Archive for November 16th, 2011
#16: The Man, The Beard
Text reads:
“Norman’s a man who came from the north.
He lived in a land from which snow issued forth.
Among driving ice and cold winds he was reared,
and even when young, he’d a marvelous beard!
This gnarled mane of hair would protect from the cold
As a baby, a child, a young man, and when old.
He once had a wife but she left him. Instead,
she found a new man with more hair on his head!”
#16: Tophat Bob
He’s a funny character I made up. He wears a tophat all the time and plays jokes on people.
Thanks, Xavier
#16: Mecoptera
Real Name: Drasdell Squirk
Height: 7’1″
Weight: 122 lbs.
Powers: Giant, flying alien insectisoid with a scorpion-like stinger.
Character info: Mecoptera was a character I came up with years ago related to the superhero/pirate storyline I wanted to do (see previous entry of Cutlass for more info). However, he’ll now be used in a future space arc of The Adventurers of Liberty City. He’ll be one of the alien villains that team will be facing. He’s essentially a henchman, using his flight and stinger to attack heroes.
15 – der Halbstarker
A Halbstarker is essentially a German / Austrian / Swiss greaser with perhaps a slightly greater interest in troublemaking and violence. This character was also an experiment with a pretty ugly limited color palette.
#6 Sisika
Inspired by a character Alan Smale created in his novella, Clash of Eagles (published in Panverse Two.) (Which novella, btw, won Alan the Sideways award!)
Sisika, A Cahokian warrior mother:
“Her forehead was flat and her hair muddy, but her cheekbones were set higher than those of the coastal tribes and her bronze skin seemed better cared for. Most telling of all she stood straight and calm, with a dignity their local captives lacked. She was the dusk, the evening star… And he, Marcellinus, was a bully and past his prime, and he knew it….”
Thank you Alan!
15 – The Man of the Moon
… continued from Character #14, Maximilian Mote…
… the MAN of the MOON!
The appearance of a super powered generation capable of miraculous feats increased the levels of distrust already present between nations. In the United States, this paranoia fueled a number of space programs to establish satellite-based monitoring of global superhuman movement. The destruction of one satellite over the U.S.S.R. at the hands of the Soviet Super Star pushed the scope of America’s off world activities to once again visit the moon with the goal of establishing a monitoring system out of the reach of current super human abilities. What the astronauts found on the moon when they stepped off their landing vehicle was unexpected to say the least.
Partially buried in a crater was the prone form of a pale gray skinned man dressed in 18th century clothing. After a moment of silent disbelief and upon orders from home, the astronauts loaded their anachronistic find onto their escape vehicle for departure back to Earth.
A silvery sheen at the edge of burial crater caught the eye of one of the astronauts as they boarded the craft. Upon inspection he began to free a tall silvery staff. The staff shone and as the astronaut turned triumphantly to show what he uncovered to his peers a massive tentacle emerged from the lunar soil and dragged him under the surface as the staff sparked with ethereal energy. The shocked astronauts aboard the escape vehicle were pushed aside as the body they found stood and dove after their disappearing compatriot unaided by any breathing apparatus. Moments later the strange man burst forth from the ground, staff in one hand and a critically injured astronaut in the other. With a mouthed “Good day, gentlemen,†the stranger collapsed.
Back on Earth, the strange gray man regained consciousness and related his story in a perfect 18th century English accent. The man called himself the Man of the Moon and indicated that he was once a sailor by the name of Joseph Williams working for a small American business whose ship was destroyed at sea when returning to the recently founded country from a trading venture in France. Adrift in the Atlantic on flotsam he was rescued in the middle of a night, lit by the full moon in a cloudless sky, by the previous Man of the Moon who had been protecting Earth from threats from beyond from his look out post on the dark side of the moon. In return for his rescue, Williams was trained as the next defender of our planet, as the previous guardian was growing tired after manning the solitary position for nearly a millennium. Williams did his job and protected our planet from many extraterrestrial menaces but has no recollection as to how he ended up in the condition in which he was found or what attacked the astronaut on the surface of the moon.
