Jan 25 2008
I was doing a search for Smokey Bones and came across this comic devoted to Olive Garden.
Jan 24 2008
Jan 23 2008
“Charlie, come out and getcha whoopin’.” Also notable for someone cheating on Mr. Met.
“It’s not new age mumbo jumbo. All of his wisdom is golf-course tested.” Also notable for the funniest use of a prop in any television ad.
“Adam Sandler’s a star now, and no one had heard of him until I beat him up in Happy Gilmore.” Also notable for Bob Barker winning World War II.
Jan 23 2008
A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
–Ronald Reagan
Ohio and Stanford’s trees play football. About as well as you’d expect, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
–Agent Orange
Jan 23 2008
Our resident mutated alligator, Agent Orange, offers this look into the brutally competitive world of reptology.
Jan 23 2008
I came across this ESPN commercial featuring a brawl between Steve Irwin and a certain Florida football mascot. It’s reasonably hilarious. Unsurprisingly, Albert the Florida Gator puts the screws to him in ~5 seconds.
Speaking of AFG, he has his own Myspace page. Incidentally, Albert and his long-time mistress Alberta can be hired out for private events. Understandably, AFG doesn’t come cheap. Even his gesture gets its own Wikipedia page. Hell. Alberta costs $250 an hour. Speaking of the Gator Chomp, see also The Curse of the Gator Chomp, inflicted on players that mock the Gator Gods at their own peril. Sebastian “Worst First Round Draft Pick” Janikowski has never been the same.
Speaking of Gator Haters, we have this amusingly depraved comparison of Gator pep rallies to Nazi events.
Remember, it’s not a real party unless there are muzzles and reptiles in t-shirts.
Jan 21 2008
“The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.
E. M. Forster
“If you think ‘the queen died of grief’ is a plot, you wouldn’t last ten seconds in Surf City. The Queen iced her husband to claim control of the underworld. And now she’s got a deathray, probably pointed at a city Americans care about or Paris. That’s a plot.”
–Captain Carnage
Jan 20 2008
On a whim, I was thinking about downloading the pilot to Bleach, which is a ghosts-and-spirits anime series, on Amazon.com. (It’s free). Some quick observations:
Jan 20 2008
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
I save the day by wasting many, proving reptilian awesomeness. There, I only needed ten words.
–Agent Orange
You’re despicable.
–The Superhero Nation writing staff
Jan 20 2008
Today, the two cities leading the Superhero Nation readership board (in terms of total time spent reading today) are both named London.
And Texas claims the top spot among the states for individual hits today. Previously, only California, Indiana and Illinois have seized a day. (Most of SN’s contributors are Midwestern, so networking goes farther there).
Speaking of SN contributors, Gainsville, FL has the longest average reader time today. Mutated alligators everywhere thank you for your support and hope to see you at the games next season.
Jan 20 2008
If you’re writing a superhero story, don’t let your superpowers fall into these traps.
1. The hero’s powers can’t be used creatively. Readers really want to be surprised, so it’s very important that the powers be versatile. If your character is only superstrong, you can only surprise them by using different things as weapons. That gets tedious fast. (Watch a Superman or Dragon Ball Z fight scene). Test your superhero against some of these situations. Can he get through them in an unexpected way?
2. The character’s limits are hard to grasp. In Heroes, a head wound will permanently kill the regenerating heroes, but a nuclear explosion won’t. Huh?
3. The character’s strength fluctuates arbitrarily. Most Superman cartoons feature two battles. Superman will lose the first bout (to raise the stakes) but he’ll win the second. He hasn’t gotten any stronger, so why does he wins the second time? That usually feels unsatisfying.
4. The superpowers are hard to understand. Ideally, you can explain each hero’s powers in a brief sentence. “He has spider-powers, like slinging webs and climbing and sensing danger” is OK. “She can control the weather” is even better. Please stay away from heroes that have many unrelated superpowers. What’s the connection between eye-beams, cold breath, flight, superstrength and x-ray vision? It sort of works for Superman because readers are exposed to him, but it is likely to ruin a superhero story that is completely new to its readers.
