Comic Book Hero Theme

I’ve been searching for a new theme, and nothing out there really said “me”. My other themes have been fairly modest and simple and this time I wanted something with big bold bright colours and some pop out graphics. Hopefully the comic book inspiration is evident and makes you feel a bit like you’re reading something equally as entertaining.

Comic Book Hero Screenshot

Isn’t it beautiful?

2011-11-15: I’ve noticed a lot of searches for “comic book theme wordpress” coming in. I haven’t made this theme available for download, as I like that it’s unique to The Geekorium, but I’ll happily make it available in the theme directory if there’s any demand for it. So if you’ve come here looking for a theme like this, let me know by commenting or +1’ing and I’ll look into getting it out there for people to use. You’d have to be patient though, it’s not ready to go as it is.

About this theme

This theme is a two column, fluid wordpress theme. It supports threaded comments, the WP-Footnotes Plugin and the Author Exposed Plugin out of the box. It supports the Wordpress image/caption combo, but I prefer using my own style:

This is a clever caption

So it supports this too.

Credits and Thanks

Colour Scheme

The colour scheme is based on one of the “Pop Art” palates from the Adobe Suite.

Layout

Firstly I’d like to thank Andy Taylor for his astonishing and excellent CSS Grid. The grid resizes fluidly from a 1140px width down to iPhone size and took almost no effort to implement. Go ahead and try it!

Fonts

Kilogram is the chunky title graphic you see up there. Hetilica Bold gave the pop-out graphics a bit of a comic hand-lettered feel. Quicksand is the stylish little rounded font that peppers the site. Code Bold by Fontfabric is the font in the post headings and main menu. Beyond that, I’m using the default typography of the CSS Grid I mentioned earlier! All embedded fonts are free for use and distribution as far as I’ve been able to determine. If you disagree, please let me know so I can investigate further.

Graphics

All pop-out graphics used are from a Vectorstock set by Kraska. Thank you Kraska - they’re beautiful.

Comments

Thank you to Chris Coyier for his “Custom Comments HTML Output” that helped me get the comments looking just the way I wanted them (now hidden by Disqus…)

Everyone else

There are a million tutorials out there that I use every time I make a new theme that I don’t even remember the next day. Thank you all.

Disclaimer

I’ve done my best to cover all my bases, but I can’t guarantee I’ve missed something. If you find something wonky, let me know and I’ll sort it out.

Updates

2011-03-19 Fixed some issues in IE 7-8:

  1. Picked some fonts from the basic windows kit to display instead of the custom fonts. IE8 can use @font-face, but needs separate .eot files to make them display, when most come naturally in ttf/otf format. Typical Microsoft. As punishment, you get a smattering of Comic Sans MS instead of Hetilica.

  2. Fixed the display of pictures. Apparently IE needs a width on the figure element or it disappears the whole thing. I’ve given images a default width of 100% to fix this.

Removed a closing tag that shouldn’t have been there.

You know you're a nerd when

{{< youtube kUZLVrBmuE4 >}}

You hum and whistle what you think is a classical tune for months. Only to finally place it, and realise it’s the Joker’s waltz from the 80’s Batman flick.1

A picture of a figurine of the Joker from the 1980s Batman movie played by Jack Nicholson

He's almost as creepy as the newest one by by Fox Magrathea Circe


  1. Actually, I knew it was from the movie but thought it must have been a classical piece first 

A couple of Batman pics to cheer me up

To the rescue

To the rescue by Original by Draken413o

This was a sign used in the Singapore Design Festival 2007, that has somehow made it’s way out into the wild. We need more zones like this marked around Adelaide. Draken413o took this very artistic shot of it.

The next was an entry in a Worth 1000 contest to inject superheroes into well known works of art. I love it.

A version of Van Goh's Starry Night with the bat-signal shining into the sky in the place of the moon

Superhero ModRen - Starry Knight? by by Smizzle

Batman's Weakness

Most of the Justice League have one weakness that stops them dead in their tracks. I thought Batman was immune. Turns out he does have one weakness though - and it took an evil duplicate to find it… Batman can’t handle a nipple cripple.

Batman’s
        Weakness

Cover of Justice League of America #13 - Riddle of the Robot Justice League!

Batman’s nipples are so sensitive it takes just one tweak and he collapses in a ball. Superman has his Kryptonite, Green Lantern the colour yellow. Batman has glass nipples. Perhaps that’s why Batman and Robin accentuated them so much - it was extra protection.

I’ve altered the image a little. These old Justice League comics have such cluttered drawing. And the writing was awful compared to what I’m used to today. Still - they do have some fun moments.

Batman as you've never seen him.

I want to share one of my favourite things with you. Superheroes. Actually I want to share a few of my favourite things - Superheroes, old crappy movies, and animated GIFs of people doing amusing things.

Check this out:

The Dynamic
        Duo

Check the pointy ears

Yes, that is supposed to be Batman. Nice eh?

Batman has pointy antenna sticking out of his head. This is from the 1949 Batman and Robin movie serial, as seen on DVD. I bought it to grow my ever expanding superhero collection, and wound up watching it one saturday while Mil hogged the computer. Her selfishness bought about something good, as I was slowly drawn into the Dynamic Duo’s web (sorry, mixing my super-hero allusions). See, I wasn’t expecting something amazing - and I wasn’t surprised that it is silly and badly done - but I’ve found myself addicted. I have to watch 3 episodes every Saturday to get my fix. It really is very fun. Firstly, every time I see Batman’s cowl, I laugh out loud. Those ridiculous ears and that pointy nose - cracks me up. Let me share how marvellous this truly is.