Through force of will alone summoned his staff to his side even though it was housed miles away at another facility and offered his services to his homeland. The Man of the Moon has become a media darling and sought after interviewee by talk shows and historians alike. The Man of the Moon has decided to spend time on Earth reacquainting himself with his home world, all the while keeping an eye on the skies.
The Man of the Moon is by far the most powerful extra-normal being on Earth capable of bending gravity to his will. He can personally channel his power into feats of strength and flight and, with the aid of staff, extend his powers outward and control gravity around him on scales that can affect global tides, though this exertion greatly drains him. Williams’ physiology has been greatly altered. His pale gray skin is invulnerably to all known forms of harm and has stopped his aging giving him the appearance of 30-year old even though he is over 260 years old! The Man of the Moon can exist unaided in environments of extreme pressure and in the vacuum of space for indefinite amounts of time as he no longer needs to eat, breathe or sleep.
The Man of the Moon was not the only addition to America’s super human stable. The fateful lunar mission also spawned…
#16 – Front Line
That’s right, kids, get in gear!
Nazi super villains need super patriots to punch them in the face, right?
#16 – The Ribbonator
#16 – The Ribbonator
I could never understand the ribbon candy that is put out in dishes during the holidays. Seems like it just sits there for a long time getting disgusting until finally being eaten by some desperate child wandering through the living room of their grandparents house.
The Ribbonator was sent back in time by future holiday foodstuffs controlling a future world. The main candy controller, SweetNet, determined that Karate Kane could stop it’s plans so the Ribbonator was sent back to destroy him.
The Ribbonator has one goal, destroy Karate Kane, and he will mow down everyone who gets in his way. At one point, he tries to find Karate Kane at a holiday party, but is stopped by some party goers. They gave him a hard time about a sweet candy, so the Ribbonator went out to his truck and got his weapon. The final phrase heard by those innocent party goers was, “I’ll cause plaqueâ€, which was said in a slight Austrian accent.
The Ribbonator still hunts Karate Kane to this day, while avoiding the rain and large animals because they make him sticky and irritable.
12 – Morag MacLaverty
Morag MacLaverty is a social worker of sorts, albeit not exactly your typical one, and this has to do with the fact she is an elf.   Real elves are not the kinds that tend to be featured in books or stories, but something much more dangerous. Elves are almost always faster, stronger and more intelligent than humans, and a “wild” elf is neither noble nor friendly, and at best will torment humans, and in some cases hunt them for sport, and there are still a fair number of their Faerie mound homes in remote parts of Northern Europe. They have a rather strange social structure – they are lead by a Queen who speaks directly into the minds of all Elves at all times, and is their ultimate indefiable ruler, her thoughts influencing their every action. They are also like cuckoos however – they are brood parasites, they do not raise their own young, but replace human children with “changelings”, an elf baby whose magical “glamour” is enough to cause onlookers to accept them as their own, and to grow up until they are old enough to hear the call of the Queen, and begin to slowly think more and more like her… Several incidents of killing sprees have been connected in retrospect to undetected Elves being influenced by a Queen.
Morag however, is not a typical elf, she was identified at a young age and given the iron choker and bands to wear – for iron blocks that communication, making a wearer safe from the Queen’s influence. It also turns off her glamour and enables people to see her as an Elf.  Discovering that you or your child is an elf is a traumatic experience for any family. Fortunatly Morag’s parents were unusually understanding – their real daughter was recovered after a raid on an Elf mound, and understanding that this was none of the infant Morag’s fault they raised her as their own. Morag now is employed to help with other cases similar to her own – to track down other Changelings and give them the iron necessary to protect them from the Queen. A big part of her job is also to counsel families who this has happened to and monitor for signs of abuse - it is not uncommon for the parents to be violent towards a child when they discover they are a fake, and Morag is responsible for taking them into care should there be any signs of this.  She is also highly regarded as her own background lets children coming to terms with the revelation of that identity have someone to talk to who has experience the same thing.  She packs her blessed iron knuckle dusters as on occassion she may have to fight “wild” elves.  Unfortunatly, her department is small, and there always one or two who slip through the net.  Â
Concept Background: As there are a ton of Elves being entered into this competition, I wanted to have my own attempt at doing one to see if I could put a different twist on it. The main thing I wanted was to take it back to the original folkloric elves, the nasty ones who stole children and feared iron rather than the ones who sprang from Tolkien. Puttign these into a modern setting, I came to the idea of a social worker who worked with families who discovered changelings within them and it went from there – it seemed like a logical end result of this in a modern setting.
