VOTE HERE! Top 5 Create-A-Super Heroine Contest Entries!

[Kris]

Welcome to the final phase of the "Who Wants to Create A Super Heroine" Contest!  You will have to register on the site to vote.  We’ve taken precautions to prevent ballot box stuffing, but we do request that folks play fair and vote only once.

The names of the Top 5 Finalists will be withheld.  However, they will be encouraged to go out and let people know that they are one of the 5, without giving away which synopsis is theirs.  If they do, they will be disqualified.  The goal is to encourage as many people as possible to vote for their favorite.   All 10 of the semi-finalists that were chosen will have their original synopses (with their names) published in the back of the winning series when it hits the stands.

Without further ado, here are the Top 5 final entries (listed in alphabetical order)!  GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

Update 3/13/08:
OK, well Jim and I have gone through the registered IP's and talked to the pertinent contestants...and while we don't think any of the contestants cheated, we do believe that a few select people have definitely tried to swing the vote by voting more than once.  And this belief goes beyond a bunch of people at a place of employment using the same IP. 

I am asking everyone to PLEASE be fair and only vote ONCE.  You are not doing the contestants any favors, you are only hurting them in the long run.  Not only will it seem like they are cheating, but they have the possibility of getting disqualified, and not winning at all.

Do not screw over the entry you want to win.  This is not a popularity contest, it is to see which book appeals most to an audience. 

Thanks.

1.  Challenger
Makaela owns a garage on the east side of town that earns her a meager living.  One night while she’s closing up, a car crashes into the lamppost right in front of her shop.  Mak watches as a vigilante escapes, leaving his car behind…a 1974 Dodge Challenger!  She pushes the vehicle into her garage and starts tinkering with the mechanical miracle.  Within, she discovers a briefcase, and inside is a vial filled with a strange liquid and a note which reads: This is my last dose, Dr. Carroll.  Use it wisely.  On a devilish whim, she drinks the liquid and loses consciousness. Embarrassed at her own stupidity when she awakens, Mak takes out her frustration on the Challenger.  She reaches for a monkeywrench and tries to smash the engine…and the Challenger hums to life!  Just then, goons break into the garage; they want the Challenger, and more importantly, the briefcase.  Using her monkeywrench, Mak battles the goons and makes her escape in the Challenger.  The only way she’s going to get some answers is to track down the mysterious Dr. Carroll, and hope he can explain what the liquid has done to her and why she now has ability to fix anything…by smashing it!?

2.  Hope
For the last six years, Tiffany LaVelle has been secretly moonlighting as a masked super-heroine called Hope. However, the delicate separation of her life as a devoted wife and mother versus her exploits as a super-heroine become irreversibly intertwined when she is unexpectedly forced to openly use her superpowers – sans costume – during a terrible car accident that threatens the life of her husband and their eight-year-old daughter. With her secret suddenly exposed, her husband now in a coma and her daughter taken from her by Child Protective Services, Tiffany now finds herself in a struggle to regain custody of her daughter. She must also defend herself and her actions as a super-heroine to prove in the eyes of the public that she's fit to regain and maintain custody of her child, despite having an identity that will place them both in constant danger.

3.  I Hate Galaxy Girl
Gifted with the ability to control the four classical elements, Renée Tempête moves to Clement Harbor to compete in the next Galaxy Girl pageant. When she applies for the position with local superhero guild "The Fellowship of Freedom," they reject her for not being pretty enough. Instead, they give the title to a buxom blonde who possesses no actual powers. Now, as rogue super-heroine "The Tempest," Renée has two missions: 1) Defend Clement Harbor from the forces of evil. 2) Take revenge on the Fellowship of Freedom and the inept Galaxy Girl!

4.  I’ll Fly Away
College-student Jessica Hopkins lives a normal life, until the day she discovers she can fly. At first she keeps her gift a secret, until faced with a fire where she must reveal her power, or stand by and let people die. She makes the only choice she can, and the world discovers her ability. Now she is faced with all the trials of being an instant public celebrity (“The World's First REAL Super-Heroine!”), and the government begins to get involved and people even start to worship her! The power of flight hardly qualifies her to save the world; nevertheless she changes the world completely. Some people start believing that just about anything might be possible.  Given this power, she must now find a way to keep her feet on solid ground and still make a life for herself. Through it all, her best friend Chloe Munroe will be the one person to stick by her. Narrated through Jessica’s journal, we get an in-depth look into this young girl’s mind as she struggles with the moments of awe and terror her new life brings.

5.  Incredible Journey!
Journey Dominguez was a normal teenage girl with big dreams living in a world full of superheroes. All she ever wanted was to be one of them. Everything changes one day when she finds a strange necklace on the street. She puts it on only to find out that she cannot take it off, and that it gives her the ability to summon a temporary superpower for whatever situation she’s in. There’s only one catch; every time she uses a power, she is really stealing it from one of the Superheroes, leaving them permanently powerless and the world increasingly defenseless. All Journey Dominguez ever wanted to be was a super hero. Now, she must convince the world she is not a super villain!

