Archive for March, 2006
22 items.
If you’re offended by Oscar’s nudity, you really shouldn’t be. There is a perfectly good reason for it.
I hope you guys are enjoying this arc. From the feedback I’ve gotten, you seem to be. People have told me that they hope Oscar becomes a permanent addition to the cast. It seems so obvious! I wish I would have thought of him sooner!
Today’s comic has more of an action squence vibe going for it. I don’t get to do that very often in a gag-a-day set up. But since the storyline is little longer on this one, I’m free to play around. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how that overhead swing was going to look in the last panel. Tricky!
A few people have written me encouraging me to go see Munich. "It isn’t boring. It’s very well done." And so on, and so forth…
In the back of my head, I know this. Speilberg is at the top of his game. Even if he heaps on the sugar toward the endings, he is a master director and will always deliver something composed beautifully in an easy-to-swallow entertainment package.
But it’s just… I can’t. I can’t muster the enthusiasm to go see it. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Will I see it when it comes out on video? Maybe, but probably not.
Even though I know this would be a clensing cinematic enema, I just can’t buy in.
It’s frustrating, because I can understand the frustration YOU guys must have trying to explain to me why I need to see this movie. I do that with my friends all the time. When you get the brick wall treatment, you wonder why you bothered in the first place.
I guess I’ll say… Thank you for your concern. I know you want what’s best for me. But, for me, avoiding Munich is like avoiding vegetables. I know they’re good for me, but I’m not going to eat them unless I’m really, really hungry. I think I’m just too busy right now to make it a priority.
Hey, today is an important date. Today marks ONE WEEK LEFT on the shirt pre-sale going on in the store. The clock is winding down! Better submit your order soon!
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I love Pepsi. It’s so much better than Coke. You can take that to the bank. You know, it does SO much more than just soften your teeth.
I don’t have a lot of blog in me this morning. I stayed up late last night trying to get the spraying cola effect right. Ugh!
Honestly, it’s starting to wear on me a little bit – doing 5 days of strips. Things at my 9 to 5 have been hectic so coming home and night to do strips without a day off is starting to wear on me a little. But that’s probably not what you’re interested in reading about, are you? I’ll get through it! Just one more comic before the arc is concluded!
I’ll say this. It’s been a hoot drawing Oscar’s sword and tring to figure out how to draw him swinging it like Casey Jones at bat (look it up, junior).
I’ll probably be back later. I need to talk to you guys about a couple of our new sponosrs and I want to dole out praise when I’ve put on a fresh head.
Also, I want to talk about Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. This has been the first movie in several weeks that I’ve been very interested in seeing!
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Johnny Rotten once asked his audience "Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?" I hope you don’t feel that way in response to the conclusion of this arc. Admittedly, the whole "It was only a dream!" plot device is as old as the hills, but I feel that it ties things up nicely and has a little fun referencing the previous comics. Actually, I would be proud to bundle this week’s strips together and give them to someone that I was trying to explain Theater Hopper to. In my mind, the arc just feels right.
I keep promising to come back and blog more, but I haven’t had the time. Work has been crazy and I come home at night exhausted.
Tell you what, a quick plug and it’s off to bed for me. Check out Multiplex and Banana Chips– two of our new monthly sponsors. They’re both great comics. I’ve been reading Multiplex for a while and love it. Banana Clips is something new for me, but I really dig the artwork.
I’ll try to come back later and give them the proper write-up they deserve. It would also be fun if I could give your my Oscar picks before the show this weekend. You’re maybe a little curious about that, right?
Talk to you soon. Keep your fingers crossed.
I hope you enjoyed this arc as much as I enjoyed creating it!
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Okay, the Academy Awards start in about 20 minutes and I said I would come back to make my picks, so here they are.
Originally I was going to do a huge write up about who I thought would win and why, but I don’t think there’s enough time for that now.
Anyway, here’s who I think will win:
BEST PICTURE: Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know if it was the best movie of the year, but considering it’s origins, the difficulty the writers and producers had bringing it to screen and it’s overall cultual signifigance, I think it should be rewarded. Crash looks like it might upset, though. Especially considering the complexity of the storyline, the large and tallented cast and the fact that it’s set in L.A. – where the majoirty of Academy voters live. If any film could pull an upset, it would be this one.
BEST ACTOR: Phillip Seymour Hoffman. If the Academy could nominate and award Jamie Foxx for his performance in Ray, then they most certainly need to recognized Hoffman. His performance transcends pure imitation. You really get to see the person beneath the public facade of Truman Capote, warts and all. Again, considering the difficulty Hoffman and his writing partners faced bringing this production to film, he’s a sure bet.