#16 Firelight
Firelight
Nobody knows why Kendall Bright entered that field the night he received his powers, not even Kendall himself.
The fact is he was afraid to face an uncertain future without the love of his life, who left him for another without any warning. Maybe he wanted some alien force to just take him away from this planet never to return again.
Maybe he wanted to die that night and just rot out in the field.
Whatever the real reason, he laid in a field bombarded with astral radiation. It was a freak occurrence the local media reported.
The radiation left Kendall Bright with the headache from hell . . . at least the first night. It also caused his body to reach incredibly high temperatures, as if it was on fire.
No flames came from his body that night, but his body did burn through the hospital bed as well as through five floors.
A clandestine group took him in and transformed him into a weapon.
Codenamed “Firelight,” this hero took to night skies and became a fiery knight of justice.
All he wants is a normal life, but he’s not denying that he’s having fun in this new identity of his.
Firelight: (C) & TM Jeff Harris dba Studio Lightcount.
#16 – Jade Cinnamon
Skilled with elven blades and gifted as an apprentice mage, Janith Dunharrow has used her wiles and beauty to better her standing in the merchant caste of Tyldown. And why not? Coin rules the town, and whoever controls it has true power. Let the craftsmen craft, and the venders haggle. If Janith has her way, she will soon stand above them all. For now, she’s content to terrorize the merchants trade routes, building up a reputation as an honourable despot, and wealth besides. They all know who she is, but already her hold on the town is tightening. Because she has the local millitia under her control, those few traders and nobles who can see the danger have already left… or are gone, at any rate.
# 16 – Snam
Snam is … a snake. Slow and steady, he is not prone to impulsive behavior, and often serves as a ‘field commander’ for the Creatures’ attacks.
[In 1974, at the age of 12, I drew a series of “comic books” detailing the adventures of Merrill, a 15-year-old human boy, in the Other Land, an invisible dimension which co-exists with our own. The characters I am submitting throughout the 30 Days are the inhabitants of the Other Land.]
#16 governor seka
after her old body was damaged beyond repair, the scientists of the fedreration put her brain in an android body. she’s gruff, bold and in charge of the postric galaxy cluster
14_Nubia
Nubia is another character from A Jagged Road (my graphic novel that has yet to get off the ground). Like Ralyanna, Akoko and Reth, she was taken in from the streets and raise under the tutelage of the suave and cunning Lipho, who uses his network of street urchins to earn him money. Lacking Ralyanna’s merchant talents, Nubia gets by in the world’s oldest profession. Nubia is quite jealous of Ralyanna both for her natural talents and for the disproportionate affection that Lipho has for the fence compared to her. Not that Nubia has no wiles of her own – she has a large base of influential and connected clients and she’s quite adept at prying information from them one way or another.
Besides Lipho, Nubia has a close relationship with another urchin boy, Isoba. She takes the large but dim boy with her when moving through more dangerous areas, or meeting new clients.
#15 The Altercationist
The Altercationist
“I rather fancy myself an altercationist. Perhaps the best — that is what I aim to find out. And so, you see, I am drawn – no, driven to find the most unusual, peculiar, and dangerous altercations one can have. Winning an argument with a robo-tree by means of Kantian synthesis, or a knife fight with a tiger, if there are any tigers left lying around, you know. Your garden variety conflicts — fighting over a woman in a bar, a gun battle with bandits, a game of ‘chicken’ in flying tanks — these have their place as stolid, staple pleasures. The salt of the earth. But I–†and here there was an umistakeable and slightly malign twinkle in the woman’s eye– “I am after other altercations, altogether, I should say. The more ‘other’, the better.â€
The Altercationist acts like a Southern gentlewoman (it’s an affectation, of course – The American South Themeplex collapsed ages ago). Manners and geniality are the way she copes with living in a post-Singularity world of high weirdness. The world is apocalyptic to the average fearful human, but if the chaos bothers her, she’ll never tell. Prone to tall tales – she’s a lesbian Mark Twain.
