This grab has chiefly produced recent (though rather varied) entries, so I guess the backlog is low enough for me to start scouring my archives chronologically – though that also implies taking somewhat final decision as to what material makes the cut and what will likely forever languish in mail archives. In the meantime, roll call:

• ART – I’ve slammed together another package of additional art :
  • Amphibion
  • Nightwing
  • Annihilus
  • Banshee (Cassidy)
  • Brute (Richards)
  • Ghost Rider I
  • Invisible Girl
  • Ironclad (ands the other U-foes, though not as much)
  • Judge Anderson
  • Magik (Rasputin)
  • Mister Fantastic
  • More art for the recent Werewolf By Night entry
  • Morph
  • Nightcrawler
  • Rick Jones
  • She-Hulk
  • Rom the space knight
  • Wolverine
  • An inset shared by Wonder Man and the Beast has been recreated
  • Droog’s inset illustration has been redone
  • The Gremlin III’s widescreen illos have been redone (including the nice shot of the Bitterfrost base)
  • The terrible, horrible illustrations for Prism (of the Marauders) has been scrapped and replaced with much better material
  • And one of the Don Vincenzo banners has been recreated
• KING OF FIGHTERS/FATAL FURY. We start that voluminous arc from Tom with “Blue” Mary Ryan.
• Muse is another of the mid-1980s DCU villains being covered ; he was an opponent of Blue Beetle and the Question.
• CHAMPIONS CONVERSION. REZcat’s conversion for this batch is Howler, a classic villain for that RPG.
• Superman One Million, the Superman of the far future, is the second of Peter’s One Million writeups. And probably the most powerful character on writeups.org.
• STRIKEBACK. My favourite team member – Pandora, the mind-controlling house cat – as written up by Gareth.
• COMMITTEE. Another minor 1980s gimmick hitman – Ice, the sniper.
• Pavane is a professional trainer of panthers, and a whip specialist wearing a leather bikini. Hey, that was the kung fu 1970s. Things were different back then.
• HEROES. Isaac Mendez, the man who can paint the future, by Adam.
• CROSSGEN. This batch start publishing entries from Gareth’s work throughout a bit of the Crossgen universe – namely characters from the Negation book. In this batch:
  • Brevus
  • Evinlea
  • The Karaki race
• Chief Parker is an old pre-Crisis character from Superboy’s Smallville supporting cast, written up by Robert.
• REWRITES / STARJAMMERS. We start rewriting the Starjammers, with the arguably best-known one – Hepzibah.

Current number of entries is 3980.

The new version of the site will likely be ready before Xmas – however the actual release will depend on how well the work to reskin all entries – nearly 4,000 – goes, and whether I experience a nervous breakdown midway through from the sheer repetition. In the meanwhile, roll call:

• ART. Somehow, time was found to provide new art for:
  • Snowbird (still a lame joke writeup, but at least there’s a now another pretty picture)
  • Devos the Devastator
  • Invisible Woman (current)
  • Jean Dewolff (and an issue with the strange redward shift of the original illustration was fixed, though I think the only two persons who cared in the world were me and the Marvel colourist who reworked that picture for the new OHOTMU edition)
  • Mister Sinister
  • The Acrobat
  • Dormammu
  • Manhunter VII (Kirk Depaul)
  • Ambrose Chase (placeholders replaces thanks to Gareth)
  • Buffalo (a Champions conversion I had forgotten to illustrate)
  • Guardian and Superboy from the AZ Universe in recent batch
  • Deathlok III (Collins), some Fantastic Four entries, Mirage (of the Titans), the Sphinx, Jean Grey, Cyclops (Classic), the Leader, and Hammerhead all have new bits of banner art
  • The inset images for the Android Man, the Rhino, Hawkeye and Steel Wind have been recreated, as well as one Punisher shot
  • Matilda (from a recent batch) is now illustrated
  • Dracula (Marvel version)
  • Absorbing Man
  • Echo / Ronin
  • The Abomination
• The biggest name for this batch is likely Professor Hugo Strange, one of the classic Batman enemies (and a rather dangerous one to boot), now written up by Peter.
• ELSEWORLD SCOOBY GANG. The last entry is here, and it’s of course Daphne.
• Andrew’s entry for a semi-classic Marvel villain, Mentallo, is in.
• BLAK LAGOON. *Possibly* the last entry (who can tell) – Eda, from the Church of Violence.
• Mister Peabody is a very smart dog — so smart that Robert wrote it up.
• REWRITES. The rewrite for this batch, on the heels of the Priestess, is a complete rewrite for Mark Hazzard with much better pictures, stats, profile, etc.
• Sinestesia is a PC from Kal El’s “Patrulla Barna” campaign
• UNIVERSE AZ. Another entry, with Azrael’s campaign’s version of Red Raven.
• Another version of Superman – this one from Mike’s Wink World campaign.
• COMMITTEE. We indulge in yet another weird 1970s street-level villain – Sarnak, the Master of the Army of Fear. He’s got a certain style, if you go for those things.
• The second biggest name of this batch (hey, it’s relative !) is the beginning of Roy’s series of writeups about the Werewolf (aka Werewolf by Night). Logically enough the first entry is the one describing the early years of the character.
• STRIKEBACK. The team members (and occasional enemies) keep trickling through – now it’s Short Fuse’s turn.
• WORG PATROL – here goes:
  • Following a comment Gareth made 3+ years ago, Ace’s Initiative was raised by one
  • And Captain Picard finally has Artist (Singing), too.
  • The entry for Forsa now has a better modelisation of his powers (and new helpers).
  • Fixed part of Ambrose Chase’s powers to better fit the material
  • Small fix for the recent Priestess rewrite to make it clearer she’s from the New Universe
  • Additional section in the entry for the Sandman III (Sanford) explaining that Jed Paulsen, Jed Walker, Kamandi and Tommy Tomorrow are the same person (because that entry was not complicated enough).

Current number of entries is 3968.

This batch has a number of bit players — minor characters that are interesting, useful, or both and can be easily plugged into low-powered campaigns. Roll call:

• ART. A few miscellaneous bits:
  • The missing inset illos for the Huntsman of Zeus have been fixed (which incidentally brings us above the 600 inset images threshold)
  • Improved illustrations for Steven Seagal
  • Added illustration for the Quicksilver (Early) entry from a recent batch.
  • Gareth prepared illustrations that were added to the Ambrose Chase profile (though art to replace the low-res shots in the column is still welcome, of course)
• BLACK LAGOON. Yukio Washimine the reluctant yakuza boss, who should be the last Black Lagoon entry.
• Agent Crock, an experimental super-soldier and psychotic killer from the same project as Agent Hazzard
• CLUB SUPER 3. In this batch, Fluski.
• The Heckler, a zany, obscure Giffen super-hero in the DCU, written up by Gareth
• COMMITTEE. Another 80s-Hitman-with-a-schtick — Boom-Boom, the explosives killers.
• Cardiaxe, as you can probably guess, with the Murderous Villain Patterned After the Obscure Hero matching Cardiac – it was a popular theme in the 90s. Handy minor villain with an axe.
• HECKLER FOES. Now Gareth introduces us to C’est Hay, the scarecrow gang leader.
• Infidel, written up by Peter, is probably the most interesting ennemy of Astro City’s Samaritan
• STRIKEBACK. In this batch we have Jade Cobra, the hardened swordswoman
• Ken the Hitman is a very very minor Marvel thug, but he’s unusually tough and aggressive
• REWRITES. The rewrite for this batch is an old and obscure entry – the Priestess. A character with potential (a kid who would have become a stereotypical stripper but becomes a young martial arts master instead) but who was never really used.
• Matilda is the very young heroine of the movie Matilda, and a genius.
• WORG PATROL – some comments I nearly forgot were taken into account, resulting in small changes for the TESS-One entry. Ditto for a very minor change in the Overrider entry. Some more material and a game bit that came up in discussions have been added to the recent Quicksilver (Early) profile.

Current number of entries is 3957.