5. He’s overpowered. Superman is the best example of this. He can only have interesting fights with supervillains. (Theoretically, he could fight thugs armed with kryptonite, but Superman limping around isn’t much of a fight). If your character is completely immune to bullets and other common weapons, it will be hard for you to challenge him. Also, humans are vulnerable and we relate more to (somewhat) vulnerable heroes.
6. The hero’s superpowers ruin the drama. In particular, time travel, reading minds, erasing memories, and resurrection are particularly bad here.
Did you like this article? If so, please do me a favor and share it on Stumble.
Jan 19 2008
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
Philosophy: giving up on the concept of truth.
–Jacob Mallow
Capital punishment: giving up on the concept of Mallow.
–Agent Orange
Diplomacy, Superhero Nation-style: simultaneously offending the religious, the nonreligious and death penalty opponents.
Jan 17 2008
Rumsfeld only realized at the last second that he had left his blue-and-red suit at home. Even Captain America was sympathetic.
The picture was used in a 2005 Washington Post article on Defense-Marvel cooperation. On the Superhero Nation Scale of Cluelessness, I give its author a 7 out of 10.
“It’s clobberin’ time!” is the first sentence. Ouch. Even if the article mentioned The Thing, that would be inexcusable.
“…Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (normal human strength, no known superpowers)…” Heh.
Jan 15 2008
This is a list of my course syllabi, posted mainly for my own recordkeeping.
Jan 15 2008
PAGE ONE (five panels)
Panel 1. Establishing shot. This is a large panel that shows a spooky castle and a bit of the surrounding world. There are sinister mountains and dark clouds and lightning behind the castle. The castle should have a large base and two towers. Colorwise, the castle is half-shrouded in darkness and the rest of the shot should be dominated by grey and black.
CAP: On a far-away planet…
Panel 2. This is a small panel showing SILENCE, the main protagonist, cleaning as a prisoner.
CAP: This mute girl is a prisoner.
Panel 3. This is a small panel with two ogres, HACK and STAB, talking in the background. Hack is sneering. Both ogres have grey skin and empty, evil-looking eye. There’s a metal on his back without spikes.
HACK: Terrible job as always, Silence.
Panel 4. This is a small panel zooming in on Silence’s big, pleading eyes as she telepathically begs Hack not to hurt her.
SILENCE (telepathically): Please, I will do better.
Panel 5. A small panel of her and Stab. Stab looks like Hack, except he has a scar on the side of his face.
STAB: A worthless thing like you can never do better!
PAGE TWO (six panels).
Panel 1. This is a large panel showing Stab punting Silence into a cage a few feet away. He’s wearing a brown boot. Silence is surprised.
STAB: Back in your cage, Silence.
Panel 2. A small panel showing Hack and Stab bowing in fear in the background. Their attention has shifted away from Silence, but we can’t see what they are bowing to. We can, however, see the sinister shadow it is casting over them. (We’re getting this shot from Silence’s limited perspective, so we can’t see that the shadow is being cast by Silence’s father, VOLKRIG, who is off-camera).
VOLKRIG, in a sinister font: You idiots. Apparently you don’t understand the concept of a sacrifice ritual. I can’t sacrifice her if she’s already dead! Nor can I sacrifice you oafs. [Small text:] Not that I haven’t looked into it.
HACK (in a wavering balloon): Yes, master.
Panel 3: This is a small panel that’s a closeup on Silence’s face. Her expression is very frightened. To help make this picture look more askew, three strands of hair come over her eyes and rest on the tip of her nose.
SILENCE (thought bubble): Sacrifice?
Panel 4: Hack and Stab are standing up and looking warily away down the corridor. The reader should get the impression that the frightening speaker (Volkrig) has left.