The Altercationist is powered by biotech. Everywhere she goes she carries her Old-Timey Traveling Medicine Show with her, full of notions and potions, toughness-amplifying viruses and delightful adrenal cocktails for the discerning combatant and sophisticated survival aficionado alike. They are mostly administered by her lover, Rose Remedy, a belly-dancing cyborg gypsy.
In her search for thrills, the Altercationist has not lost a battle yet. However, as she heads towards The Island of Ultravia to face the top fighters from around the globe, she may yet find herself in an altercation from which she cannot escape.
#15 – Kid Valkyrie
The Kid Valkyrie! Nobody really knows her name, as she hasn’t bothered to give one to anyone yet. While the rest of the Valkyries are off taking care of the fallen soldiers in the glory of battle, the Kid Valkyrie has a special job – taking care of all the kids who “die” in the glory of battle in their backyards. She whisks them away to Valhalla when they fall, promising them an endless feast of candy and pizza awaits them…
… Okay, so she’s actually just a little kid who’s Halloween costume went a bit too far. She particularly enjoys raiding the games of the neighborhood boys playing World War II on the hill, swooping in to take the Allies (and sometimes even the Germans) to their personal heaven. Then she gets into battle herself, and somehow always ends up turning into a huge tank…
#16, 17 & 18 – Messengers of Potremolis
Doing another 3-in-one post to get ahead. Busy week and a half ahead of me. These 3 characters are more Doodzes, this time a group of messengers from the far-off city of Potremolis. As you can see from their appearance (especially Yogon), they ran into some trouble on the way to Bamboora. Our heroes may have to save their butts before they can hear their message.
#12 – Photon
To see Photo’s origin story please see the full listing on www.geekywhiteguy.com
Thanks!
16 – Stingut of the Ninja Bros. by Beausephus+Son
CHARACTER NAME: Â Stingut of the Ninja Brothers
DATE OF CREATION: Summer 2011
CONCEPT: Â “Stingut is a little kid who is captured and has to be a ninja and then his brothers come and rescue him and they are all ninjas together. Â He uses ropes and lassos and has a little sword.”
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So when the mood strikes my son (and that is quite often) and he wants to make up “superguysâ€, “superdudesâ€, “supermansâ€â€¦ I pull out a bunch of templates I made for him and he picks out everything from the style of boots to the color scheme of the various costume options presented before him.  I then draw quick sketch, and he edits, adds, etc…  I then draw up the character and he hangs them in his room…if they meet his ultimate judgement.  Then I make him come up with a story for each character.
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THE NINJA BROTHERS is a story that my son started to tell me one night before bedtime.  Perhaps in an attempt to put off the impending lights-out, the story of three long-lost brothers became almost epic in its proportions spreading out over a few evenings and interweaving all of his interests  – superheroes, spies, ninjas, and magic.
STINGUT is a boy who was kidnapped by an evil ninja master at a very young age. Â The ninja master trains Stingut in various marial arts and escape tricks. Â One day two ninjas infiltrate the ninja master’s fortress and take Stingut away. Â The two ninjas, BIRQ and KOKU, are actually Stingut’s brothers who have been training for years as ninjas so they could finally be able to rescue their long-lost little brother.
Together, the Ninja Brothers, start waging a guerilla style war against the evil ninja master who also controls the country they live in.