BEST ACTRESS: Reese Witherspon. It’s her time. Public opinion is with her and there’s rumor that she’s being paid $29 million for her next movie. It’s safe to say she’s assumed the mantle from Julia Roberts. Is there any other actress out there right now that generates this much attention? Okay, Legally Blonde 2 was a turkey. She might not technically be a great actress, but she’s a certified movie star. Moreso than the other nominees. Except for Charlize Theron and she’s already won.
I give points to Felicity Huffman for taking a more challenging, "actorly" role. But tonight, Reese walks home with Oscar.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: George Clooney. I don’t know if his performance deserves it. I haven’t seen Syriana. But, like Reese, he has good buzz around him. Especailly considering his other film Good Night, and Good Luck has him nominated in the Best Original Screenplay and Best Director categories. He won’t win in either of those, so this is his gold watch. I think mosty voters will have his name on the ballot to see what kind of speech he delivers.
If I had my druthers, I would give it to Paul Giamatti – one of the strongest character actors working today, bar none. But I think the negative press around Russell Crowe during the period Cinderella Man was in theaters has hurt his chances. Poor box office of that film also to blame.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Rachel Weisz. I have no basis for opinon here. It just seems to be where everyone else is going. Some people are talking about Michelle Williams, but I really didn’t see anything in her performance that made me stand up and say "Wow!" From what I’ve heard, Weisz’s character is the lynchpin of The Constant Gardner and she delivers on all fronts.
BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee. I think this one is a landslide. None of the other nominees lensed anything quite so peaceful, beautiful and poetic as Brokeback Mountain. As the director of Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and even Hulk, his versitility should be recognized. Right film, right time to give him the nod.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Brokeback Mountain. It says more with less. Again, cultural signifigance pulls rank here.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Crash. The complexity. The characterization. The multiple angles on the same story. It’s the most ambitious of the nominees.
Anyway, those are my choices. Really, a lot of the media outlets I’ve been keeping up with predict it the same. Really the only nailbiter is Best Supporting Actor. It could go in any direction. But the rest seem like locks. I think it’ll be a pretty standard affair for Oscar tonight. That is, unless Crash was able to perform some kind of last-minute rally. I view it as the dark horse. We’ll see!
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Soda is precious nectar. Don’t waste a single solitary drop.
Well, the Oscars were last night. Maybe you heard about it? In case you missed it, I posted my picks for the winners about 20 minutes before the telecast aired. You can read them if you check Friday’s comic.
I was on the money for the most part. Of course, like most everyone else, I was shocked by Crash pulling an upset and winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain. I want to say more about it, but it’s actually going to be the subject of Wednesday comic, so I don’t want to ruin it.
I enjoyed this year’s show. I think Jon Stewart did a good job and set the right tone. All of those people who worried he would be to overtly political can go suck it. In a year where nearly all the nominated films contained political or social messages, he performed a tightrope act that should be applauded.
One thing the next telecast can do without – montages. Seriously. I’m all for celebrating the history of film, but these little clip shows slow everything down to a snail’s pace and really don’t add much value. I started to freak out a little bit when Lauren Bacall introducing the film noir segment. Leave the poor woman alone! Never would have happened if the producers came up with something better.
Still, if I had to choose montages or musical numbers… I’ll take the montages.
I thought George Clooney made the best acceptance speech of the night. Relaxed, confident-yet-humbled and funny.
Worst speech? AMPAS President Sid Ganis practically beating the audience over the head with his non-too-subtle plea for people to see movies as God! (TM) intended – in a movie theater (Re: Stop pirating our crap, you little snot-nosed suburbanites!)
Not much else to say about Oscar at the moment. Have to keep this short this morning. More thoughts if time.
Oh, two quick site-related things!
First, I’m almost finished with my book, Theater Hopper – Year One. All of the comics and commentary are laid out and proofed. I’ve got the introduction, guest strips and crossovers laid in as well. Pretty much all that is left is for me to finish coloring the cover and we’ll be good to go! I still have to get a few bids from printers, but I’m hoping to start offering it for pre-sale by the time I come back from my upcoming vacation. I’ll be gone between the 16 and the 21, incidentally.
Also, you only have three more days to buy a Theater Hopper shirt! Pre-sale on these items end Wendesday and then I will be sending on the orders to my printer. Get yours now! Once I put the gears in motion on the book, it might be a while before I sell shirts again!
That’s all for now! Talk to you soon!
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I have a quick question for anyone in the know.
I am trying to establish contact with either representatives of Hollywood studios or PR firms that deal with the promotion of upcoming films and DVDs. My hope is to establish more movie-centric content to you guys in regards to movie and DVD reviews while fostering a promotional relationship that might yeild something in terms of prizes for contests for you guys. It’s a win-win situation. I run contests where you guys win cool stuff and the studios and PR firms are provided a unique avenue through while their projects are being promoted on a web site with monthly unique visits in the hundreds of thousands.
It’s very difficult to get in touch with these firms. Believe it or not, their numbers aren’t in the phone book. So I am approaching this somewhat unconventionally, announcing my attention in hopes of poppping up on their radar screens.
