CBI Archive
Snark Free Corner for 10/22
Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 PM EST
Updated: Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 PM EST
Welcome to the latest installment of your breath of snark free air!
Enjoy!
COMIC BOOK IDOL 3 UPDATE
Here are the entries from the eight finalists for the second round of Comic Book Idol 3!
Check out the Comic Book Idol 3 forum if you want to see the rest of their pages!
I am going to post all their first pages (of their three page assignment). For reference, here is the script by C.B. Cebulski for that first page…
PAGE ONE
Page One, Panel One
We open here with a shot of cheerleaders, which, as we all know, is how every good comic should open! Anyway… we’re on the sidelines of a high school football game as these hot young things are doing their best to do their jobs and cheer on the crowd. The main focus of this shot should be one cheerleader in particular and she should be the center of attention; clearly the captain and the hottest of the bunch. Poses and uniforms up to you, but they should look sexy and feature the letters JB as I went to Joel Barlow High School.
Caption: I never dated a cheerleader.
Page One, Panel Two
Cut now to a scene at the prom… just a close-up of the prom queen as she stands on the stage and smiles and holds her flowers and waves at the crowd. She just got her crown and is happy as all hell. She’s the prom queen, so she should be hot and decked out here in her gown with her tiara. I can send my prom pic as ref if you want to see what my date wore in 1989, even though she wasn’t even nominated as queen. Depending on how you frame it, if we can see any of the background, it should be of balloons and glitter and all that prom shit, with any signs again for Joel Barlow High School Prom or JBHS 1989. Our theme was “Wonderful Tonight” if you wanted to include that. I’m just giving details here, so feel free to use or disregard whatever you want.
Caption: Never got lucky with the prom queen.
Page One, Panel Three
Cut to the outside of the back of a schoolyard near a parking lot. There should be a couple of old wooden benches and on them are seated a bunch of stoner chicks. Back then, Jerry Garcia was alive and the Dead were still touring and there were plenty of Deadhead chicks at my school. So there should be three or four of these chicks seated here, ripped jeans, tie-dyed shirts, flip-flops, rings, bracelets, anklets, dreadlocks, braided hair… however far you feel like going. They’re all just sitting around smoking cigs and chatting as an old boom box plays some tunes they’re grooving to.
Caption: Those kinds of girls always required too much effort.
Caption: I always found it easier to trade cigarettes with the stoner chicks for a quick hook-up in the parking lot.
Page One, Panel Four
This is a small inset panel in the bottom right corner of panel three. It’s a simple shot of a young C.B. here, smiling or winking at the reader, as he enters the story.
C.B.: Just kidding.
Page One, Panel Five
Establishing shot of C.B. here now, dressed much like he is on the cover of Wonderlost #1: jeans, t-shirt, sambas, Rossignol cap, and black and yellow JB soccer jacket. He’s on his own, maybe holding a notebook and a text book under one arm, as he walks down a crowded high school hallway lined with lockers.
Caption: I mean, sure, I was your typical, horny high school teen, looking for love in any place I could find it.
Caption: Most often in the pants of any girl who’d let me in.
Page One, Panel Six
C.B. now standing in the same hallway in front of the lockers with a cute little dark-haired hottie, dressed casually in jeans and sweater and Keds or something similar. She has her back up against the lockers as he leans in and over her and they make goo-goo eyes at each other.
Caption: But now that I’m older, reflecting back on all the different girls I dated…
Caption: …I’ve come to realize that the ones I slept with are the ones I remember the least.
Page One, Panel Seven
Tighter on just their faces as they stare in each other’s eyes.
Caption: My fondest memories are of the girls I didn’t hook up with.
Caption: The small moments I shared with them are the ones I’ve never forgotten.
Andrew Huerta
a 23-year-old freelance artist from Santa Ana, CA.
Caio Oliveira
a 28-year-old who is currently unemployed, from Teresina, Piauí, Brazil.
Charles Paul Wilson III
a 31-year-old security guard from Wharton, NJ.
Dan McDaid
a 30-year-old writer and illustrator from London.
Jon Reed
a 28-year-old accountant assistant from Alexandria, VA.
