Putting Up, Rather Than Shutting Up

Image's Shadowline Wants New Superheroine

So they are having a contest at Newsarama to find a new superheroine book to work as a counterpoint to their popular Bomb Queen comic. The rules are simple:

Contest will be divided into three parts as outlined below, deviation will result in immediate disqualification:

Round One:
Contestants e-mail a BRIEF one paragraph story synopsis by January 31, 2008 to: superheroinecontest@gmail.com. Stories/concept must be original with original characters. No pre-existing characters may be used unless owned by contestant.

Round Two:
Ten semi-finalists will be chosen from all entries received by the above date and notified by e-mail. They will then be required to turn in 5 (five) fully scripted pages by February 29, 2008.

Round Three:
The five finalists will be announced and their synopses posted on Newsarama on March 10. Newsarama posters will be encouraged to vote on their favorite. (Writers are strongly advised to direct traffic to the contest via message boards, myspace, etc…every vote counts!) Polls will close on April 4, 2008.

The winner will be announced April 28 with initial concept art/character design by Franchesco. First issue will be solicited with a cover date of November, 2008.

I don't envy Shadowline editor Kristen Simon's job of pouring over hundreds, if not thousands, of submissions. Yet I have to admire her and the Shadowline folks for wanting to get new voices and hopefully stronger female characters in their mix of books.

For years I've been wanting to see more female characters who weren't defined by the sum(or should that be size?) of their body parts. So I said what the heck, and even sent in a couple of proposals myself. You know, sort of a put up or shut up situation here I thought.

Oh and don't worry those saying "Oh no!! Another comic blogger who really wants to write comics, rather than write about comics." I have no chance of winning, and plan to post my quite funny proposals up when I talk about those that do qualify for the first cut. So everyone can laugh at my propsals as I will surely do the same for some of those that make it. (whether because they are truly funny or because they are truly bad)