DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING, DIDJA?! HA!!!

Okay, if you don’t know who Carrington Vanston is, shame on you. Carrington was the author and illustrator of a comic called Movie Punks which ran from April 2002 to December 2003 – and it kicked all kinds of ass.

When I was putting together this little guest-week-a-ma-bob, I knew I had to close out with somebody big to really leave people on a high note. Carrington’s name was the first that popped into my head.

The reasons are pretty cut and dried. I don’t know a single soul who didn’t love Movie Punks in its heyday. The writing was whip smart and covered everything from the biggest blockbuster to the smallest independent picture of 1932.

I was actually just starting to develop Theater Hopper on my own in July 2002 when I happened to stumble across it. Carrington already had a few strips under his belt and was starting to get noticed. “Oh, no!” I thought. “No one is going to take my comic about movies seriously. Everyone will think I’m ripping ∗this∗ guy off!”

So, too far gone with the original site design and character designs, I naively sent Carrington an e-mail asking him if it was cool that I was doing a movie-themed comic and that I wasn’t trying to crowd his territory.

In retrospect, it’s kind of a goofball thing to ask somebody. Like I said, I was way out on the fringe of web comics culture. It didn’t even occur to me that there were like, oh A BILLION comics about video games. I thought I was in real danger of stepping on someone’s toes!

But Carrington couldn’t have been nicer about it. He even ended up giving me some great web design tips to help me get my site off the ground. Turns out he’s also a formidable web designer. This is a good guy to keep in your corner.

I had the opportunity to meet Carrington only once when I went to Minneapolis for the 2003 Fallcon Comic Book convention. He spoke fast and had a ton of great ideas. Honestly, he’s too good for web comics.

If you’ve kept up with him at all, you’ll know that he has a great blog site called Eat My Words and has also been busy “living the dream” writing and directing his own independent pictures. I got a copy of one of his shorts that he gave me in 2003. It’s one of my favorite little mementos from my time in web comics.

There was a rumor going around that Carrington would bring back Movie Punks if Nothing Nice to Say ever stepped back into the ring. Well, we all know that Mitch Clem is back full-force, so people are still waiting for Carrington to emerge again. He once posted a blog saying he was flattered people remembered, but that he didn’t think it was going to happen. Who knows? Maybe this little guest comic will stir demand again and Carrington will bring Dexter and Seethe back to life!

We can only hope.

Three cheers to Carrington for helping me bring a great close to these last few weeks of guest strips. We’re going out with a bang!

Incidentally, if you want to see my (quasi) realistic rendition of Dexter and Seethe, just vote for Theater Hopper at buzzComix and you will be rewarded with that sketch.

This coming Monday – May 2 – Theater Hopper will return with a brand new story arc and a brand new site design! I’ll also be opening a refurbished store with all your favorite t-shirt designs (plus some new designs) up for pre-sale. So if you missed out on the last round of Spoiler shirts, now is your chance to get one for summer.

When the comic come back, these last 3 weeks of guest strips will be taken out of the comic archive and placed into the Bonus Material section of the site. The blogs that accompanied them will be deleted. So on Monday, I plan on thanking all of the artists who submitted guest comics together so their names and links to their sites can be properly preserved in the news post archives.

Until then, thanks to everyone who helped me keep the store running while I took this break. You’ll never know how much I appreciated your contributions.

More on Monday. Everyone have a great weekend!