Jose “Joh James” Holder
a 36-year-old storyboard artist from Montreal.
Nicholas Pitarra
a 25-year-old college student and part-time waiter from Houston.
Wilfredo Torres
a 35-year-old information technology professional from Lawrencville, GA.
Get ready to vote this Wednesday!
COVER THEME GAME
As always, here is the game. I show three covers. They all have something in common, whether it be a character, a trait all three characters share, locale, creator, SOMEthing. And it isn’t something obvious like “They all have prices!” “They all have logos!” “They all feature a man!” etc.
In addition, please note that you must have some familiarity with comic book history to correctly guess these comics. You cannot guess the connective theme just by looking at the covers solely, you must have some knowledge beyond just the covers.
Good luck! A cool point to the first person to figure it out!
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SNARK FREE CHALLENGE
What is the most original superpower introduced in the last decade?
THE COVER GAME
This week’s game is as follows…
Find me a cover featuring Agatha Harkness on it…
Floating heads don’t count!
Here is an example (which you can’t use!)….
Remember, only one cover per commenter!
Good luck!
WHO IS IT?
Remember, tell me who it is and what number clue gave it away!
1. This character was not born in America.
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2. This character is a superhero.
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3. This character has sort of like shapeshifting powers.
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4. This creator was an Avenger.
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5. This character was born in Costa Verde.
Who is it?
Well, that’s it for this installment of Snark Free Corner.
Hope you had fun!
46 Comments
Michael
October 22, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Silverclaw!
And my guess is that the characters on all three covers team up after fighting.
Rob M
October 22, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Who is it: Silverclaw, on 5
Cover game: Fantastic Four #185, by Perez http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=31325&zoom=4
Vig
October 22, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Silverclaw on 4. Whatever happened to her. Jarvis?
Jason
October 22, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Agatha pops up on the cover of F4 #110. Is it okay to look these things up, as opposed to remembering it? I usually do the latter, but I never get to see SNC this early.
Eric TF Bat
October 22, 2007 at 8:14 pm
It’s a shame Jack Hawksmoor from The Authority, “The God of Cities”, has been around for more than a decade (just — he first appeared in July 1996), because I think he’s got the most original power since Jerry and Joe invented X-ray vision. As for more recent powers, I like Mitchell Hundred’s tech-empathy, although it’s only a development of a power that goes back, I expect, to pulp sci-fi. Wikipedia has a list of superpowers (recently edited to include too many unwarranted “citation needed” links by some chronic anorak named Sesshomaru).
mrjayberry
October 22, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Is the cover challenge they all feature evil versions of heros,
Avengers Black Knight/Proctor
X-Factor 1 Cable/Stryfe
X-Factor 2 Multiple Man/Multiple Man
Brian Cronin
October 22, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Yeah, Eric, my pal Tadhg (who technically is still a blogger here) helped me come up with the question, and that was his first response, too.
His current stance is Miss Misery from Sleeper, which I think probably sounds about right.
Someone who becomes more powerful the more evil she acts, and weaker the nicer she acts.
Brian Cronin
October 22, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I guess I should add a caveat that “corner boxes” do not count as the character appearing on the cover, so that last cover is not meant to feature anyone but the two figures at the forefront of the cover.
mrjayberry
October 22, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Okay I was stretching but I rarely own any of the comics featured so I thought I would guess.
The Mutt
October 22, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Bueno Excelente had the power of perversion, and Jean de Baton Baton defeated his enemies with the power of his Frenchness, but I’m not sure they qualify as superpowers.
chris
October 22, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Though I’m fairly sure he’s been around a bit longer than a decade, I always thought Chamber (from Generation X) had a pretty original power and design, via the blowing body parts off every time he used his power.
I also think Morrison’s Marvel Boy, Noh-Varr, had a pretty unique set of powers with the cockroach DNA and the whole “going white” bit. Been a while since I read that…
J.C.
October 22, 2007 at 8:38 pm
All 3 covers feature armor?
Bill Reed
October 22, 2007 at 8:57 pm
“Strange Bedfellows”?
Awesome.
