Electric Bill

Madame Mudpie - Hate-Filled Half Dozen

Her name is Mud.
Mudpie to be technical about it, Madame Mudpie. She's the Sandman counterpart to the Hate-Filled Half Dozen. She was a regular girl once. Then she got involved in the world of mud wrestling. She hit all the local circuits and became a real contender. Her coaches trained her in Greco-Roman wrestling, even a little Sumo wrestling and some Judo. She was serious about being one of the best, some of the other girls resentedher for this and after Mudpie's championship match they poured her a victory mudbath, with mud from a toxic landfill in New Jersey. This set her body into shock and all the other girld ran away frightened, but not before she got a good look at the perpetrators. Her coach gets her to the hospital and watches over her hoping she would recover. He's called away to fill out the paperwork and when he returns to her room, all he sees left of her is a smear of mud on her bedsheets. So the coach goes home after a while trying to figure out what happened. MM is at his house waiting for him also seeking answers, but when the coach sees her he has a heart attack at the sight of MM. She looks like she's melting before his eyes. So she sets off after her attackers one by one after she learns how to use her toxic mud powers. She also seeks money for a cure to her problems. This is how she first encounters the Bounding Grasshopper. He bests her in a fight and she falls in love with him. But he refuses her love, adding insult to injury. So she still wants him, but is mad he turned her down. So when Cal O'Marley PHD invites her to join in the conspiracy to take down TBG, she knows she can't pass up this opportunity.

I wanted her appearance to be simple and a little understated, but readily identifiable, like the Sandman. I went with the lumberjack plaid pattern for the top, which isn't as simple as I thought it would be, and some black leggins for pants. Finally threw in some red Chuck Taylor's to make it complete. I like the way it came out and think the dynamic of the character gives her strength and a tragic past you can sympathize with.

The next guy on the list is just a jerk though.

Calvin O'Marley, PHD - Hate-Filled Half Dozen

Cal(vin) O'Marley, PHD is the Doctor Octopus of our Hate-Filled crew. A different look all together for this guy, a different approach to a power set too. No metal arms, but he's a hard guy to fight. I also drew inspiration from another Ditko series, the new Blue Beetle. In the first issue of his run BB faced the Squid Gang. I discovered them in a ditko search. I already knew I wanted this character to be squid based, had the mask worked out for a few years, but the squids gave me another power that seemed logical for the character.

He has a gun that shoots "ink," his goggles on his mask can see different frequencies of light and his costume is used for camouflage and can blend into any environment. On top of that he can climb walls with his strategically placed suction cups, that are powered by high velocity vacuums, for surfaces that aren't very smooth. These high power suction cups are very focused when needed and he can selectively attract objects to him from as far as 30 yards away. And when he grabs a victim he uses the suction cups to knock out or poison the victim. His suit is padded and augments his strength. He has an apparatus on his mask that allows him to breathe underwater. He might be more than a grasshopper can handle. But he isn't, he's been beaten many times, that's why he calls together five other villains who have been equally humiliated by a pesky little bug.

He was a former marine biologist working for a major university that had his funding pulled. But he was so passionate about his work he wouldn't let a little thing like a the law get in hi way. In keeping with an aquatic theme he would attack luxury cruise ships, private yachts and transport ships filled with jewels or technology he would find particularly useful. This is how he first encounters the Bounding Grasshopper. Also how he suffers his first defeat.

Next up in the line-up is the Sandman analog.
It's an interesting take on the character, hope you likey.
I'll try to have it up soon.

Kamen Rider vs. The Bounding Grasshopper

Well darn it all. Just caught wind of a character that's been around since well before I was born. A "Live-Action" grasshopper themed hero from Japanese TV. The Kamen Rider.

Similarities are only thematic. Don't "jump" to conclusions
I think he came after UltraMan but way before the Power Rangers. Anyway...I was trying to create an insect based character for my "Villainous Protagonists," The Hate-Filled Half Dozen. But oh well. Guess it's hard to have a truly original character when people have been developing Superheroes since the late 1930s. But with this series being derivative anyway I don't think it's that big a deal. Just acknowledging the Rider's existence and noting it's a very different appraoach I'm going for.

I'll try to have the next character up by tonight. That Old Buzzard has been lonely for more than a week. I have the drawing done for the next Villain, it's just a matter of filling it out with color and all that. It should be a goofy and scary take on old Doc Ock. Not a parallel, but he's also based on celophalopods.