[chrislw47130]

Welcome to the final phase of the "Who Wants to Create A Super Heroine" Contest!  You will have to register on the site to vote.  We’ve taken precautions to prevent ballot box stuffing, but we do request that folks play fair and vote only once.

The names of the Top 5 Finalists will be withheld.  However, they will be encouraged to go out and let people know that they are one of the 5, without giving away which synopsis is theirs.  If they do, they will be disqualified.  The goal is to encourage as many people as possible to vote for their favorite.   All 10 of the semi-finalists that were chosen will have their original synopses (with their names) published in the back of the winning series when it hits the stands.

Without further ado, here are the Top 5 final entries (listed in alphabetical order)!  GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

5.  Incredible Journey!
Journey Dominguez was a normal teenage girl with big dreams living in a world full of superheroes. All she ever wanted was to be one of them. Everything changes one day when she finds a strange necklace on the street. She puts it on only to find out that she cannot take it off, and that it gives her the ability to summon a temporary superpower for whatever situation she’s in. There’s only one catch; every time she uses a power, she is really stealing it from one of the Superheroes, leaving them permanently powerless and the world increasingly defenseless. All Journey Dominguez ever wanted to be was a super hero. Now, she must convince the world she is not a super villain!

I guess I get the "honor' of being the first person to not only vote, but comment, too. I read all five, but the last one, INCREDIBLE JOURNEY really grabbed my imagination simply due to the fact that it places more than one character into a position of conflict---and conflict is basically the heart of any good story. Best wishes to whomever crafted "IJ." Hope to see her on the stands come November!

[Equinox]

2.  Hope
For the last six years, Tiffany LaVelle has been secretly moonlighting as a masked super-heroine called Hope. However, the delicate separation of her life as a devoted wife and mother versus her exploits as a super-heroine become irreversibly intertwined when she is unexpectedly forced to openly use her superpowers – sans costume – during a terrible car accident that threatens the life of her husband and their eight-year-old daughter. With her secret suddenly exposed, her husband now in a coma and her daughter taken from her by Child Protective Services, Tiffany now finds herself in a struggle to regain custody of her daughter. She must also defend herself and her actions as a super-heroine to prove in the eyes of the public that she's fit to regain and maintain custody of her child, despite having an identity that will place them both in constant danger.

This is the one I would read.

[Winterman]

CHALLENGER has everything: cool car, shady villains, wacky power and a big fat mystery. It's got story engines all over the place and can be as open ended or closed off as the market will bear.

I can already see Fresco drawing this thing.

Top shelf.

[btmulcahy]

All the pitches are good, but Incredible Journey gets my vote and, I hope, my money on Wednesdays.


As for the entries themselves, man did I go into to much detail with my pitch.  Good to know for the next time . . . I hope.

[Nick]

Hmm.  I'm wrestling with myself over whether to vote for the concept I think is the strongest or the pitch I think is written the best.

Oh, or the one I think is best suited to the art style.  A couple of these sound like they could be nice little dramatic works, but I'm not sure this book is the best place for them.

[chrislw47130]

I, for one, would love to see Fresco's take on Journey. Hopefully, that'll become a reality.

[Glenn Davis]

I agree.  The last one (Incredible Journey) has my attention.  It seems like a fairly original take on the super-hero story and it has my vote.  

Good luck to everyone involved.  After reading these synopsis I have to say that writing that paragragh must be hard.  The high concept or originality of the series has to come through or else I am just not interested as a reader.  This is totally my opinion and very subjective but the other four didn't grab me but the last one sure did.

[Dwight L. MacPherson]

I voted. And no... I won't say which one I voted for. 

Good luck to all the finalists!

[algrim]

I really liked the plot and drama potential for Hope.  Showing the glamorous lifestyle of a super-hero as the double-edged sword we all secretly know it would be is definitely of interest to me.  The book seems like it would be emotionally-charged and full of hard choices that could be ripe with both triumph and tragedy.

It got my vote.

[chrislw47130]

I voted. And no... I won't say which one I voted for. 

Good luck to all the finalists!

Dwight, you tease!!!!

[Shadowline Pimp]

All of them seem really fun.  I cast my vote and I'm hoping that my "selection" wins.  But I'm looking forward to seeing any of these in print.  Congratulations!

[Dewayne Feenstra]

My idea was SO much better!!!

 
I kid, I kid.. Stop looking at me that way.....

We all now there are thousands of writers thinking that after reading the other ideas.

On a serious note Congrats to all the finalists

[Dwight L. MacPherson]

Dwight, you tease!!!!

Whee! 

[chrislw47130]

After reading these synopses, I am left scratching my bald noggin as to whether my proposals were too vague or not vague enough!!! Either way, I congratulate "The Shadowline Five." All good ideas, but, as with Highlander, "there can be only one..."