’t Make Your Villains Unnecessarily Evil
10. Why Secret Origins Usually Fail (“Leia’s my sister!?!”)
11. How to Make Your Character’s Job Interesting
12. How to Use Characters with Mental Disorders
13. Don’t Let Minor Characters Steal the Show
14. How to Make a Character Likable
15. Please Don’t Use Generically Nice Characters
16. Writing Villains Vs. Writing Heroes
17. How to Make Your Love Interest a Real Character (Banana Slug)
18. Be Careful With Crying Characters (Marissa)
19. Female Characters: Awful Vs. Awesome

How to Improve Your Titles

1. Is Your Title Stylish Enough?
2. 10 Common Mistakes of Novel Titles
3. Even More Ways to Blow a Title
4. How to Write Titles That Sell (Novels and Chapters)
5. Your Title is Bad, But You Can Fix It (Part 1)
6. Your Title is Bad, But You Can Fix It (Part 2)
7. Your Title is Bad, But You Can Fix It (Part 3)
8. Your Title is Bad… (Part 4)
9. Your Title is Bad… (Part 5)
10. Your Title is Bad… (Part 6)
11. Your Title is Bad… (Part 7)
12. Your Title is Bad… (Part 8 )
13. Your Title is Bad… (Part 9)
14. Your Title is Bad… (Part 10)

1. Prologue Tips
2. How to Write Excellent First Lines
3. How to Survive to Page 2
4. The Five Worst Novel Introductions
5. How to Write Strong Introductions (Novels)
6. Don’t Wait to Introduce Your Main Character

Structuring Your Story

1. Writing a Novel’s Synopsis
2. End Your Chapters With a Bang
3. Chapter Checklist
4. Organizing Your Story With Cause and Effect
5. How to Handle Backstory
6. How to Do Multiple Narrators and POVs With Style
7. How to Convey Information the POV Doesn’t Have
8. Be Careful with Sequels
9. Common Problems with First-Person Narration
10. Common Problems with Third-Person Narration
11. Organizing Your Plot: Five Kinds of Central Plots
12. Story Structure
13. Cover Your Plot Holes– It Might Be Hilarious

Becoming a Professional Writer

1. Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Inexperienced Novelists
2. Another Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Inexperienced Novelists
3. Why Is It So Important for Authors to Read Widely?
4. Rules of Professional Behavior
5. Mental Issues in the Workplace
6. Think Like an Editor (Marissa)
7. How to Communicate with Agents and Editors

Plotting and Pacing

1. How to Build Coherent Transitions Between Scenes
2. Start Your Story As Everything Goes Wrong
3. When the Villain Beats the Heroes, Don’t Just Let Them Go
4. Make Your Story Interesting with Urgent Goals
5. Automatically Generate a (Goofy) Plot
6. Your Introduction Should Not Read Like an Atlas
7. Don’t Let Your Characters Walk Away from the Story
8. How to Make Traveling Interesting
9. How to Beat Disbelief and Immerse Readers
10. Plot Elements That Should Not Be Added Lightly
11. How to Avoid Info-Dumping
12. Training Scenes

How to Avoid Common Writing Mistakes

1. 5 Common Mistakes of First-Time Authors (Part 1)
2. 5 Common Mistakes of First-Time Authors (Part 2)
3. 5 Common Mistakes of First-Time Authors (Part 3)
4. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 4)
5. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 5)
6. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 6)
7. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 7)
8. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 8 )
9. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 9)
10. 5 Common Mistakes… (Part 10)
11. If You’re A First-Time Author, Do Not Self-Publish!

Dialogue

1. Dialogue Checklist
2. How to Use Dialogue Tags Effectively
3. Common Dialogue Mistakes
4. Keep Your Dialogue Tight
5. How to Punctuate Dialogue
6. Please Don’t Use Bad Accents

Other Writing Mechanics and Miscellaneous

1. How to Write Memorably
2. How to Beat Writer’s Block
3. Don’t Quit Your Day Job!
4. Show, Don’t Tell
5. How to Write Gripping Scenes
6. Write Concisely!
7. Eliminate Gimmicks in Your Writing
8. Don’t Abuse “There’s”
9. 9 Words That Usually Shouldn’t Start a Sentence
10. A Few Notes on Punctuation
11. Make Your Story Intriguing, Not Cryptic
12. How to Do Settings and Scenery Well
13. Don’t Tell Readers What the Character Isn’t Doing

