Another quick thing since I happen to have the considerable courage needed to illustrate the Brood entry, and that won’t last. Roll call:

• POLISHING. Gareth has revisited and updated stuff all throughout his Swordsman (Strucker) entry, using the, like, totally awesome entry revision procedure. Using the same, like, totally awesome means, he also fixed some bits of the Charcoal entry.
• BRIGADE/V2s. As part of our slow-burn Brigade arc and the campaign to rewrite very old writeups, Battlestone now has a big rewritten, re-researched, re-illustrated, etc. writeup.
• The big thing in this batch is the encyclopedic Brood entry, about your favourite sleazoids. Bring coffee before you start reading. Community members, please note that I’ve added a few things here and there since list publication. Given the huge amount of info, I’ve been rather generous in the number of banner illustrations to break up lengths of text. Upversioned to v1 since I think I now have all appearances. Gaaah.
• BORIS ART. A few shots from Vallejo via Roy for Archangel, Cyclops and Wolverine.
• FOUST ART. Another five-pack:
  • White Queen
  • Medusa (Inhumans)
  • Harley Quinn
  • Black Cat (Modern)
  • Judge Anderson
• STREET FIGHTERS. Tom continues his work, and this batch as a new take on Dhalsim.
• Lonar of the New Gods now has a full writeup, as part of our slow efforts to covert stuff that appears in Blue Beetle volume VII. The takes on him have been… varied.
• HEROES. Continuing Adam’s arc through the Heroes TV serials with Claire the indestructible cheerleader
• SPITFIRE. Third and last instalment about Jacqueline Falsworth, Lady Crichton and one of the key British heroes in the Marvel Universe. This of course covers her appearances in Captain Britain and MI13.
• STARGATE ATLANTIS. Continuing Peter’s arc, here comes Sheppard.
• OTHER ART. A few extra shots:
  • Lunatik
  • Living Laser
  • Morbius (1990s)
• Diego “Rush’” Zhao was the star of a poorly-regarded series, but he’s not a bad character, really, and he has an interesting role and unusual powers.
• Ethan’s second character from the Matilda movie is the villain – the Trunchbull, who really hates children.
• And finally we have an entry by Mike and Roy about the Smallville version of Clark Kent, covering the first four seasons of the show. It took some years, but we got it done and published !

So, 4246 entries. That’s a nice number.

This is an atypical batch, really – more like a small amount of stuff I wanted to push online to clear my plate. Roll call:

• POLISHING. Some things of opportunity…
  • Covered the more recent appearances of Jason Strongbow in the American Eagle entry (including one new picture) and polished various things here and there (clarity, style, exact model of his Harley, some improved diction for the all-important Personality section, etc.). Upversioned to 2.1 since that was a fair bit of new material.
  • Added a detail I had missed to Union Jack I (the pockets of holy water in the neck of the UJ costume), and one last shot for the 1915 “British ninja”‘ costume.
  • Fixed typo in the general Quicksilver entry thanks to Ethan.
• There’s already a set of notes for Luke Cage on WORG, but here comes a “real” writeup, covering the first run of his book and thus his earliest career as a Hero for Hire.
• V2s. Two characters got the Big Rewrite (and re-illustration) treatment this time around :
  • Nekra, a fairly classic Marvel Universe villain who can make a fine, if villainous, NPC
  • Poundcakes, because that way all the original Grapplers have a revised writeup
• The Spitfire writeups are also continuing ; the second entry covers the time from her rejuvenation to her return in Captain Britain and MI13
• From the time of Conan (between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryus, or so I’m told) Peter has written up the woman warrior Janissa the Widowmaker.
• FOUST ART. In this batch:
  • Phantom Girl (pre-Crisis)
  • Shadow Lass (pre-Crisis too)
  • Sif
  • Thundra (yay !)
  • Valkyrie
• ZSA ZSA STUFF. Some baddies – the Amazonistas, enemies of the satirical version of Philippines’s flagship super-heroine – by Adam.
• BOB McLEOD ART. Been a while, so in this batch:
  • Cannonball (Early)
  • Punisher II
  • The Phantom
  • Black Panther
  • Jonah Hex
• STREET FIGHTER. Tom’s about done for now with Fatal Fury and King of Fighters characters, so we now shift to the Street Fighter stuff, starting with Blanka.
• MISC. ART. A few more shots whilst Photoshop is open:
  • Mockingbird (who should be revised)
  • Marrow
  • Mentallo
  • Molten Man
  • Marvel Boy (Modern)
  • Iron Fist
• From the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Roy has pried the telepathic monsters called the Controller loose.
• RAPSHEET.CO.UK MATERIAL. Extra illustrations from that site for:
  • Vulcan
  • Kingpin
  • Tiger Shark
  • Red Skull
• And I’ve thrown in a handy list of Sorcerer Supremes in the Marvel Universe, with known dates, as a new entry.