Grant
October 22, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Mother Mayhem from Savage Dragon.
Grant
October 22, 2007 at 9:29 pm
^^^^^^^
Nomination for original superpower. Or grossest at least.
M Bloom
October 22, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Cover theme game: I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the link between all three covers is that they feature characters who were in some way altered by science. Captain America was injected with the Super Soldier serum, Wolverine had his bones plated with adamantium, Cable was injected with a techno-organic virus, and Wolfsbane was turned into a Genoshan mutate.
Guessed Silverclaw on number 4.
JD
October 22, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Does the new take on Madrox’s powers count ? Very original and quite fascinating, it started in 2004…
Cove West
October 22, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Cover theme - All three issues feature characters with psionic rapports:
Black Knight/Sersei
Cyclops/Jean Grey
Havok/Wolfsbane
FunkyGreenJerusalem
October 22, 2007 at 11:13 pm
All 3 comics in the comics cover challenge were worked on by Bob Harras?
He wrote Avengers, and Edited the other two.
(one could say wrote as both were part of editorially driven stories).
Either that or all three feature team-mates fighting team mates.
FunkyGreenJerusalem
October 22, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Or looking again, all three feature characters mind-controlled by a villain.
(my taste of getting it last week has made me greedy!)
Colossus 2000
October 22, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Did Agatha appear on an Infinity War / Crusade / Thingy cover? I rememeber her being part of the magic group (Scarlet Witch, Doc Strange etc) but I can’t find either my comics, or the fold out versions of the covers on the net.
Silverclaw on 5.
While Sentry has no ‘new’ powers, I like the theory of the CLOC telling him which disaster is more important to be helping with.
Brian Cronin
October 22, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Neither of those two characters were featured on the covers.
Brian Cronin
October 22, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Yeah, that was quite clever by Jenkins.
Alan
October 22, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Best new power? Sylar, on Heroes (that counts, right?) Working out what’s “wrong” with someone’s brain and then fixing your own to match it… that’s pretty original.
FunkyGreenJerusalem
October 22, 2007 at 11:57 pm
All three covers feature artists using different styles to the one’s they became famous for?
(or are known for - not sure who did that x-factor one, but Epting and Lee changed styles).
(How bizarre was it reading X-Cutioners Song when you’d have three chapters by Lee/Liefield styled artists, and you read the next part and you’ve got Jae Lee back when he was really out there?)
yo go re
October 23, 2007 at 1:03 am
you know, “yay” for Comic Boo Idol and all, but are we going to get a page from everyone every week? Snark Free Corner is already a pretty slow-loading feature, what with at least three full-sized covers every week; did we really need to bog down the bandwidth even further? I’ll try some guesses once the page is done loading…
Brian Cronin
October 23, 2007 at 1:11 am
Yeppers!
But each week, there will be less pages to load, so that’s something for ya!
yo go re
October 23, 2007 at 1:18 am
(okay, I lied - I got bored and stopped the page loading)
For the cover challenge: is it werewolves? Captain America was (in)famously turned into Capwolf, and Wolverine was in that story as well. Of course, Wolfsbane’s whole power is being a lycanthrope. It’d be a nice, Halloweeny theme (what with the [vaguely] similar Silverclaw being the “Who Is It” answer)…
Danar
October 23, 2007 at 4:35 am
I’ll go out on a limb and say the cover challenge is the cover features a fight that never occurred. I’m pretty sure these were all bait-switches where the characters met/interacted, but didn’t actually fight.
John Seavey
October 23, 2007 at 5:29 am
Silverclaw on 1, actually, although I spent most of 2-5 worried I was going to be shot down. And the last she was seen was in ‘Civil War’, trying to leave the country only to have Ms. Marvel beat the crap out of her and throw her in the Negative Zone prison. Foreign national, shmoreign national! We don’t deport you lousy super-heroes, that’s too good for your crime of helping to save our planet numerous times over! You don’t want to sign up for our American Registration Act, you wind up in a hellhole prison in another universe!
acespot
October 23, 2007 at 5:42 am
Flemgem has a pretty gross superpower: horking up great gobbets of snot onto his opponents.