• Amazing Spider-Man
• Avengers
• Bob Moore: No Hero
• Dark Knight
• The Incredibles (coming soon)
• Iron Man 1 (coming soon)
• Iron Man 2 (coming soon)
• Kick-Ass (coming soon)
• Other People’s Heroes
• Priscilla the Great
• Twilight (hear me out)
• X-Men: First Class (coming soon)

Genre Writing and Resources

1. ANYTHING SUPERHERO: How to Make Interesting Headquarters for Superheroes and Villains
2. FANTASY OR SUPERHERO ACTION: How to Keep Your Superpowers and/or Magic Extraordinary
3. ACTION: How to Pace an Action Scene
4. ROMANCE: Common Pitfalls of Romance (ReTARDised Whovian)
5. ROMANCE: How to Make Your Love Interest a Real Character (Banana Slug)
6. COMEDY: How to Write Comedy
7. COMEDY: How to Write Parodies (Tom)
8. DETECTIVE/MYSTERY: Probing for Inconsistencies

1. A Writer’s Guide to Guns and Firearms
2. 7 Things Guns Cannot Actually Do
3. An Introduction to Bounty Hunting

Editing and Refining Your Work

1. It’s Okay If Your First Draft Sucks
2. How to Take Criticism Well
3. Applying “Rules” of Writing to Your Work
4. Twenty Questions to Ask Before Submitting Your Story
5. 100 Questions to Test Your Story
6. Style Checklist
7. How to Make the Most of Beta Reviews

Getting Published and Self-Publishing

1. Length Guidelines: How Long Should Your Novel Manuscript Be Before You Submit It?
2. How to Format a Novel Manuscript
3. How Novel Manuscripts are Evaluated
4. Why Do Good Manuscripts Get Rejected?
5. How Long Does It Take to Get a Novel Professionally Published?
6. 10 Reasons Novel Manuscripts Get Rejected
7. List of Instant Rejections
8. Teresa Hayden’s List of Novel Rejections
9. 16 Reasons Your Novel Manuscript Got Rejected Before Page 1
10. Will Your Manuscript Survive to Page 2?
11. Will Your Manuscript Survive to Page 20?
12. What is a Query? How Do I Write One?
13. Sharpen Your Story With a Two Sentence Synopsis
14. More Two-Sentence Synopsis Tips
15. Marcus Hart Explains: How to Self-Publish
16. How Much Will It Cost You to Self-Publish?
17. Why First-Time Authors Should Not Even Think About Self-Publishing
18. Why Self-Publishing Might Work for You

Target Audience

1. How to Write for Kids (Tom)
2. How to Write for Kids (B. Mac)
3. Your Readers Are Not the Same as You!
4. Market Trends: Teen Literature is Selling Quite Well

Social Commentary in Fiction

1. So You Want to be an Opinionated Author
2. Writing About Racism

Creating Superhero Characters

1. Superpowers Will Not Make a Boring Character Interesting
2. Superhero Creation Questionnaire
3. How to Write a Good Sidekick
4. How to Name Superheroes
5. More Ideas About How to Name a Superhero
6. How to Give Your Superhero A Day Job
7. How Can Superheroes Maintain a Day Job?
8. Common Superhero Day Jobs, Part 1
9. Common Superhero Day Jobs, Part 2
10. Modern Superhero Naming Conventions
11. Questionnaire for Nonhuman Characters
12. Random Name Generator for Alternate Identities
13. Three Qualities of Solid Villains
14. Pros and Cons of Using Secret Identities
15. Reasons Your Protagonists Might Not Use Secret Identities

Superpowers and Capabilities

1. List of Superpowers
2. How to Distinguish the Superpowers in Your Superhero Stories
3. Selecting Effective Superpowers For Your Story
4. Superpowers Checklist
5. How Creative Do Your Superpowers Need to Be?
6. How to Keep Your Superpowers Extraordinary
7. Limiting Superpowers for Dramatic Effect
8. Can You Explain Your Protagonist’s Superpowers in 1-2 Sentences?
9. Keeping Your Superpowers From Getting Stale
10. How to Create Weaknesses for Your Superhero
11. Creative Ways to Use Supersenses
12. How Do Your Characters’ Superpowers Affect Their Perspectives?
13. Kryptonite-Style Weaknesses Are Usually a Poor Option
14. Common Superpower Problems
15. 10 Uses for Forcefields
16. Writing Psychic Characters and Psionics