HACK: How’d he know we were playing around with her?
STAB: You dummy! Don’t ask those kind of things. You know what happened to Clobber.
HACK, in small text: I miss Clobber.
Panel 5: Hack and Stab are still talking. Hack convinces Stab to come out with him to Earth.
HACK, who has now cheered up a bit: I bet he’s asleep already.
STAB: Doubt it.
HACK: Too bad. I doubt you could be having fun on Earth, kicking puppies around. I’ll let you know how it went.
PANEL 6: Hack has turned away from Stab and is starting to march away. Stab looks very surprised, like he’s about to miss out on a fun trip to Earth. Stab follows after him.
STAB: Hey, wait up!
PAGE THREE (six panels).
Panel 1. Silence hears “Earth” and begins to imagine herself there. She’s never been to Earth, so make this daydream seem very fantastical and not particularly well-informed. Since the only thing she knows on Earth is what the ogre just mentioned (that there are puppies to kick) this daydream should have a lot of puppies in it. Go crazy with this. In contrast to the first two pages, this fantasy should be bright and cheerful.
SILENCE, in a thought-bubble: Earth? There’s another world?
Panel 2. An alien bird drops onto the sill of a window that is high above her cage. She stares at it. (This should remind us how far away she is from freedom). Silence decides to break out here, so what we can see of the side of her face should be a bit harder and more resolute than what we had seen in the previous shots.
SILENCE, in a thought-bubble: I’ve got to escape!
Panel 3: She glances over at the hallway. Hack and Stab are gone. She smiles.
SILENCE, in a thought-bubble: Perfect.
Panel 4. This is a small panel that shows Silence exiting her cell.
Panel 5. This is a closeup of Silence’s bare foot pressing down on a stone button. She looks down at the trap trigger, worried.
Panel 6: This is the biggest panel on this page. A huge blade slams down right in front of her.
PAGE FOUR (five panels).
Panel 1. This is a small panel showing the blade rising. Silence breathes a sigh of relief.
Panel 2. Silence stands at an open door showing a mostly empty room with a purple portal in the middle. Two stone statues face the portal.
Panel 3. In the foreground, Silence stands in front of the portal, looking deep in thought and biting her bottom lip. She should look like she’s having some second thoughts. The portal is in the background, bathing her in a purple glow.
Panel 4. Silence is half-way in the portal.
Panel 5. Silence is tumbling through the portal.
PAGE FIVE (two panels).
Panel 1. Silence crashes to the ground as the portal closes behind her.
Panel 2. This panel should take up most of the page. Silence is surrounded by long distances of sand, rocks and desert.
PAGE SIX (five panels)
Panel 1. The camera has zoomed in on Silence’s hand picking up sand.
Panel 2. The sand runs through her fingers.
Panel 3. Silence looks up at the sun, squinting. She fans herself. Little drops of sweat are rolling down her cheek. In the background, we see a cloudless sky with a bird far off.
Panel 4. Silence has her eyes closed. She looks uncomfortable and her hair changes from blue and dirty to a clean and braided blonde. Red markings appear on both eyes.
CAP: Silence’s sudden freedom allowed her powers to manifest.
Panel 5 shows a shocked-looking Silence holding her hair out in front of her. Her skin is also clean.
Jan 15 2008
Catastrophe: I need advice.
Bartender: Don’t take vodka as a chaser.
Catastrophe: More, uhh, substantively…
Bartender: Don’t drink and drive.
Catastrophe: …
Catastrophe: I need a new advisor.
Bartender: That’s the spirit.
Jan 14 2008
This article will teach you how to write exciting fights.
1. Immerse us in the scene. Engage as many senses as possible, particularly the visceral ones (touch, smell, taste). For example, if the supervillain dropkicks his sister, you could work with the impact he feels, the impact she feels, the secondary impact of her slamming into something else, possibly the smell and/or taste of blood, and anything related to the superpowers of either. (Dropkicking the Human Torch should be a different experience than The Thing or Reed Richards).