That’s 4238 entries. That batch and the previous ones still have a number of entries with placeholders since some key contributors are currently super-busy.

I can’t do rapid-fire batches anymore, but here’s the new one. Roll call:

• POLISHING:
  • Minor layout improvements and more coherent bad French accent in the quotes for Batroc
  • Added some actual Czech swearing to Radek Zelenka’s entry, because authentic Czech swearing is one of the great strengths of the WORG brand DNA
  • Corrected the model and stats for the Pale Rider preacher’s hold-out revolver thanks to Woodclaw on the Atomic Think Tank
  • Made a few sentences clearer and used more rigourous vocabulary in the DCH probabilities article
  • The word “Stargirl” has been added to the entry for the second Star-Spangled Kid’s “year one” entry, since many people only know her under that name.
  • Various tweaks and additional illos for our Invincible entries as Brian and Roy work on further characters and integrate recent events. There are also additional illos for Allen the Alien, Omni-Man, Rex-Splode, Dupli-Kate, Bulletproof, Atom Eve. The latter now has an illo bar that is too long, I guess we should add text…
  • Added a possible DCU history for Samurai Jack, courtesy of Supergeek
  • Fixed the missing banner for Catwoman (DCU) with a neat Jim Lee doodle.
  • Refreshed the Leon Genetic Sequence article and added new content, including some DCU musings.
  • Davros has two new banners courtesy of Siskoid.
  • Gamora (writeup 1) has a new lead illustration.
• DCH RULES STUFF. Added an article about expanding the Altering the Environment rules.
• MITCH FOUST ART. Another small pack of pencil work on female characters, from his gallery at http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerydetail.asp?gcat=2903 . In this batch:
  • Black Widow (1970s)
  • Gamora (Early)
  • Huntress (pre-Crisis)
  • Invisible Woman (80s)
  • Mary Marvel
• FATAL FURY/KoF. In this batch, Tom’s fighting game character is Andy Bogard.
• HILL STREET BLUES. Another entry from Peter’s arc about this genre-defining series, with Captain Furillo.
• DOCTOR WHO. Hominid71 presents a big entry about Daleks – our third one, because Daleks are IMPORTANT BUSINESS.
• VILLAINY INC. Continuing this arc, we now have Doctor Poison II, an intriguing Wonder Woman villain.
• Adam has written up Hancok, from the eponymous Will Smith movie.
• STAR TREK. Mike has finished our profile of Captain James T. Kirk, one of the major characters of XXth century geek fiction.
• OBSCURE 1980s DCU VILLAINS. An obscure, weird, useful villain from old Outsiders tales – Dr. Ovarni aka Madame Ovary, reconstructrix to the dead.
• OBSCURE 1980s DCU VILLAINS. Yep, another one – Overthrow, an anarchist terrorist with some unique technology. And he’s perfect for the WORG colour scheme anyway.
• ASTRO CITY. Continuing to mine Peter’s work about this series – Supersonic himself.
• As a close relative to our Spitfire arc, currently underway, is our entry for her father the Lord Falsworth, aka the first Union Jack.

www.writeups.org now peaks at 4231 entries. Excelsior !

