Archive for March, 2006
22 items.
I thought you guys might like to know that I posted my experience about The World Series of Pop Culture in the THorum. If you’d like to leave comments, feel free to sign up.
It’s kind of a lengthy post, but I think you’ll find it interesting. I still have more thoughts about the experience, but figured I would let you guys digest what is out there.
I have some photos from this weekend as well. I’ll share those at some point, too. Stay tuned for updates!
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Mar15
GUEST STRIP – JOERULES AND MADMUP
March 15th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(39 votes, average: 8.82 out of 10)
Much respect to Joerules and Mad Mup for bringing another stellar guest strip collaboration to Theater Hopper. Followers of the site know that they’ve displayed their tallents twice before and the comics keep getting better and better and better. This is a nifty little hat trick for them!
I think we all know Joe Dunn is a pretty busy guy. But why my good friend Mup hasn’t found a full-time artist to collaborate with is beyond me. He clearly has a sense of pacing and knows how to tell a joke. That Quidditch line? Can I steal that and put it on a shirt, Mup? It’s classic!
I also have to give BIG points to Joe for tossing in all the litte Iron Man action figures. Joe knows me personally, so he knows my fanboy obcession with all things Iron Man. Once again, Joe proves he’s the master of detail by adding them to the office environment! If you guys want proof of my Iron Man devotion, you should comb through some of my archived web cam images! I think that’s where he might have gotten the inspiration for this personal touch… Great work, Joe!
This will probably be the last real-time post you’ll see from me in a while. Cami and I are going on vacation tomorrow – hopping on a jet plane to "THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!" Walt Disney World.
I always feel this weird compulsion to apologise for going to Walt Disney World. As if it were some kind of childish endulgance that I should have grown past. I think it’s because when I was growing up, I looked at the resort as this very exclusive place that only rich people could afford to go to. That’s not really the case. It’s very affordable. And, actually, Cami and I have shared a lot of happy memories there.
We’ll never be the kind of couple that goes there every year or hosts some big-ass family reunion that clogs up the line of every attraction. But I proposed to her there, we spent our honeymoon there and – six years later – we’re going back to celebrate our anniversary. We’ll be married six years this Saturday, the 18th. We’re going to have a great time.
I’ll be back sometime Tuesday afternoon and I’ll probably be spending most of it catching up on e-mails and other internet happenings. But there will still be guest strips going on while I’m back. You’ll get another dose on Friday and then Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week.
Both Cami and I have been burned out for a long time. We haven’t taken a vacation where it was just the two of us since January of 2004, so this has been a long time coming. I’m excited to go, but I’m also already excited to come back because this will be exactly what I need to recharge my batteries and get me ready for pushing the release of the first Theater Hopper book shortly thereafter!
Things are really looking up!
Thanks to all you guys for giving us a little breathing room, but also for continuing to support the comic and spreading the word about Theater Hopper to all of your friends. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been getting lots of e-mails from people lately saying that they’lve just been introduced to the comic and are loving it. That’s a great feeling, especially after doing this for three and a half years. Don’t think for a minute I don’t appreciate it!
I’ll be back soon enough. Until then, enjoy today’s great comic and the guest strips yet to come!
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Hey, guys. Just poking my head in really quick before I leave. I wanted to draw your attention to our newest sponsor, Dribble For Kids. If you guys like a more serialized take on your web comics, than this one is for you! Check them out!
Also, if you’re considering becoming a sponsor, there are still 4 spots available with a couple of them turning over soon. For ten bucks, you get 30 days of exposure. That’s a really good deal! I know it’s only a 88 x 33 button, but you don’t see Penny Arcade doing this kind of stuff for up-and-coming comics do you?
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Mar17
GUEST STRIP – BRANDON J CARR
March 17th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(8 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Do you have any idea how tempted I was to title this guest strip "Brokeback Victor?" But I guess Brokeback Mountain jokes aren’t cool anymore since the Oscars are over… Oh, well.
Quick question. Did you know that this guest strip done by my good Boxcar buddy and creator of web comic The Kenmore – Brandon J Carr – is, IN FACT, awesome? Cuz, guess what? It is!