Additionally, avoid anything that makes your readers wonder what’s happening. It may help to create a diagram of the scene so that you know what’s happening. One frequent area of confusion is how far away the characters are from each other.
2. Don’t put in too many characters. Each additional character dilutes the fight and makes it harder to visualize the fight in real-time. I’d recommend capping your fights to 2-4 combatants at a time. If you want more fighters, I’d recommend writing the battle as a series of more limited duels rather than a battle royale with tons of fighters. If you have too many characters in a fight, it will probably lead to a fight that flits between each character, not sticking around long enough to show them doing anything interesting. (See Soon I Will Be Invincible).
3. Unlike comic books and movies, a novel does not accomplish much by having the hero mow down waves of faceless henchmen or creatures. A novelist doesn’t have visual special effects to show off. The main advantage of a novel is that its length allows it to sustain a deeper plot and better-developed characters. Fighting anonymous and hopeless enemies does not play to these strengths.
4. Be creative. How do your characters interact with the scenery? Brainstorm a few items or props that are in the scene and try to work in a few when a combatant gets desperate. Using props helps remind readers that the characters aren’t fighting in a vacuum.
Also, try to have your hero use his powers in an unexpected way. We’ll expect a shapeshifting hero to copy a guard or the villain to infiltrate the villain’s lair and rescue his girlfriend. But we’d be more surprised if he copied his girlfriend and got captured in her place.
5. Let your hero improvise. Throw a few wrenches in his carefully laid plans. If your supervillain really is a genius, surely he will anticipate some of the things your hero will try and prepare accordingly. (The forcefield generators will be within the forcefields, dammit!)
6. Be suspenseful. These elements should help.
–Stealth and desperation. Typically, heroic efforts that are stealthy and/or desperate are more suspenseful because any false step could result in failure. In contrast, it’s less suspenseful for a hero to barrel into the villain’s lair because readers know that there’s no chance a faceless mook will kill the hero. But the faceless mook actually DOES present some risk to a stealthy hero that cannot afford to be seen–it’s still not likely that the mook will stop the hero, but he could alert somebody that might.
–Ticking clocks. If the hero has 15 minutes to defuse the bomb or two days to stop the villain from taking over the world, that adds urgency to the plot. My favorite example of this was D.O.A., where the main character gets fatally poisoned and has to solve his own murder.
–Strong side-characters. If we feel for the damsel-in-distress, we’d care a lot more whether the hero can rescue her. We’re more likely to feel for her if she’s well-developed and has a distinct personality. I recommend looking at Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
–Suicidally determined heroes. If the audience knows that the hero’s only goal is beating the villain–not coming home alive–then it raises more doubt about whether he will survive. Whether he does or not, there will be more suspense. I’d recommend checking out Pacific Rim here.
7. Keep it as short as possible. Generally, fights should be the climax of their chapters, rather than the bulk. Dragging out a fight scene for pages typically feels pretty tedious. The worst-case scenario is that the fight will feel like a scrolling list of hits the hero and villain are landing on each other. I’d recommend checking out the last 20 minutes of Man of Steel here. Failure.
Jan 13 2008
Dr. Darpa: Virtually every Office of Special Investigations agent uses a firearm as his primary weapon, but the vast majority of our kills are executed with non-gun weapons.
Captain Carnage: Every one of the criminals we deal with has steel-like skin, dodges bullets like they’ve gone out of style, or both.
Dr. Darpa: Over the past twelve years, I’ve been modifying tank-mounted machine guns to compensate for those unusual characteristics. I have created a handgun so horrifically lethal that Congress has limited its sale to NATO countries.
Captain Carnage: You mean…
Dr. Darpa: The Western Cannon.
Captain Carnage: I thought it was a myth!