Bonus article up – “A short article on probabilities” to understand dice rolls in DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes. We’re back at 4220 entries.

I’m still waiting for some illos for new entries (including some where I’m the one supposed to do the work, actually…) so in the meanwhile here’s a bunch of minor changes.

• POLISHING.
  • Added real name and some subsections to Bengal’s entry. I also considered updating him, opened an issue of Initiative to do so, saw several minor characters (with WORG entries to boot) pointlessly massacred, and closed the book.
  • Massaged the first Black Widow II entry a bit as a new series about her origin is starting. Cried after realising the new series was using the out-of-the-blue, puzzling Wolverine Origins retcons.
  • We’ve made some changes to Spider-Man’s OV and added some discussion about that in “The proportional agility of a spider” boxed section of the writeup (we’re talking Earth-616 Peter Parker, not Ultimate).
  • Minor tweak to Supergirl (1980s)’s gravity vulnerability, fixed minor layout issues
  • Added background info and subsections to the Wonder Woman (mod karate era) entry
  • Refreshed Ace’s entry
  • Redid the indenting and linespacing on the boxed section in the Booster Gold entry
  • Small fixes to the Sidewinder entry
  • One artefact entry with no content has been detected and killed
• ART. A bunch (but definitely not all) of the stuff below comes from the comic sketchs collection at swanshadow.com
  • A new pair of cool leading pictures for Storm, plus a neat widescreen sketch and stuff
  • Reworked illustration bar for Atomicus
  • Yet more stuff for Black Velvet
  • The illos for Mock Turtle have been entirely redone
  • Tripled the illos for Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah
  • Replaced the last missing banner for Supergirl (1980s) with a very nice David Williams sketch ; descreened the main illustration bar and added a Lopresti sketch
  • More sketches of the Valkyrie
  • The new leading illo for Green Arrow (Grell version) is a Grell/Rubinstein sketch. This sketch perfectly captures the era described in the writeup, which is good since my choice of pictures did range a bit far (but then I couldn’t resist the modern Chiang stuff or the Silver Age Ross painting).
  • And a new Rubinstein shot of his classic Booster Gold, too
  • Black Panther sketches (including a nice banner sketch by Buzz)
  • A Geof Isherwood banner sketch for Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme
  • Added a banner to the Mary Marvel notes
  • Two new bits for Ms. Marvel I (year one), including a new lead that captures the character surprisingly well
  • McDaniel art for a modern depiction of the old-school costume of Wonder Woman I
  • Added a funny banner co-starring Tigra to the Tiger-Girl entry
  • Mantis (Marvel)
  • Added a cool selection of Isis art from swanshadow.com
• FOUST ART. Several of the illustrations mentioned above (notably the new lead illos for Ms. Marvel, Isis, Valkyrie) are from a fellow named Mitch Foust, so I checked the rest of his art (super-heroines pin-ups, really). IMO it’s a good find – the illustrations are clear, he often gets the character pretty well, he’s meticulous about the costumes, hairdos, etc., it’s generally not gratuitously cheesy, etc. It’s good stuff to convey how those characters look. It’s a bit same-ey after a while (especially the faces – a common issue in comic book art, where women are made to look beautiful by drawing few, very regular features) and a tad Greg Land-ish, but that’s not an issue unless you start trawling through his entire collection of art like I just did.
  Best of all, I (or Roy or Gareth or Adam) do not have to detour, prepare, repair, etc. anything ! Except for some levels work to make the pencils look darker and more visible.
  Since I’m using his material, it’s only fair to mention that his art is for sale at www.comicartfans.com. Here’s a first batch.
• Viper II
• Nikki
• Dagger (Early)
• Andromeda (post-reboot LSH)
• Taki (Soulcalibur)
• American Dream
• Batgirl I (current retcon)
• Supergirl
• Nightshade (Marvel)
• Misfit (DC)