I love the lead in panel with the strip name between the characters. I adore that there is no dialogue and everything is communicated crystal clear. And I am jealous with envy that Brandon uncovered a facet of Victor’s character that I might have to steal for future installments! This is a Grade A guest strip.
But really, should we consider anything less from the genius behind The Kenmore? Brandon’s comic is on hiatus for the moment as our good man moves into a new place. But don’t be sullen. Don’t be downtrodden. Instead, look at this as an opportunity to check out Brandon’s work from the very begining and read all of his stuff before he goes back to producing new material. You won’t regret it!
Thanks again, Brandon! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
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Mar20
GUEST STRIP – MIKE MORGAN
March 20th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 7.60 out of 10)
Greetings, campers and happy Monday!
Today’s comic comes from Mike Morgan. Or, as I’ve come to know him in the THorum, KiltyAsCharged (great name). Mike has his own comic called The Vinyl Groove that I think all of you should check out. I dig Mike’s style. It’s very relaxed and almost painterly. Like watercolors. Am I making sense?
Mike actually sent me a guest strip to use a while ago, but it didn’t work out for me to place it on the front page. It was sort of timely and I had basically finished running, like, three weeks of guest strips and I needed to get back in the swing of things. I put that comic in the fan art section and you can check it out here.
Although the ads in the THorum are advertising it non stop, I know very little about Silent Hill. Neither the movie or the video game it’s based off of. I guess I’ve seen the trailer and I like it’s atmospheric bent. But I probably won’t see the film because I’m not much for horror.
I dunno? What do you guys think? Are you going to see it? Maybe you should talk about it here…
I’ll catch up with you guys soon. Have a great week!
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Mar22
GUEST STRIP – FRED GRISOLM
March 22nd, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(7 votes, average: 7.71 out of 10)
Today’s guest strip comes from Boxcar buddy Fred Grisolm – the very excellent author of the equally excellent Hate Song.
Some of you might read Fred’s strip and say he was stealing a page from Brandon J. Carr’s guest strip from last friday. To which I would say "Stop flappin’ yer gums about things you don’t know nothin’ about!" Fred developed his comic totally independent of Brandon. They never looked over their desks to see what their classmate was doing. Scout’s honor. Just goes to show how great minds think alike!
Either that, or there is a powerfully strong undercurrent of homoerotic tension running through Theater Hopper that I’m totally unaware of putting out there.
I really like Fred’s strip because I thought he did a really good job of capturing my writing style. Something about the pace of this one felt right. Kind of like how I would write it. Fred is right on the money when it comes to serial killer movies with the newspaper clippings on the wall. Can we find a new cliche to exploit, please?
At any rate, thanks to Fred for an excellent comic. If you liked his work here, check out Hate Song where he consistently knocks it out of the park.
Changing gears, I’m back from vacation and it’s good to be home. Well, good and not so good.
The thing I hate about taking vacations is that time doesn’t stop on all the crap going on back home. When you get back to work there are a ton of messages to follow up on, you have to do all the laundry from the trip, catch up on the bills… all that garbage. Honestly, it stresses me out to the point I was stressed at BEFORE the vacation. Thank goodness it’s a short work week. At least I don’t have to do Friday’s comic, either. That gives me a little breathing room.
Walt Disney World was – of course – totally excellent. Although I’ll be glad not to have to side-step fat parents pushing double-wide strollers for a while.
WDW gets a bad rap for all the long lines you have to wait in to ride the attractions. And even though it was Spring Break, I think we got off pretty light. We didn’t have to wait in too many lines that were longer than 15 or 20 minutes.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Magic Kingdom, but is there a more disproportionate wait time vs. ride time for any other attraction than Peter Pan’s Flight? Seems to take two hours to enjoy a ride that’s maybe two minutes long.
I’ll tell you something that really cheesed me off about our visit. Cami and I were really hyped up to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, right? We loved the ride when we went with our parents in our youth, but when we went 6 years ago for our honeymoon, the ride was closed down for repairs. So this time, we were ready to go. Guess what? It was closed down AGAIN! We found out later it was because they wanted to make the ride more like the movies and were adding in scenes with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. Double-ugh! That would have been really cool to see. But not this time. So now I guess I gotta wait until Cami and I have kids who are old enough to appreciate the expense and planning that goes into a Walt Disney World trip before I can see the ride again. Of course, by then it’ll probably be 2020 and the ride will be under construction again to replace the audio animatronics with holograms.
