Joebot

Here's how I make the word balloons in my Unlikely Society comics: 1) go to this website and download their free word balloons. The website claims that the file is intended for use with Adobe Illustrator, not Photoshop, but trust me, it works just fine with Photoshop. 2) Open the file in Photoshop, and select the desired word balloon shape. 3) Paste the shape into your picture as a new layer. 4) Drag the word balloon around and resize it as necessary. 5) Add the text as a new layer on top of the word balloon. And that's all there is to it. It's relatively simple, but it can be very tedious. I probably spend as much time on the word balloons in my Unlikely Society comics as I do on any other part of the process. Good luck!

The title of this thread aboslutely killed me. All I could think when I saw it was, "Maybe a little Viagra would help..." ANYWAY, a very innovative solution to the problem of Indy's flacid whip. ;-)

That's a good question. I guess I can see where TLC is coming from on this, but I think they've gone way too overboard on the vehicle-centric designs. When I was a kid, my first two sets were the Alpha-1 Rocket Base and the Space Command Center. Oh, how I loved those sets. They each had small buggies to roam around with, but the action always focused on the buildings. Back then, Space, Castle, and Town all had a good mix of buildings and vehicles. This focus on vehicles has infected TLC's entire product line -- Star Wars, Batman, Mars Mission, Exo-Force, Agents, etc. I'm curious what your source is on that statement. I've never seen or read anything that said the HP theme was a "flop." Also, do we know that TLC dropped the license? Or did Warner Bros. go with somebody else? There's a new line of HP action figures coming out, so maybe Warner Bros. signed with a different toy company. I dunno. The HP theme is definitely an interesting point, because it's the only building-centric theme in recent memory. If anyone is aware of any hard stats on how well the theme sold, please post some links!!

Agreed. I can't figure it out. The branding on the boxes should be enough to identify these sets as being "Clone Wars" sets. Why change the mini-figs to a completely different style??? I guess it's just another example of the disconnect between TLC and their adult collectors/fans. TLC does not understand that we want consistency and continuity across the line. They've never understood this, and they seem genetically incapable of EVER understanding this. It's terribly frustrating.

Absolutely not!! It's a great thing! It's been years since Lego designed some place for all their police officers and firemen to actually LIVE. :-P

Wow, look at all that food! What an amazing set. And the interior is tiled, at least on the bottom floor. Very cool. However ... I can't quite figure out what the top floor interior is supposed to be. There's a grandfather clock, and what appears to be a radiator. Is it just an apartment?

"Suspicious?" How so? For whatever it's worth, I bought a bunch of guns from him a while back. They showed up right away in perfect condition, exactly as advertised. He makes cool stuff.

I have an old filing cabinet in the laundry room that my wife graciously donated to the cause of storing Lego instructions. I've got three of the four drawers full. They're all sorted by theme into hanging file folders. Unfortunately, I tend to throw new instructions on top of the filing cabinet, where they accumulate for months, until I get motivated enough to sort and file them into their appropriate drawer / folder.

Yep, you were one of several commenters who correctly predicted Jack's identity. I know, I know -- a scene of honest sincerity and actual emotion!?! In an Unlikely Society comic?!?! I swear, it won't happen again. I don't know how that got past the editors. :-D He's always been a favorite of mine, and I'm really excited to have him back, and in a starring role. I think it's that crazed, maniacal grin. It cracks me up everytime. What a weird mini-fig head. Thanks again, everybody!

Does anyone here read Marvel's "Astonishing X-Men?" It's a great comic, but the storyline is absolutely KILLED by its erratic shipping schedule. You can't remember what's going on from one issue to the next because of the months-long delays, so any tension or momentum is lost. Reading the Unlikely Society is sorta like that. That being said ... I did manage to finish a new chapter is about a month, which is pretty good for me. Chapter 9 is posted. Our heroes plot their next move after losing their superhero badges in the previous installment. Plans are made, secret identities are revealed, and an old friend makes a dramatic reappearance. Based on previous comments, I think many of you already had this figured out. I need to work on my foreshadowing... Thanks for reading! -Joebot www.unlikelysociety.com

I was wondering if they'll postpone the movie's release out of respect to Ledger's family. I think it's currently scheduled for May. What a bizarre situation. There's really no good way to handle it.

I'm not at all convinced that these leaked photos "hurt TLC." It takes a long, long time to design, manufacture, market, and ship a toy product line. Is Megabloks hanging out on EB, looking for leaked photos of upcoming Lego products so they can swoop in and beat Lego to market with a knock-off? They'd have to be able to pull that off within 2-3 months, and I just don't think that's possible. TLC has to publish retailer catalogs to their retail partners so they're aware of their upcoming products. But TLC has to get with the times. With the widespread use of cell phone cameras, leaked pictures of those catalogs are going to show up online within a few days. That's the reality. Using ham-handed tactics to force websites to take down the leaked photos just creates bad blood with their fanbase. There is obviously a LOT of interest in seeing what Lego's upcoming products are. Why not use that interest to their advantage?? Give us sneak peaks. Show us the prototypes in an official press release. Give us some insights into what the product development life cycle is like. That generates interest and gets fans talking in a positive way. That seems like a much better way to cultivate relationships with fans, rather than threatening to release the lawyers. TLC has such a bizarre and backwards approach to their fans. We are not the enemy!! Stop treating us like we're the problem!!