Dogwelder doesn’t actually have any SUPERpowers, but welding a dog to an opponent has got to be one of the sickest things ever.
Will
October 23, 2007 at 6:00 am
Milligan’s X-Factor had one or two interesting ones. I’m not sure how sweating acid translated into energy blasts, but it was still interesting. As was Phat’s thing of shifting his body fat around to wherever it would do most good.
Zach Adams
October 23, 2007 at 6:47 am
Yeah, X-Force/X-Statix had some truly out-there ones. Gin Genie, whose seismic powers were fueled by booze, Dead Girl’s corpse-reading, El Guapo’s symbiotic skateboard. I always felt bad for Jukko in Stormwatch TA, whose sole superpower until late in the run was being able to feel every bit of physical pain anyone for several miles around felt. In one story he was shown to basically chase away a support group for cancer sufferers from the base’s neighborhood because he couldn’t sleep through it. When did Flash (Wally) start accelerating and decelerating things? I always thought that was a great expansion of the traditional speedster powerset (and maybe my favorite power in all of City of Heroes).
Stephane Savoie
October 23, 2007 at 7:42 am
Multiple Man’s new power: resembles the Archie Legion’s Triplicate Girl, each component of whom had a distinct personality.
Before The Anarchist has acid sweat, Skuzz from DP7 did the same thing.
Sentry being told which disaster to take on was done by the Samaritan from Astro Citt first… and probably before that.
What’s the best new original power? Miss Misery sounds just about right to me. Surely Morrison’s come up with something, at some point in the last ten years, tho? Max Thunderstone communicated through thought balloons every around him could see.
Scott MacIver
October 23, 2007 at 8:09 am
Silverclaw on 5.
Best new power in the past 10 years… I kind of like the Drummer from Planetary, I always thought he was kind of cool.
Or Nico from “Runaways” has a pretty cool twist on magic. I like that.
yo go re
October 23, 2007 at 9:00 am
she also showed up a couple months ago in Ms. Marvel’s own book, with Puppet Master…
avengers63
October 23, 2007 at 9:07 am
As far as powers go, it’d be dang hard to come up with anything completely new. I feel it’s much more important for the writer to use existing characters creatively rather than to invent new ones. That’s how we ended up with 596 X-Men and 268 LOSHers.
And that’s just silly.
Matt D
October 23, 2007 at 9:56 am
I actually really like the powers for one of the urchins that Whedon just came up with in Runaways, the one that could fly whenever there’s music playing.
avengers63
October 23, 2007 at 10:24 am
Flying isn’t a new power; it’s a new take on one. I’ll give him that much.
Jeff Ryan
October 23, 2007 at 10:51 am
Henry in the novel of the Time Traveller’s Wife is my bid. Time travel is shown as almost entirely involuntary and subcnscious, more like a chromosomal disease than an ability. Being unable to control it, Henry can do little more than try to survive it.
Craig
October 23, 2007 at 11:04 am
yo go re beat me to the werewolf guess. Wolfsbane and Wolverine both actually appeared in the Capwolf story, and maybe even Cable too.
sgt pepper
October 23, 2007 at 12:54 pm
As for those Comic Book Idol pages, some of them are fantastic, but I’m surprised at just how awful some others are. There were literally a bajillion contestants who submitted portfolios and the few portfolios that I browsed through were stunning. And this is the best that they could come up with? I guess this just shows how difficult it is to produce quality sequential art on a time limit.
Brian Cronin
October 23, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Cap, Wolfsbane and Wolverine were all members of the “Wolfpack” during the Cap-Wolf storyline.
So yo go re and Craig both can have a cool point!
John Cage
October 23, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Does this count for the Agatha Harkness question:
http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-23599503122488_1971_2255287
(She’s behind Black Talon.)
Have a good day.
John Cage
yo go re
October 23, 2007 at 9:39 pm
hey, score! Usually the ones I *can* guess already *are* guessed by the time I see them. High fives all around, Craig!
Craig
October 24, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Right back at ya, yo go re.
Not bad for a guy that comes here to lurk, eh?