Dr. Darpa: Mythically deadly, perhaps. With a full mound of ammo, it weighs roughly half a ton. It has three rates of fire: “full automatic,” “wall of lead,” and “dodge this.”
Jan 13 2008
Captain Carnage: The assassins have bugged your car with a tracking device. Driving it could be highly dangerous, particularly if you believe really strongly in that whole no-killing thing.
Lash: …
Lash: What do you have in mind?
Carnage: If you lend me your keys for the day, I have someone in mind whose skills will discourage anyone from tailing you ever again.
Lash nervously hands over his BMW keys.
The next morning, a smoking and sooty Agent Orange approaches Lash.
Lash: Dear God. You were the driver? Do you even have a license?
Agent Orange: I have good news, bad news and worse news. Which would you like first?
Lash: … there’s bad news besides learning you were the driver?
Lash: …
Agent Orange: You definitely won’t save a bunch on your car insurance.
Lash: The worse news?
Agent Orange: It won’t be an open-casket funeral.
Lash: …
Lash: Dare I ask what the good news is?
Agent Orange: Captain Carnage bet that open-road road tests are so easy that even I could pass one. I sure showed him! Hah. He didn’t even know that alligators are green-red colorblind!
Later, Lash confronts Captain Carnage.
Lash: You handed my BMW over to a goddamn lizard.
Carnage: It proved surprisingly easy to determine who was attempting to follow his… unorthodox driving style. We made four arrests. So his skills proved quite effective.
Lash: Which “skills?” I’ve definitely ruled out anything driving-related.
Carnage: Limb-regeneration and gullibility.
Lash: Gullibility?
Carnage: Did you know license tests occur on country roads in the middle of the night and are graded by SWAT officers in helicopters?
Lash: …
Lash: I hate you.
Jan 12 2008
The government of Northern Ireland has managed to simultaneously embarrass comic-book fans and English speakers in general. According to its website:
Six super heroes swept into Belfast today to help launch a unique new comic aimed at promoting and defending the rights of small children.
Herbie Healthy, Sophie Safe, Archie Achiever, Emer the Eco Girl, Donna Does-a-lot and Rory Rights… joined Junior Ministers Gerry Kelly and Ian Paisley Jnr at the headquarters of the play agency, PlayBoard, to unveil the “Super Six” comic to a group of primary school children.
[end quote]
Some quick thoughts.
Northern Ireland has a “play agency.” !?!
I think any self-respecting three-year-old would burst into tears if forced to read any comic book about Donna Does-a-lot or Emer the Eco Girl. In fact, even conceiving these comics is an attack on the dignity and rights of children.
“super heroes” and “super powers” look awkward. I recommend “superheroes” and “superpowers”. Would you want to read Super Hero Nation? That sounds like a Japanese drinking game.
Jan 11 2008
A commenter asked “what do they teach at the Office of Special Investigation’s Chariots of Fire Driving Academy?” A very good question.
[start scene]
Agent Black is waiting in the CFDA’s front-lobby, which looks like an airport terminal. Beyond the glass walls, cars chase each other on a practice course.
CFDA RECEPTIONIST: I’m sorry, we’re out of spaces for the Defensive Driving course. Can I interest you in Offensive Driving? Just sign these liability disclaimers.
BLACK: What do they teach in Offensive–
A car triple barrel-rolls onto the car it had been chasing.
BLACK: …
BLACK: Do you have a pen?
Jan 10 2008
Agent Orange: At the Office of Special Investigations, “Chariots of Fire” isn’t just a classic
film. It’s also the name of our driving school.
Jan 09 2008
Agent Orange: In Canada, keep your friends close and your automatic weaponry closer. The nation is a rabbit’s den of sinister plots and dark secrets.
Agent Black: Canada has dark secrets?
Agent Orange: The darkest!
Jan 08 2008
It’ll have ridiculously confusing time travel, wholly implausible use of a space station as a doomsday device, and more national landmarks than you can shake a standard-issue NASA laser pistol at. But Hollywood will want a name that can appeal to a global market. I’ll call it… Planet of the Capes.