I think "Heart of Ice" is probably my favorite B:TAS episode from the first season. That first season is hit-and-miss for me. It wasn't until the second season that the show really began to hit its stride. Some of the art design and voice work is a little "off" in that first season, and some of the episodes had some odd, clunky pacing. However, even the so-so episodes of B:TAS are still light years ahead of anything currently on TV.

My son got three new sets for Christmas, and two of them were missing entire bags. I've had sets missing a piece or two over the years, but never an entire bag. And it happened TWICE this year! Thankfully I was able to exchange both defective sets at the Lego Store in Schaumburg, IL without a problem. TLC's customer service continues to be excellent, but man, their quality control is going right down the crapper.

My son got a bunch of MM sets for Christmas, and I was pleasantly surprised by them. The theme got a lot of negative criticism, but I thought they offered nice designs, fun playability, and a nifty color scheme. Except ... for those stupid, stupid aliens. Now, if Lego is truly giving us aliens with arms this year, then this whole theme just went from "pretty good" to "great." I thought for sure MM was going to be one of those one-and-done "disposable themes" that Lego never expands upon (Aquaraiders, Dino Attack, etc.). Very nice to see Lego giving us at least one more wave of sets.

I know, you're right about the time gap. It's like watching "Lost" and having to wait a year between seasons. I wil try to be more prompt with updates. No immediate plans to bring them back, but you never know. A few of them still hold promise (I always loved writing Hue Man and Monochromancer's dialogue), but most of them were one-joke characters that were starting to wear thin. How many Elvis jokes can I make with the Elvinator?? Ugh.

Dang, I was hoping for an Angelina Jolie scene ... Hilarious, and very clever gore. The red snakes for entrails is pure, demented genius!

That's funny, I wondered if anyone would notice that. My daughter did that a long time ago. I was not pleased. Thanks, Hinckley! Yeah, this chapter was a little light on the jokes. Next time I promise to bring the funny. I wish I could promise a quicker update for the next chapter, but I haven't even taken the pictures for it yet!! And don't worry about the novella. ;-) I have a short story coming out in a print anthology one of these days, which I'm very excited about. No word yet on a publication date, but I'll keep you posted.

Agreed. The "embiggening" of Lego City continues. I've just grudgingly come to terms with my six-wide garbage truck and cement mixer. Now I'm supposed to incorporate 8-wide monstrosities?? No thanks. 4-wide 4-ever!!

"Others" is probably the appropriate forum, since I suppose it's not really a Town MOC in the traditional sense. I dunno, it doesn't matter to me. We almost need a separate forum for "Stories." I can't believe it's been three months since the last chapter. Yeesht. The dumbest thing I did was to start putting the "date posted" for each chapter, because then it really drives home the fact that I don't make new chapters very often!! Nebsirob -- that's very true about superheroes not staying dead. How many times has Marvel brought back Jean Grey? They killed and resurrected Colossus in about a year. How long until they bring back Captain America? So, who knows ... maybe we'll see some Unlikely Society characters come back from the dead. As for the character profiles, I made those using Microsoft Visio. It's primarily a flowchart application that I use at work, but it has a bunch of other features too, including being able to make user interface mockups. I used that to make a fake database UI. Visio is awesome; it's the only Microsoft application that doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, With a couple of days off from work over the holidays, I finally found some time to finish chapter 8 of the Unlikely Society. Sadly, one of our brave heroes makes the ultimate sacrifice. Please let me know what you think! -Joebot P.S. With the removal of the Your Own Creations forum, I wasn't sure where to put this. It's kinda Town-ish in the sense that the story takes place IN a town. But then it's a superhero story, which makes it vaguely science fiction-ish, so maybe it should go in the Space forum?? Ugh, I don't know. I took the safe route and stuck it under "Other."

Like the other Creator houses, it's basically mini-fig scale, but without the mini-figs.

I love that Grievous MOC. It just kills me that he went through all the time and effort to build that beautiful MOC, do all the Photoshop work to make it look like it's a real box ... then misspelled "Gievous" on the box. :-D

Dude, you can't be a Tolkien geek and NOT have read "The Hobbit!" Go read it! Right now! Stop reading Eurobricks and go read it! X-D Badger is probably right that the license will cost a fortune. I hadn't thought of that. The LOTR movies made over a billion dollars worldwide, so I'm sure New Line Studios is counting on "The Hobbit" raking in the same sort of cash. Sigh ... I still want my Smaug's Lair set ...