One of these creatures is the basis for a villainour protagonist. That beats up on a grasshopper."

X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Count’s Spoiler Filled Account

X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The Count’s Spoiler Filled Account.

All the pieces are in place for an amazing theater experience. The return of a near billion-dollar film franchise that focuses on the origin of its most popular character, directed by an Academy Award winning director. Add to that a budget of $150 Million and what you get is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While it’s a fun enough popcorn flick, it ain’t exactly breaking new ground. But that’s pretty hard to do when you’re lead character appears in no less than TEN monthly comic books, half of which bear his name.


Not to mention the guest appearances he makes. For the character, there is not really much new ground to cover. But the audience doesn’t care about that, they want to know what makes this guy such a badass. To be fair the film addresses that question, but leaves the answers a bit inconclusive.

The film opens with a scene from Wolverine’s childhood. He’s a privileged boy, who lives in a nice cottage in Canada in the mid 1800s. Yeah, that’s all pretty badass, living in a cottage in Canada and all. Don’t worry though, when he first shows his claws he destroys his family and goes on the run with his half brother Victor Creed. They run from Canada in the 1800s to Vietnam in the 1960s all in the space of a title sequence that lasts about 3 minutes. That’s pretty hardcore for a couple of rich Nancy boys from Canada. Though it shows them fighting in every major American conflict and war from the Civil War to the Vietnam War, it leaves out Wolverine’s time as a singing cowboy.

If it’s good enough for Dirty Harry…
After ‘Nam, Wolverine and Sabretooth get enlisted in a top secret all mutant Special Forces team. While on the way to their destination we find that the Badass of Badasses, Wolverine, gets sick when flying in aircrafts. I’m getting the feeling he’s a little squeamish at this point. And that feeling continues for the duration of the film. After they finally land and continue the mission we see how effectively violent the rest of the team is. One guy shoots the hell out of a small army with only two handguns, while running and jumping around. Another guy blocks a tank’s turret with his fist. Then we have Wade Wilson, played by Ryan Reynolds, use two katana to deflect bullets and chop people up while he cracks jokes. And what’s our boy Wolverine doing when all this action is going on? He’s just standing there, watching. Yeah, that’s pretty badass.
So after all of his doing nothing at all, he gets fed up with the team when he feels like they’ve gone to far, and quits, throwing his dog tags on the muddy ground. This is the most aggressive thing he’s done since the opening credits.

Now the film jumps to a few years later after Logan/Wolverine leaves his secret military team. He’s now a singing lumberjack. Well ok, he’s not singing. But he’s in love with a schoolteacher who is Native American. She’s a fount of Native American folklore at the very least, and she tells Logan a story that later inspires his soon to be new code name. He’s living the life, cutting down trees, having his woman chauffer him to work, having nightmares that almost kill his lady while she sleeps. All that good stuff is ruined when his former field leader, William Stryker, shows up at his new job. He tries to “warn” Logan that the team is being hunted down one by one, and he wants Logan to join up again. Logan declines and the next day his hot girlfriend is “killed” by his brother.
And now. It. Is. On.

Wolverine and Sabretooth have a little brawl. We see now why he’s such a badass. He gets his badass handed to him by Liev Shcreiber. The next day comes and we see old Stryker again. This time he tells Logan he can give him the tools he needs to get revenge on Sabretooth. So with vengeance on his mind he gets an experimental metal fused with his skeleton. Stryker opens his big mouth and that sets Wolverine on a rampage. Well he escaped the facility, naked, without killing or hurting one person. He’s a real maniac I tells ya. So he runs away and hides out in this old couple’s barn. They give him clothes and feed him, and what does he do? He destroys their bathroom. What an A-hole. But it doesn’t matter because the mutant with guns as a special power kills those old fools the next morning. Wolverine then goes on to leap from an air bound military car and chop the hell out of a helicopter, making it an icopter I suppose. And those can’t stay in the air.