Superhero Origin Stories

1. List of Superhero Origins
2. How to Write Origin Stories
3. Plausible Origin Stories
4. Why Secret Origins are Usually Awful
5. “Just Another Comics Blog” Argues Against Origin Stories

Plotting Superhero Stories

1. A List of Superhero Cliches and Tropes
2. Problems and Obstacles for Superheroes to Face Besides Supervillains and Criminals
3. Writing More Realistic Violence
4. Elements of Superhero Stories That Might Be Surprisingly Plausible
5. How to Do Superhero Gadgets Well
6. How to Keep Your Story’s Superpowers Extraordinary
7. Difficulties Superheroes Would Face in the Real World
8. Felonies That Most Superheroes Commit (this could be helpful if your protagonists have testy relations with the police)
9. Writing Realistic Superhero Stories

Five Common Mistakes of Comic Book Writers

1. Part One
2. Part Two
3. Five Superhero Plots that Need to Die
4. Five Things About Your Superhero Story That Might Be Wasting Your Time

Other Advice for Comic Book Writers

1. Experiment With Your Panel Layouts
2. Should You Write a Comic Book or a Superhero Novel?
3. Free Comic Book Scripting Software
4. Use the Ending of Each Issue to Sell the Next Issue
5. Make Your Recaps Stylish
6. Sketch Your Pages Before Sending Them to the Artist

The Mechanics of Writing a Superhero Story

1. How to Write Superhero Fight Scenes
2. How to Pick Superpowers that Make Your Story Work
3. Common Problems with Superstrong Heroes
4. Common Problems with Psychic Superheroes
5. Common Problems with Powersuited Superheroes (like Iron Man)
   

Marketing and Visual Issues

1. Easy-to-Fix Visual Design Problems for Superhero Characters
2. How to Make Your Story Less “Weird” and More Novel
3. Superhero Visual References: Boots
4. Superhero Visual References: Gloves
5. Superhero Novel Proposals:  How to Write the Comparable Works Section

Getting Published

1. Publishers That Accept Unsolicited Submissions
2. What Goes Into a Comic Book Submission?
3. A Few Tips on Submitting a Comic Book Script
4. How to Communicate With Editors

Today we have a delightfully bizarre picture featuring TallyGator’s pet alligator and an awfully curious choice of nail-polish. I wonder what the gator thinks…

What’s the pencil for?

The Defense Department reports that the US Navy successfully hit a dying US satellite with a missile.  I’m, uhh, not thrilled that we’re spending (sixty million) tax dollars to shoot down our own satellites, but at least we didn’t miss.  Heh.

Readers from Barbados, Macedonia and Latvia have put Superhero Nation’s nation-count at 100 nations.  Thanks.

Roughly 70% of our hits have come from the United States, including 20+ readers from every state except Wyoming.

By my count, we’re missing seven countries in the Western Hemisphere, three European countries, three Middle-Eastern countries, most of the states of Central Asia and all of Africa but five states.

“Supervillains,” “supercriminals,” or whatever else you weaklings want to call us tend to exaggerate our own intelligence. That is a mistake for two reasons.

1. No “supervillain” will be 100% successful. Losing to cretins from South Carolina and Ohio is bad enough, but it will only be more humiliating if you’ve claimed to be a supergenius.
2. If your accomplice claims to be the smartest man in the world, he thinks that he is smarter than you.  Unless you kill him immediately to preempt his eventual betrayal, you have proven him right.  Conversely, if you were to claim that you were the smartest man in the world, it would entice others to kill you.  Who’s smart now?

–Paingod

Picture c/o TallyGator.

Picture c/o Kawaii Moogle.

Picture c/o Kwerf.

Not surprisingly, mammals usually drink beer when watching football.  If I had to root for a team like the Golden Gophers, I’d also want to drink myself into a stupor.

–Agent Orange, Superhero Nation’s resident mutated alligator (and football afficionado)

No joke; the captain of the Wheaton North Scholastic Bowl team was just on Teen Jeopardy.

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Ultimately, governments do two things: take taxes and kill things.  Do I look like I’m from the IRS?

–Agent Orange