In Which I Am Uncharacteristically Nice To My Fans

A few weeks ago, an ISB reader called Zac wrote to me and asked if I’d sign a copy of Teenagers from the Future, the collection of essays about the Legion of Super-Heroes to which I contributed, if he sent me one. I said yes of course, as the one thing I like more than Batman kicking people in the face is people acting like I’m someone who should actually be signing books, and when it arrived, I sent Zac an email asking who his favorite Legionnaire was. It turned out that he, like all right-thinking people, was a fan of Matter-Eater Lad, so when I signed the book, I also included this:

 

 

Zac said he didn’t mind if I posted it here, which is nice because I actually think that turned out pretty well. By my standards, I mean.

Thanks, Zac!

The 2008 30 Second Recap Contest!

Well, it’s the end of December, and as is my custom around this time, I’m taking the next few days off so that I can get tore up from the floor up without having to make a joke about ROM properly ring in the New Year! I’ll be back on January 6 to celebrate the ISB’s fourth Awesomeversary–jeez, have I seriously been at this for four years?–but until then, you’re on your own.

Never let it be said, however, that I took off without offering a little something in return, and while there’s plenty of fun to be had at the Action Age if you haven’t been there already–with more stuff coming soon… like, tomorrow soon–it’s also time for the traditional year-end 30 Second Recap Contest!

Here’s how it works: Pick a comic story and do a condensed version in the style of the 30 Second Recap posts I’ve done for stuff like Infinite Crisis, Civil War, Secret Invasion, and of course, Bring It On! Then just post it on your own blog, website, Flickr account LiveJournal or whatever and leave a comment on this post telling folks how to find it, or email it to me if you don’t have one of those fine, free services. Just make sure you get it to me by Midnight Eastern time, January 5 (Sunday night/Monday morning) so that I can read over them on Monday and pick the one I like the most for the return on the sixth.

The winner will get a “Fabulous” Prize Package consisting of stuff that I have laying around here, including a signed (by me) copy of Teenagers from the Future, a terrible drawing of a character of your choice (also by me), and other random delights that I haven’t quite settled on. Rest assured, though: There’ll probably be a Cobra Commander involved.

And now…

THE RULES

1. Artwise, your entry doesn’t have to look good, because lord knows mine don’t. It won’t hurt if it looks nice, but shoddy art is both accepted and encouraged. Along the same lines, you don’t necessarily have to use crayons (MS Paint has a similar effect), but you have to draw your entry yourself.

2. For lettering, you can do it by hand if you can write legibly, but feel free to head over to Blambot and use one of their free comic book lettering fonts! As always the use of Comic Sans will result in an immediate disqualification.

3. Content is up to you: Despite me calling it the year-end recap contest, your subject does not have to be a story from this year. The only restriction is that it can’t be a story that hasn’t finished yet. By the nature of the contest, spoilers are par for the course, so if you’re planning on spectating this year, take that into account. Otherwise, go nuts. Heck, you can even go after a 22 year-old classic of comics literature if you want!

 

 

4. The key factor here is brevity, so entires should be no longer than ten panels. I’m not going to throw out something that has eleven or twelve if it’s funny and well-done, but try to keep it short.

5. If you post your entry somewhere, make sure that there’s some way for me to contact you if you win.

And that’s it! If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out the previous contests, 2007 and 2006, and I’ll see you in 2009!

Nunchucks? More Like FUN-chucks!

As regular ISB readers already know from seeing Kate Holden’s brilliant artistic interpretation of them last week, my post on Batman’s nunchucks made of sharks has inspired greatness.

What you might not know unless you’ve been going through the comments, however, is that Kate’s drawing itself inspired even more people to take up the pencil. In the few days since I posted her piece, I’ve gotten two more from ISB readers, including Ley Howell‘s shot at refining the Bat-Chuks for swampy adventures with reptilian deadliness…

 

 

… and Andrew Bates’ Aparo-inspired throwback to the greatest page of all time…

 

 

…and I gotta admit: I want to see more. So you know what that means.

That’s right folks, it’s the End-Of-Summer Spectacular you’ve been waiting for with another ISB Contest! Because really, I haven’t given anything away since Bring It On Week, and that seems like a cheerlifetime ago.

The rules, as always, are simple: Just get out your pencils, pens, crayons, MSPaint or other artistic media and draw a picture of Batman using nunchucks that are made out of something from which nunchucks are not normally made, then send it to me at the address in the sidebar or link to it in the comments section below by 11:59 PM Eastern Time, Friday, September 19, 2008. I’ll pick and announce the winner on Saturday based on radness, and then mail the lucky artist a Fabulous Prize Package consisting of:

One (1) copy of Teenagers From The Future, signed by me, and…

Some (some) other crap that I’ve got laying around that I think would make good prizes.

And that’s pretty much it. Now get to making some user-generated free content awesome entries!

(NOTE: Sometimes, comments with links in them–especially ones with multiple links–get flagged by WordPress as spam, but I’m checking the Spam Queue every now and then to make sure I don’t miss any. If yours doesn’t show up and you desperately need it to, just shoot me an email about it.)