Jan 08 2008
In comic book stories, “Boy Scout” is generally used as a pejorative for any character that’s too heroic (usually Superman). Maybe knocking the Boy Scouts isn’t a good idea…
Boy Scout Grabs Attacker’s Knife, Saves Maldives President from Assassination.
I wonder which Merit Badge he was going for.
How will the assassin explain this to his boss? “I was about to stab Gayoom. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling kid!”
Jan 08 2008
This article presents six tips about what works and what usually doesn’t when you’re naming your superheroes and villains. Find out why Mischief-Man is much worse than Mayhem.
Jan 07 2008
If you’re trying to capture the sound of a dialect, check out the Speech Accent Archive. I think it’ll help a lot with inflection, but probably not so much with phrases distinct to a region.
Incidentally, I think that political scientists usually agree that candidates with Midwestern and Southern accents perform better.
Jan 07 2008
Agent Black: Several years ago, the OSI concluded that Dr. Savant had a secret identity and identified three suspects, including another Social Justice Leaguer. All attempts to determine which one have failed. Until now.
Captain Carnage: Why?
Black: Because he’s every freaking one of them.
Carnage: …
Carnage: And that threw y’all off for several years?
Black: He has three secret identities. That was, uhh, a great deal stranger than I had anticipated.
Carnage: Hell, boy, this ain’t no shit. In the Gulf War, I passed out in a Kuwaiti sandstorm and woke up in Costa Rica. Surrounded by decapitated kangaroos.
Black: …
Black: Wow. That’s strange.
Carnage: Or it might have been Iraq, surrounded by decapitated Republican Guardsmen. It’s hard to keep all the details straight.
Black: …
Black: …
Black: You’ve been talking to RETCON, haven’t you?
Carnage: How’d you know?
Jan 07 2008
The UN plans to “use Spiderman to fight evil,” according to the Associated Press. (Wait, doesn’t the UN already have its own superheroes?)
The article mentions that…
John Bolton called it an “act of desperation… you can have Spiderman in a comic book all you want, but it’s not going to change public perception.”
John’s wrong. Adding Spidey to a comic book always changes public perception about its quality. For example, take Spiderman: Get Kraven. It made it to issue six, out of a scheduled seven. Get Kraven would not have survived to two.
Just how bad was Get Kraven?
Get Kraven #1
Makes you wonder what they did for 2-6, right?
Savor excerpts of a review of #1:
It works, in the same way that selling Pokemon toys to children works. The characters don’t go challenging any boundaries, except those of good taste.
Spidey’s appearance is best quickly forgotten…
Get Kraven #2
Incidentally, the mini-WTC logo is the only reason this comic should not be burned.
Excerpts of a review:
it’s about as witty as two-day old vomit down the back of the sofa. It’s as funny as a draft notice in 1967 [hey!] It’s as clever as a Ph.D thesis in pig-latin*…
Namor swims up and gives him some advice about Hollywood…
SUMMARY: Renting a bungalow. Scott Baio. Six pages.
*Which is different from regular theses… how?
Get Kraven #6 (skipping 3-5 for everyone’s well-being)
Wait… the WTC logo is gone. Light it up!
If you actually bought this, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Here are some excerpts of a five-star review of #6.
The Rothsteins weren’t the head of the snake. They need to go to Beverly Hills…
It turns out, Ned is playing a role playing game with the Chameleon because it’s healthy, according to his shrink. The Chameleon snaps, he takes a spear and runs towards Al…
The story ends with Nickles [THE F***ING DOG] wondering that this was supposed to be a seven issue series. And that it’s weird that he waited to the last page to talk!
Anyway, the point is that Spidey got Get Kraven to issue six. After that, world peace should be a snap.
In any case, he can sell a comic that will be heavy on the preaching and light on the miracles.
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