Now he’s on the run again, this time fully clothed (sorry ladies.) He meets up with one of his old teammates and looks for a way to find Stryker and Sabretooth so he can get his revenge. So this teleporting mutant John Wraith, played by Will I Am of the Black Eyed Peas, helps him out. How does he help him? Why he helps him by having him fight the guy that can stop tank shells with his fists, in the comics he’s known as the Blob. So the badass is manifesting, because Wolverine manages to beat the guy that can beat up a tank. The Blob, tells him where to find somebody that escaped from Stryker’s main laboratory/base. So he’s on the road again, this time with Will I Am, maybe because he needs his own soundtrack. Their destination, New Orleans, where they meet a man that can make cards float in the air. Now he’s a card shark, a hustler if you will. I don’t know about you, but I’m not betting against a man that can make cards hover at will. Wolverine starts inquiring about floating card man’s past to discover he can also make cards explode. (Guess he’s playing with a loaded deck[…sorry.]) Gambit is his name and he fights with a stick. A wooden stick. Wolverine has razor sharp metal claws and can heal from being incinerated. Now this is a bet I’d take against the card shark.


Gambit loses and has to fly Wolverine to the secret base. The base is a nuclear power plant. Volcanoes are only good enough for Bond Villains I guess. Wolverine is coming or his Vinte sized cup o’ vengeance and nothing can stop him. Nothing except for the fact that his girlfriend is still alive and working for Stryker. She was working with Stryker the whole time they were together. Oh. Snap. But I guess Wolverine could be mad at being manipulated and living a lie. Not so much. But old Wade Wilson is back, so at least he has something to punch, on top of a nuclear reactor. That’s a pretty badass place for a fight. Wade Wilson has a slight advantage here though, he has all of Wolverines powers and a few extra. He can teleport, shoot beams from his eyes and have a really jarring appearance.

This fight is too much for Wolverine to handle alone, so who comes to help him? Not John Wraith, he’s dead, that’s why Deadpool can teleport. Not Gambit, who flew him there and has ranged attacks. You know who helps him, Sabretooth, the guy he came to the nuclear power plant to kill in the first place. Somehow Wolverine manages to sneak up on a teleporter and chop through his unbreakable metal neck. After this he thanks his brother by telling him he’ll kill him the next time he sees him. After which, he jumps off
A collapsing nuclear tower. Where he is later shot in the head with an unbreakable metal bullet. Made from the same stuff his unbreakable metal head is made from. The bullet wins, and erases his memories.

The way the ending of this movie worked out, I could really use one of those unbreakable metal bullets.

funny watchmen cartoon intro

not mine, but it's what I imagine a Saturday morning cartoon would be like

That Old Buzzard - Hate Filled Half Dozen

This here is the Vulture analog for my project, The Hate-Filled Half Dozen.
He's That Old Buzzard. I'm starting with him in the line-up because the Vulture was the first member of the Sinister Six to appear in Amazing Spider-Man. He's been around since issue 2. So in thinking of Spidey's rogues for my guys I wanted to get as far away from the look and feel as possible, but when I thought of the vulture the name for that old buzzard popped into my head straight away. And I built the idea for him around that. Old guy that's kind of creepy and quite cantankerous. Though with research I discovered that buzzards are actually hawks with very wide wingspans. The Turkey Buzzard was the look I was going for. For the look to come to life I went with a bomber jacket and light red spandex/bodysuit. I also thought flight goggles would fit the character. As the costume came to life so did the back story. He's a war vet that was in the air force and ran a touring airshow, piloting old bi-planes. He based his whole show on old war planes and the modern crowd wanted a lot more pizazz and well, modern planes. So he went out of business, and had nothing to fall back on, a veteran's monthly benefit wasn't enough for him, he was used to the high life of his early days. So to get money and get revenge he sought to rob the more modern airshows ticket and souvenir money. He constructed working wings that he attached to his old bomber jacket and went to town on the competition until he faced the Bounding Grasshopper at an airshow. * he just happened to be in the crowd when That Old Buzzard was robbing the place. After a few bitter defeats at the hands of the Grasshopper he was filled with hate for the hopper, more than modern airshows.
When he gets an invitation to get rid of his problem, he is quick to accept. Where'd the invitation come from. We'll see who next time.

Bright Ideas

So, it begins. This here is the Bounding Grasshopper. The seldom seen heroic antagonist for the upcoming series. I'm toying around with the name Lucas Locasti for his alter ego. But I'm not sure how much of a backstory I intend for him to have. He's the focus of the villainous protagonists, the Hate-Filled Half Dozen. They come up with plans that The Grasshopper easily foils. As The Grasshopper is an analog to spidey, The Half Dozen are analogs to the Sinister Six. Some of the guys have had gender realignment for my stories. And some are interesting takes on the original Ditko characters. I'm toying with the idea of trying to ape Ditko's style for this series. That'll take some work, but it might add to it's charm. Anyway. This is the start.