That’s another thing. For the life of me, I don’t understand why parents bring their babies and small children to Walt Disney World. I wanted to punch every sleeping child in a stroller. Have they no idea what their parents went through to bring them there?! When I have kids, I’m going to wait until they’re 20 before I take them. Then maybe they can chip in for a plane ticket!
I don’t mean to make it sound like we had a bad time. Far from it. Cami and I had a great vacation and it was really good to go down there any enjoy it together. We got to see everything we wanted to see and had a great time celebrating our 6th anniversary. I have some more to say about the trip, but nothing I really need to share in this space. Keep an eye out on my LiveJournal page for some extra thoughts about the trip!
Until then, see ya’ real soon!
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Mar24
GUEST STRIP – MITCH CLEM
March 24th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 8.40 out of 10)
Give it up to my good buddy Mitch Clem for closing out this period of guest strips on a high note. He took the happy accident that occured when Brandon J. Carr and Fred Grisolm reached the same conclusion with their strips and turned it into a great running gag! I’m thinking this is probably something worth running with when I hop back into the saddle on Monday. At the very least to kind of prime the pump before I launch back into full movie commentary mode.
I must give sincere props to the others who helped me out while I was away. That includes Ali Graham, Joe Dunn, MadMup and Mike Morgan. These are all guys who have gone to bat for me before and I feel especially lucky and humbled that I have reliable friends such as these. Be sure to check out each of their web sites for a concentrated dose of their talents! Thanks, guys!
Being on vacation in Walt Disney World is sort of like being on another planet… or Texas. You feel totally severed from the modern world and the events that occur in it. Crap, even the TV stations piped into the hotel rooms are all Disney-owned. No cable except for The Disney Channel, Lifetime, ESPN and so on.
So shamefully, I didn’t have an opportunity to see V for Vendetta when it came out last Friday. I’ve been begging Cami to see it since we got back in town Tuesday night, but she’s been reluctant. Now she’s telling me she has no interest in seeing it at all and I can see it by myself when she returns to her night classes next week. Grr.
Oh, well. At any rate, Inside Man comes out today and she’s more in step with seeing that. I like to think it’s because she’s REALLY into Christopher Plummer, but I have a feeling it might have more to do with Clive Owen playing the heavy. Really, how can you NOT love Clive Owen.
Tossing in Densel Washington and Jodie Foster into the mix doesn’t hurt. What really surprised me, though was learning that Spike Lee was behind the lens on this one. You totally wouldn’t have guessed it from the trailer. That’s probably a good thing. The film looks like a straight-up-the-middle urban crime thriller. But I think we all know that Lee is a little bit smarter than that and reviews seem to indicate some really intelligent twists on the genre. So I’m looking forward to a good time.
I’ve felt way behind on movies all year. It’s not atypical for January and February to be slow. But now that we’re almost done with March, I feel almost starved. I think seeing these two movies will go a long way toward correcting that.
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I’ve taken a few self-portraits. Yes, I have. Yes, I have.
I know today’s comic isn’t exactly movie-related. Maybe you were looking for something a little more on-point, genre-wise this morning. But after all the homo-erotic goodness of the last two weeks, I had to take the joke and run with it.
Coming up with the punchline was kind of weird. Since the comic is a autobiographical exaggeration, I kind of resisted the idea of casting myself as vain or being more concerned with myself than Cami. I didn’t want to give you guys the wrong idea about out relationship because the joke is kind of at her expense. Truthfuly, I would rather stare at Cami for 100 hours that catch a passing glimpse of myself in the reflection of a storefront window.
But upon realizing that I didn’t want to portray myself as being vain, I realized… I was being vain. So I ran with the joke. More movie stuff later in the week. Cross m’ heart.
