If you think that today’s comic isn’t exactly light-hearted, then maybe you want to check out the buzzComix voting incentive sketch. It follows a similar theme, but it turns up the irony a couple of notches. Maybe you’ll get a chuckle out of it.
I can’t quite put my finger on what’s motivating me to steer the arc into slightly darker territory, but I promise that things will start looking better for Jimmy soon.
I think part of the shift in tone can be attributed to wanting to flex a few new muscles creatively. I’m experimenting with refining my art style, adding debris and small details. At the same time, I’m testing the waters to see if I can toss in a little bit of drama.
To me, Jimmy is the only character that can withstand this emotional weight. Since he’s the only character in the comic not based on a real person, he’s kind of a catch-all that I can insert into a storyline for a specific effect. He hasn’t appeared in a lot of strips, so we don’t know a lot about him. We CERTAINLY don’t know much about him outside a movie theater, so this is an interesting way to develop his character.
Jimmy has always been the most good-natured of the bunch. He can take a joke. He’s a hard worker. He’s optimistic. What does it mean to have him experience all this bad luck? What’s the moral? “Bad things happen to good people?”
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# The rest of this blog post was lost, presumably after Theater Hopper moved to WordPress in January 2009. #
Let me explain the way I rate movies. I usually find some value in most movies, so I struggle with giving movies very low ratings, even if they are bad. I am adopting the five star rating system since it is the same that I use on Netflix. Since I “enjoy” most movies, I tend to rate almost everything a “3.” I guess that is just the way it is.
“5” Movies that totally rule. I probably own it or should own it. Good acting, good plot, good direction and cinematography, a great movie, one of my favorites. Must be rewatchable. May lack in any of these categories if it is one of my favorites.
“4” Great Movie. Has qualities similar to a “5,” but lacks in some way. Usually it just doesn’t make my favorites list for some reason, probably because it lacks replay value.
“3” Most Movies. Sorry.
“2” This movie was lame in a way that made it flunk out of the Majority “3” group.
“1” I hated this movie or this movie sucked. Probably both.
Does that clear anything up. No? Oh well. Here are the movies I’ve watched this week.
Tremors 1990 “3” After watching parts of this movie a million times, I thought I would finally sit down and watch it. Yup, I don’t think I had really missed too much, but everyone should see this once.
They Live 1988 “3” John Carpenter rules. Though the acting is pretty bad and the thrid act wraps things up in a fairly sloppy way, this was a cool movie. The subliminal message shots were especially nice.
Duplex 2003 “3” I have learned to avoid anything that says Danny DeVito and Director, but I ignored that and actually liked this film. The lead actors ( Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore ) have both been better, but their chemistry was good and they carried the film.