Lots of stuff in this batch, chiefly because I’m burnt out on writing new stuff. Roll call:

• POLISHING. Minor odds and ends, plus:
  • Minor adjustments to Wolverine (regeneration stuff and ice hockey stuff)
  • Additional illustrations for Black Lightning (Early, Original)
  • Additional illos for Sheldon, Raj (who is now properly titled ‘Doctor’), Leonard and Penny.
  • Traci 13 now got an additional illo (another cool Cliff Chiang inked con sketch)
  • Among the Young Avengers, Teddy and Billy now have a specific High Connection (which we previously forgot)
  • The article on the Leon Genetic Sequence got an improved layout
  • Clarifications and copy editing and sub-section titles for the Left Hand, Razor-Fist II, Starfire I , Slaughterhouse Smith, Spoiler
  • Lots of copy-editing and layout improvements for the Blizzard I entry (it wasn’t very good)
  • New illo selection for Madame Web (Hostess cakes)
  • New banner for Black Velvet
  • Added the two most classic Thor quotes to the Thor (Simonson) entry.
• DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG-FU. I’ve finally managed to defy the Mandarin (Early) entry in a kung fu duel. Some technical streamlining, layout improvements, copy-editing AND additional illustrations for the monstrous pile of Gadgets, robots and weapons described in this rather rich entry. Also, some new Gadgets and security measures I had missed the first time when fighting hard to complete this damn entry. Plus some new content. This enormous writeup has been upversioned to 1.1 and now gets billing in the random showcase picture slot on the homepage.
  At least he has a costume that goes very well with the WORG graphic charter.
• VOLDEMORT LOVES YOU. The second third of the Harry Potter spellbook entry is in, so all ‘em spells are now covered from A to Q. There was some delay, I’ll admit that.
• MARVEL 70th ANNIVERSARY ART. A few more bits from those special covers:
  • Marvel Boy III (Bob Grayson) (Classic)
  • Bruiser (Molly Hayes)
  • Nick Fury
  • Madrox
  • Wolverine
  • Storm
• FAQ IMPROVEMENTS. The layout has been polished, there have been some minor typo corrections and clarifications, the authors mentioned (such as Gorden and Winninger) now are linked to lists of their publications. A dozen new questions and – amazingly ! – answers have been added. Lots of linkage added. Read the FAQ. Love the FAQ. The FAQ is life. The FAQ must flow.
• FATAL FURY/KING OF FIGHTERS. Tom’s entry for this batch is Billy Kane
• STEEL HARBOR. We’re continuing to slowly revise our very old Dark Horse Comics’s Greatest World entries. This batch has an entirely new entry explaining what is known about the gangs of Steel Harbor (the city where Barb Wire, the Machine and Motorhead operate) and revises the short entries of three Wolf Gang OGs:
  • Bomber
  • Cutter
  • Breaker
• Cheshire Cat. Yes, again, but this time around it’s the old Champions character, as gauged by REZcat.
• MS. MARVEL. Slowly continuing our arc through 1970s Ms. Marvel material, we present the Doomsday Man, a very potent super-robot who also appeared in an old Silver Surfer story.
• Gareth has written up a very useful Marvel mid-level villain, Speed Demon. More villains !
• MORE STUFF FROM POPULAR TV SERIES. In this batch:
  • Mike’s profile of Dr. House, who makes a dandy NPC in practically any campaign
  • Adam’s entry on Howard Wolowitz from Big Bang Theory (who recently tried to pick Power Girl up, confirming that these guys belong to WORG).
• This batch also sees the start of our Spitfire arc, covering the entire career of this important but of-overlooked British heroine. The first entry covers her wartime and postbellum career, and includes notes about her family and British nobility.
• On a much, much less dignified front we also have Dave Speed, Terence Hill’s character in Poliziotto Superpiù (aka Superfuzz in the US). Those things happen.

Four thousand, two hundred and twenty entries on WORG.