STINGUT, although young, is exceptionally skilled “at leaping around and disappearing like Batman and Robin.” Â He also carries a special arsenal created for him by the evil ninja master. Â His tolls include lock picks, and “little darts and sharp sticks to throw at bad guys because he is little so he has to use little stuff.” Â STINGUT can also do “really cool rope tricks and magic tricks with rope so he can get out of traps or tie up evil ninjas.” Â Alo, STINGUT carries a small magic short sword that each of his brothers have an identical copy of.
Thanks for checking out our stuff.
-Beausephus
#15 – Gordon the Creepy Mysterious Hunter
There is no knowledge about Gordon’s past. Â He is just an odd hunter who seems to have a fascination with hats and jackets.
#15: The Kind Mage
I cannot take credit for the original idea, a trope my friend wrote as a vague description of what might be a character.
“The quiet, gentle mage who literally cannot control his dark side.” Interpret that as you will. I might have made him look less magely…more cagely…
Process shots found here.
#15 Lawyerbots
Universe/Storyline: The Band
Universe details: In the isolated city of Crescent where these characters live, superpowers spring from close encounters with death. Only people born in the city can gain these powers, and since this is a relatively new settlement, the first generation of people born there are just starting to show signs of super-fication. This means mostly kids and teens. Of the teens, Camille, Max, Amelia, Walter, and Rin decide to team up and form a band. They take it upon themselves to realizes that everyone deserves to be informed about the city’s unique predicament, they try to reach every kid in the city at once by putting on a live concert.
In contrast with the Future Cops, everyone knows a Lawyerbot is a robot. It’s impossible not to notice. The thing looks like a trash can on treads with a fax machine on top. It doesn’t speak, but rather spits a printed memo at you for you to read.
It is not clear why the adult citizens of Crescent allow anyone to be defended in court by one of these machines. Sure, they’re programmed with all the necessary legal background, they’re cheaper than a human lawyer, and have markedly less ‘personality’, but these bots don’t know how to find a loophole at all. If it seems like you’re guilty, the bot will barely try to defend you. The city provides these bots to defendants who can’t afford legal fees.
Here’s a little scene introducing Max and his lack of respect for authority, involving the obnoxious Lawyerbot:
INT. COURTROOM- DAY
A juror rises from the jury box to read a verdict.
JUROR
We find the defendant: guilty.
The courtroom is silent. No tears or moans of sadness. No acknowledgment at all from the crowd or the defendant. Just silence. Then, a yawn.
Max slouches so low in the defendant’s chair that only his head can be seen above the table in front of him. His legs are outstretched beyond the table to show off the bright orange Converse high tops he’s wearing with his tie-less suit. His arms pop out from behind the table in a stretch and then he rights himself, resting his elbows on the table nonchalantly.
MAX
Did I miss something?
The jury member looks at him in shock and then turns to the judge, who is staring at Max menacingly.
JUDGE
Because you’re being tried as an adult, your sentence will be served in a federal penitentiary.
MAX
Oh, guilty, there’s a surprise.
Max folds his arms behind his head and leans back in his chair. The crowd mutters disapprovingly.
JUDGE
If you are suggesting some bias in my ruling, Mr. Cardiff, you can take your case to the court of appeals.
Max violently gets out of his seat.
MAX
Stop calling me “Mr. Cardiff” alright? My name is Max. And how am I supposed to appeal my case when I don’t even have a lawyer?
JUDGE
You’ve been provided a lawyer–
MAX
That’s not a lawyer! That’s a god damn robot!
A metal box on treads beside Max spits out a sheet of paper like a fax machine. Max reads it.
MAX
You have not acted in my best interest!
JUDGE
Bailiff, take Max to his cell.
The BAILIFF grabs Max and drags him away. Max struggles to no avail. He yells out at no one in particular.
MAX
Just because I’m different, you think you can put me away? Well your stupid jail doesn’t stand a chance. You can take your crappy justice system, your future cops, and this whole freakin’ city and shove it right up your–
The heavy doors between the courtroom and holding slam with finality.
#15 – P-Fin the Rapping Penguin
Straight outta the Poles, come P-Fin! Layin’ down the phattest beats! Polar bears be like what???
#30Characters Chatter…