Cami and I saw Inside Man over the weekend and I really liked it. I mean REALLY liked it. As in, "Hey, maybe the situation at the multiplex isn’t as dire as the evidence would have led me to believe three weeks ago! There’s hope!"
I think we can all agree that there hasn’t been very many good movies in the theater since the end of the holiday season. It’s okay. It’s low tide on cinema. Happens every year.
But watching the crafty Inside Man was like a beacon saying "The salmon are returning to spawn!" With spring brings renewal.
The movie is as tense as you might expect and there’s always some kind of new twist being thrown into the mix. Each of the four leads – Densel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer – all sink their teeth into their roles and bounce off each other well without being too showy. Densel didn’t launch in to Training Day level histronics. He actually milks a lot of comedy out of the tension just by being his usual, charming self. If anything, I thought Jodie Foster’s performance was possibly the weak link in the film, but that’s only if you’re going out of your way to complain about something.
The film was directed by Spike Lee, which I think made it even more impressive. A mainstream movie like this was something he needed to do a LONG time ago because I think the unfortunate truth is that people are more familiar with his politics than his considerable talent. There’s no reason he couldn’t tranition between these realms of Hollywood effectively. A movie like this might wake people up to his cannon of work.
If you’re dragging your feet on Inside Man for whatever reason, stop screwing around and go see it. I haven’t enjoyed a movie as smart as this one in what felt like an eternity!
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So yesterday Cami and I watched March of the Penguins and The Notebook.
I gotta tell ‘ya… Between frozen baby penguin carcasses and old ladies with dimentia, it was a really cheery afternoon around the ol’ Brazelton place!
I don’t know why that was worth mentioning, especially since I should have gotten around to seeing these movies earlier. I was very surprised by The Notebook. It looks like it would be a cloying chick flick, but that’s just well-rounded movie making. No if’s, and’s or but’s.
By the way, I got some new fan art for you. You can say thanks to Will Templeton of Anarchy Soda for being first to the gate with the obvious parody after all the man-lovin’ going on around here lately.
Thanks, WIll!
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I don’t know what’s going on with Web Comics List. Seems like it’s been down for a few weeks. So you probably can’t see today’s incentive sketch. Darn shame, because I think it’s really funny and it turned out pretty good. I’m thinking I might switch back over to buzzComix on the whole voting/incentive scheme. We’ll see what pans out.
Truthfully, I’m not really into the ranking sites like I used to be. It was just a kick to see how long we could stick it out in the top spot for a while and pal around with some good friends in the Top 10. The incentives are always fun, though. I like how I can typically sneak in another extra little punchline that I might not be able to squeeze into a regular strip.
Here’s hoping that today’s comic isn’t too blue for those readers with small-children. I don’t know why things have become so sexually-oriented lately. It’s certainly isn’t sexy, so it’s probably not going to drive up traffic. It’s not like I have Cami running around in a bikini for no good reason.
Although that’s an idea!…
At any rate, I had to do careful research coming up with the porn parody movie titles. Some of them are quite profane, as you might imagine. I needed to find something quasi-graphic so you would get the gist of what I was referencing without crossing the line into flat-out offensive territory.
That said, I wish I could claim these titles as my own, but I’m not that witty. These are – in fact – actual titles off porn parody films.
I remember distinctly my first encounter with this phenomenon. It was 1996 and I was a freshman in college. Cami and I were going to the local campus video store to rent Mallrats. It was in and out of theaters so fast, we never got to see it. By the time we were in school, it was out on video.
Prominently displayed in the tiny, privately owned video store was a comprehensive selection of pornography. Not tucked away in some back room behind a beaded curtain and under black lights. No. I’m talking about these things being within arms reach of the checkout counter and comedy section. You couldn’t miss them.
Two titles immediately lept from the shelf. "Black Booty" – a parody of the children’s film Black Beauty – and "Wednesday is Humpday." I don’t think that second one was parodying anything specific, but the title was so unintentionally hilarious, it became a catchphrase of sorts for the remainder of our college career.
"Hey, what day is it?"
"Wednesday is Humpday!"
Oh, how we laughed!
I’ll be back later in the day to annouce a VERY COOL CONTEST. So make sure to visit us later to find out how you can participate!
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