Little Old Ideas

They may not be BIG NEW IDEAS, but they can grow on you. So I had this little old idea for a comic strip/web comic and it's been growing slowing. Taking shape in my mind. And Now it wants to live. So I've been writing and sketching seeing what works and what is dreadful...keeping some of the dreadful to make it work out in the end.

The basic idea I've been developing revolves around less than competent criminals, super powered criminals discussing their defeats at the hand of a young hero and their plans to unite and destroy this hero. But they end up being pipe dreams, because they don't have the money to follow through with their plans. It's a group of six villains in an homage/parody of the Sinister Six with analogs to the original members if that group. The hero is a Spider-Man analog, but he's not the emphasis of the stories.

I will be posting character sketches and designs first, then I'll move on to the series.
I'm Ironing out the kinks, but some kinks make for interesting patterns.

So, that's my little old idea.

Come Follow Me on this journey.

Not Who's Who, but why oh why...2

Antonio Esposito
While studying with a friend in the biochemistry lab Antonio had a fresh brewed espresso, in stead of adding creme he accidentally poured in a chemical solution into his demi tas. The reaction with the espresso was subtle and it didn't add a noticeable flavor, but when he drank it, it altered his molecular structure giving the gift of high energy and super speed. All he wanted was a little pick me up, what he serves now is a double shot of justice.
He is ESPRESSO!!!

Culture Shock/Inspiration
Well i saw what country I was assigned and began sketching bad stereotypes, while I was drinking a cup of coffee, leaving a coffee stain on my sketch paper, and my brain said, hey Espresso is an Italian coffee, I did a search on it and one site said espresso was the lifeblood of Italy. I equated the extra energy the caffeine gives you with speed and bam. I said this can work. So I gave him a modified track suit with the colors of the Italian flag, and Stylish shades. The Suit is custom tailored by Armani, the shoes are prada.

Enjoy.

Not Who's Who, but why oh why...

I draw, often. But never seem to get that much better.
But that doesn't stop me, because apparently I'm stubborn.
So my thing has been Comic books since I was about 3 or 4 years old.
I've been making up my own characters since around then too.

The following character is not a product of my youth though. I made him up yesterday.

He's the TOASTFACE KILLAAAAAH.



Name: Al(bert) Lou(is) Minnem -
Height: 6'1" (with Armor: 6'5")
Weitght: 160 Lbs. (with Armor: 215 Lbs.)

Powers: With his helmet ha can access the heat of all the world's toasters for 2-3 minutes at a time.

History: Al Lou Minnem worked as a appliance repairman in the big city. One fateful day a shady character in a long trench coat and fidora came in saying he needed to drop of his toaster because it was acting funny. Al investigated and found out it was a prototype built by GE, but it was military grade. He plugged it in to see if it worked, pushed down the lever and...nothing happened the catch mechanism was jammed down, but it wasn't produing any heat. So he sticks his screw driver in the toaster to lift the tray up. This is when things got interesting. The tray popped up, as well as a beam of intense heat that melted his screw driver instantly, luckily he backed out of th way only receiving minimal burns on his hands and face. Temporarily blinded and in pain he stumbles about and somehow the toaster winds up on his head. Thus the Toastface Killah is born.
___________________________________________________________
Designed for a contest on ComicBook Resources dot Com in their Fourth Annual Project CBRunway. I was sidelined this year because of a little thing like missing the submisssion deadline by two weeks. Anyway this is the sixth round of this years competition an the contestents were to chose numbers and were assigned different kitchen utensils or appliances to base a "kitchy" villain on.

Introductary Introduction

Greetings, it is I. Count Baqula.
I've been kicking around the webs for some time.

A few of my favorite hang outs are, cracked dot com, mightygodking and Comic Book Resources.
On CBR I go by the name Your Imaginary Pal, on the other site, I'm just Count Baqula. I read comic books, play video games, Rap to rap music and hell, now I blog. Well now I blog HERE, as well.

And why not. The only problem is there will be many duplicated posts from my blog on LiveJournal. But reprints have their charm don't they. Consider this the scaled down and edited omnibus edition. And there will be some Blogger exclusives, and I'll do movie reviews here, because I know my opinions are important to somebody.

Here's the illustrated representation of your illustrious Count.


You'll be seeing more of him.

Health and Prosperity until then.