If you are employed by one of these firms or know someone who is, please contact me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com
Many thanks.
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From the way some people were talking about Crash’s Best Picture upset over Brokeback Mountain, looting and rioting were only moments away!
I have a deeper meditation about all of the controversy/non-controversy wrought by this ruling, but since it is late on a Tuesday night, I do not have the mental capacity to share those thoughts at the moment. I’ll be back later with some more well-composed thoughts.
A brief artistic summary of today’s comic might include the declaritive statement that it was fun to draw Tom throwing over tables. That’s something that needs to happen more often. Me likely.
Y’see? There’s that lake of mental capacity I was talking about earlier.
Something that takes ABSOLUTELY no brain power is schilling my cheesy wares. And by that I mean the t-shirts I currently have for sale in the store. TODAY IS YOUR LAST DAY TO PLACE YOUR ORDER. At midnight tonight, I am ending the pre-orders and sending everything off to the printer. Hopefully, I’ll have your shirts in stock a few weeks after that and I can ship them out to you.
I know you guys are probably strapped for cash, but if you enjoyed ANY of these designs, I strongly encourage you to order yours today. A couple of them didn’t sell as strongly as I had hoped and I’m not wholly encouraged to do another run of them in the future. I might try something different instead. So the underlying message here is "Don’t expect these designs to be around forever."
Because they won’t.
Additionally, once I conclude this run of shirts, I’m going to start focusing on a pre-sale of the Theater Hopper: Year One book. I’m collecting bids from printers at the moment and hope to have them in production soon.
Something to keep in mind on those; You get a price break the more you order and in order to make it worthwhile, you have to order a lot. Like 500 to 1,000 (and actually, that’s a very small run in the book world). As such, I’m going to have to do pre-orders until I can meet costs for the entire run and that might mean needing anywhere from 200 to 300 pre-orders in the bag before I can send the whole thing to production.
Just something to keep in mind if you’re on a budget and pinching pennies. I’m going to need everyone’s support in a big way when this goes full steam. But I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished so far and I think you guys are going to see the value of the extra effort I put into this book.
Back on the subject of shirts, many thanks to those of you who have already placed orders. I appreciate your support!
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I made a promise to come in and talk about the controversy over Crash upsetting Brokeback Mountain for the Best Picture Oscar.
But I gotta be truthful: I’m not as upset about it as I was before.
I haven’t seen Crash, so I can’t vouch for it’s worthiness or unworthiness. But at the time when Jack Nicholson read the name of the winning film from that card, I was shocked. To me, Brokeback seemed like the more culturally relevant film. Just in terms of the awareness it brought to homosexual relationships as fully realized partnerships. Not a gimmick. Not a flamboyant supporting plot device. But just as rich and detailed as any straight love story.
I’ve heard from some people that Brokeback wouldn’t have gotten the same amount of attention if it weren’t about gay cowboys. There might be some truth to that, but I don’t think so. I think audiences are interested in well-crafted stories regardless of the main character’s sexual orientation. To me, the fact that Brokeback was about a gay couple was secondary. It’s about cowardace and not standing up for the most important things in life. It’s about caving to self-imposed and societal expectations and not having the strength to question them. You could swap out two gay characters with two straight ones and it wouldn’t have changed the overall theme of the movie – That love is hard-earned and not for the weak. The characters could be a Muslim and a Jew, a black man and a white woman or your next door neighbors. The whole "gay issue" is a non-point to me.
That said, and presuming that both Brokeback and Crash are equally well-made films (represented by their equal share of earned Oscars in technical categories), at one point I questioned if there was perhaps some kind of bias against Brokeback because Academy voters couldn’t see past the "gay issue."
I think Crash may have also had a "home-field" advantage in and of that it is a movie set and filmed in L.A. and that’s where 80% of the voting block resides. Also considering the location of the shoot was probably a touch point for voters considering that most productions are being farmed out to Canada, Australia and Prague to cut costs. Filming in their own backyard was something the voters wanted to reward perhaps as a means to encourage production to stay in Tinsletown.
But overall, you have to question if perhaps the homosexual aspect of the film was not something voters wanted to appear to endorse. It was tackled at the top of the show that Hollywood was out of touch with mainstream America. A win for Brokeback would have been a strong confirmation of that point to those critics. Why give them more ammunition?
Jeffery Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere made an interesting point about the whole thing. I quote,
"Is anyone besides me seeing the irony here…the irony that howled and flooded the skies above Los Angeles last night? The very thing that Crash laments — prejudice against people of different stripes and persuasions — is what tipped the vote and delivered the Big Prize."
It’s food for thought.
I shared that thought for a while, but I think it’s since worked it’s way out of my system. Friday’s comic will reflect that and, I think, from there we can all move forward.