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson - played by Robert Lowery and John Duncan are our dashing heroes on the trail of the dastardly Wizard.

Run Batman,
        Run!

Run Batman, run!

Who is the Wizard? Well I don’t know, as I’ve only seen ten episodes, but there are a few suspects.

The Dastardly
        Wizard

It’s the dastardly Wizard

The eccentric Genius, Dr Hammil who created the remote control device that the Wizard is using to terrorise Gotham City.

Suspect: Doctor
        Hammil

Surely a man in a wheelchair can’t be the bad guy.

He’s very shifty - he’s got a device that gives him back use of his legs for a time:

It’s a
        miracle!

It’s a festivus miracle!

Then there’s the radio presenter Barry Brown, who always seems to know what the Wizard is planning.

Suspect: Barry
        Brown

Who is that “Barry Brown” character?

Then there’s Carter - Hammil’s butler/helper - he seems a bit sly, but I don’t know if he’s mixed up in this crazy game.

Suspect:
        Carter

Hmmm, suspicious

Batman and Robin are a little different to how we’ve come to know them. They don’t drive a Batmobile as such, but you know that when Bruce Wayne’s Mercury Convertible has the top down - Batman and Robin are on the case! And when Vicki Vale asks if Bruce Wayne knows Batman is using his car? Classic!

Na Na Na Na Na
        BATMAAAANNNNN

Na Na Na Na Na BATMAAAANNNNN

I thought for the first 8 or so episodes that Batman and Robin might have well have been plain clothes detectives for all the distinctly un-bat-like things they did - but then in a cliff-hanger moment - Batman pulled a blow-torch from his utility belt. The thing was huge!

And the cliff-hangers are what it’s about. Like the time Batman was helplessly electrocuted above a cliff by the Wizard. It made him dance apparently… Check it if you don’t believe me.

Bat-tricity - shock
        horror

Batman’s life “hangs” in the balance

At least you might think the cliff-hangers were important, that is until the following week, when Batman (or Robin occasionally) simply punches the bad guy, or grabs a branch to stop their fall, to continue the adventure another week (I think this series paved the way for the cheesy camp of the 60’s series - Batman just brushes off things that were guaranteed to be lethal by the voice over guy the week before).

Since starting this write-up, I’ve finished the series (and started on the 60’s series - even more fun!) and trust me - you won’t see the ending coming. Well worth the $16 bucks I spent on it (and the money my sister and brother spent on it later for a thoughtful, but too-late birthday present - thanks!). Just the ridiculous costume was enough for one chuckle every Saturday for a month, not to mention the stunts.

Oh yes, this is one action-filled romp. Batman and Robin run, leap, fall, punch, drive, dodge and detect like the heroes they are. And to prove it - I’ll leave you with one last animation of Robin leaping to Batman’s aid. Around a corner, and for no real reason.

Robin
        Leaps

Oh, he’s so pretty…

Update from Me (or 'Why I haven't written in a while')

To my 3 loyal readers, sorry I haven’t written in a while. To be honest, I keep up with you regularly anyway, and you know all my news. And frankly, anything I think I’d like to share with the world gets covered in other blogs very quickly by a lot of people before I can anyway.

So on to my update:

  • I have a new job working in a school. I already worked in a school, but this time I get to make the big decisions.

  • I have a new Mac - my dad’s mini, which is very cool, but in vital need of a stick of RAM.

  • I’m at my parent’s-in-law’s place - a very nice house between two little towns outside Adelaide, where Mil and I have been trying to recharge. While my Internet credit has suffered (my father-in-law doesn’t use it as much as I), we are appreciating the chance to stretch out in a house three or for times the size of our flat (and we aren’t even using a third of the house!)

  • I purchased the 1949 movie serial ‘Batman and Robin’ and have finished watching all 15 episodes. It’s really fun, and I’m gonna take the time to write something on it soon. Until then, here is a little taste of how marvellous it is.

Robin Leaps to
        Action

  • I’ve got a few extra plans for my site (or my ‘NunnOne Network’ as I’ve facetiously called it). One is to create a wiki, where (in a genius moment of sheer egotism) Josh Nunn’s (and only Josh Nunn’s) from all over the web can write about themselves. Hehe.
    Edit: It’s done… kinda… When I’m ready to tell other Josh’s I’ll make an official post, but check it at Josh Nunn Wiki

  • One amazing discovery I’ve made is that setting a text editor to default to Unicode line breaks and then forgetting can make a whole bunch of web-site files stop working when you upload them. I’ve set it to Unix line endings - now my .htaccess files might work properly…

  • I’ve got my bookmarks to follow me around now, so no matter where I am, I can find that site quickly. You can check out my setup at http://bm.nunnone.com(site no longer active) - but you’ll only see my public bookmarks.

  • By the way, does anyone want to give me money? I’ll take it… I’ve been eyeing off the new Intel Macs you see…

  • Nothing else. There is no third thing… (my text based ‘Spanish Inquisition’ impression needs work I know)