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Jared throws a mean uppercut. Ask someone who knows.
Okay, this time I swear I’m done with all the stuff about the Oscars. More on that later.
You know what I think is most ironic about today’s strip? Shortly after finishing it, I got an e-mail from the author of Weekly Webcomic Reviews that I was voted on of "The Cool Dudes of Web Comics" under the nomination heading "Nicest Guy in Web Comics." Yes, I have achieved this despite the fact that my characters pummel each other on a fairly consistent basis.
You should check out the article. A couple of my friends – Joe Dunn, Mitch Clem and Sam Logan – were also awarded under less subjective criteria. Still, it’s nice to be recognized.
I don’t know how to bring this up without sounding like a totally pompous idiot, but I’ve heard about my reputation for being a nice guy in other corners of the scene. I know a few people that would disagree with that, so it’s curious to me how I’ve subconciously cultivated this outward perception. It’s not like I’m giving backrubs to people who read the comic. But I totally would. I’m one of those "huggy guys." It’s what happens when your parents leave you in a crib from the age of 4 months to 2 years. You end up overcompensating later in life.
Just kidding, Mom and Dad! I love ya!
I probably need to mention that I won’t be posting any updates for the next two weeks. I have a couple of events going on right now that are going to draw my attention away from the comic. But don’t worry. I got a couple of really great babysitters that are going to take care of you.
The first event that I’m attending is kind of a long story. I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version here.
Have you guys heard of The World Series of Pop Culture? It’s a game show that’s going to be on VH1 later this summer. I know that you haven’t heard about it yet because it hasn’t been filmed! How do I know that? Because I’m auditioning for the show in Chicago this weekend!
Like I said, it’s kind of a long story. But essentially, a friend of Cami and I sent me an e-mail about the show and said "Tom, this is PERFECT for you!" I said "Why not?" and signed us up. We filled out an application and the casting people liked what they saw. After that, they sent us an essay to fill out and we sent that on. After that, we were told we have an audition!
This isn’t like American Idol or some nonsense like that. It’s not a cattle call. Not just anyone can go. They’re only doing this for two days and you have to have an invitation. So we’re pretty psyched about it.
Basically, the producers are doing auditions in 5 cities and will eventually cast 16 teams of 3 to compete in New York in late April. The audition on Saturday consists of a timed written test. If we pass, they sit down the three team members and interview us individually. If they like what they see in the interviews, they’ll call us Saturday night and have us come back to the hotel where we’re auditioning to do a dry run of the game on Sunday. They’re calling back 8 teams. The team that wins AUTOMATICALLY gets to go on the show. The remaining 7 teams will have their names thrown into a hat and 4 will be drawn at random to compete.
Anyway, there’s a little more to the story you can read about in the THorum here if you’re interested. It’s been an interesting journey so far. I’ll be sure to let everyone know how things turn out after this weekend. Posting pictures and whatnot.
Anyway, since there’s a possibility that we might be competing on Sunday and they may need us there until 5:00, it’s possible I won’t be home in time to do a strip for Monday. It’s a 6 hour drive from Chicago to Des Moines, so it looks like a strip from me is off the schedule.
Additionally, I will be going on vacation next Thursday the 16th through Tuesday the 21st. So instead of having a guest strip on Monday, a strip from me on Wednesday and three more guest strips after that – I decided to give myself a well earned vacation and just take the next two weeks off. After all, it’s a lot easier to relax when you aren’t worried about posting new comics.
But as I said, I have a bunch of great stuff lined up for you guys. If you need an indication of quality, chew on this – All of the guest strips are coming from artists from Boxcar Comics. Oh, yeah!
So, this is the last comic you’ll see from me until March 27th, but I’ll still be poking around and saying "Hi." Hopefully by the time I get back I’ll have some concrete news about the Theater Hopper: Year One book. Until then, have a great weekend!
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Mar13
GUEST STRIP – ALI GRAHAM
March 13th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(6 votes, average: 8.33 out of 10)
Big ups to Housd creator Ali Graham for coming to the rescue with this guest strip. As I’ve come to know him through Boxcar, Ali is the go-to guy when you need a little extra coverage. Anyone in the group who has asked for a guest strip from the others will see Ali be the first to serve something up and his work is consistently hilarious. Of course, what else can you expect from someone who has been dedicated enough to pump out over 1,000 strips! The man is a dynamo! Thanks, Ali!
This weekend I was in Chicago with friends auditioning for VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture. For legal reasons, I can’t give you too many specifics about the show. But I plan on sharing more about the trip later. We happened to be in town for Chicago’s world-famous St. Patrick’s Day parade, so it’s safe to say we had a blast!
I’ll likely be posting something about the trip to the THorum later this afternoon or evening. I have photos, too. So look for updates on those as well. I’ll be sure to let everyone know where to find it when posted.
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