Archive for June, 2006
23 items.
Jun01
GUEST STRIP – FULL_ABSOLUTION
June 1st, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 7.20 out of 10)
Well, I’m back from Europe but the guest strips are still going strong. Good to see that the site didn’t go wonky while I was away. I probably need to keep this brief since I’m still jet lagging and the typos are worse than ever, but Cami and I had a great trip and excellent weather throughout. I took over 500 pictures and some of them I’ll be sharing as I transcribe my journal from the last two weeks on my LiveJournal page. I don’t really want to advertise it here, but you can learn more about it in the THorum here, if you’re interested.
Please give it up to full_absolution from Bradley Drawn for today’s guest comic. I freaked out a little about the pot leaf in the second panel, but how are you going to do a strip about stoners without one? Truthfully, it’s something I would probably toss in if I wrote this strip. I thought full-absolution did a good job of capturing that thing I do with the photos in the background sometimes.
Even thought the comic is currently on hiatus, you should really check out Bradley Drawn. It has a cool geometric cartoon feel that I like a lot.
I should probably mention that the deadline for the book pre-sale is closing in on us. Sunday, June 11 is the deadline and as you can see, we have a ways to go to make our goal.
Some of you have been ordering 2 books and that’s phenominal. I say, "Keep doing more of that!" If you think you might have a little brother or a cousin that would enjoy a copy of the book come holiday season, don’t be afraid to buy a copy now and hang on to it until December! Please click here to pre-order your copy today!
Obviously it was difficult to promote the pre-sale while I was out of the country, but now that we’re nearing the home stretch, I’m going to make a big push for it. Help me out if you can. Be sure to spread the word to all your friends and forum communities!
In the meantime, it’s good to be back and I’m ready to jump into things next week. I know it won’t be as timely as it might have been otherwise, but I think I have some good ideas for making fun of The DaVinci Code and X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
Stay tuned!
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Jun02
Still recovering from my trip across the pond, but surprisingly, the jet lag hasn’t hit me yet. I went back to work yesterday and was fairly functional! I’m just worried that at some point I’ll be driving on my way to Arby’s this weekend and a sudden bout of narcolepsy will drive me into the median. Keep your fingers crossed, kids!
Big thanks to Jonah and Jeremy Gregory for today’s guest strip. I’m always a sucker for a great Muppet Babies reference! You should really check out their comic Random Pirate Comics. What’s cool about it is that you’re not enjoying one comic, but several! You have to visit the site to see what I mean. So what are you waiting for?
I know I said that the guest strips would end after today, but I actually got a couple more in my inbox that will carry us through over the weekend. The one I have on deck for Sunday will be a nice little bookend to my extended hiatus. But I promise I’ll be back in action on Monday again.
At any rate, be sure to come back to the site both Saturday and Sunday for some extra goodies.
As I mentioned yesterday, in addition to extra guest strips, a few more pre-orders for the book came in while I’m away. We’re closer to our goal, but still a long ways away. I’ve been trying to stay positive throughout the entire pre-sale event, stay excited and hopefully get you guys excited as well.
However, at this point, with the June 11 deadline for pre-orders looming, I have to take a more realistic approach.
I don’t think we’re going to make the goal of getting 300 books. What that means for those of you who have placed orders, I don’t know. I’d still like to go forward with it. There are too many of you who’ve shown faith and support in this project to turn tail and run. Whether that means I order a lower print run and lose a cut of the potential revenue or if I try to scrounge up some money on my own to pay for the difference, I haven’t decided.
But whatever the outcome, today is payday. So if you were thinking about pre-ordering a book at all, today is the day! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE BOOK TODAY!
Thanks again to everyone for their support. One thing is for sure, this has been a real learning experience and I still think there are lessons for me to learn. So in the very least, I am greatful for that.
Talk to you soon!
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Jun03
GUEST STRIP – JOSH ANDERSON
June 3rd, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(10 votes, average: 5.10 out of 10)
And the guest strips just keep on coming!
What can I say, I figured if I’m out of commisssion, then it’s just good manners to give you as many great guest strips as I can.
Give thanks to Josh Anderson for his contribution. I loved the Indiana Jones reference in the second panel as – in real life – I tend to invoke that quote whenever there is an obstacle that impedes me from doing whatever it is I wanted to do.
Mowing the lawn, for example. "Dandelions. Why’d it have to be dandelions."
I don’t know.
Be sure to check out Josh’s web site L.A.P. Dance Productions. In addition to comics, they have some great digital shorts, reviews and all-out rants. Lots of quality content to be found there.
I have one more guest strip for you tomorrow and then it’s back to work on Monday. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Cami and I were threatening to see The Break-Up on Friday night, but the negative reviews kept us away. We’ll see what the word of mouth is. I dunno, is it just me or is Jennifer Aniston incapible of playing anything above Rachel 2.0? She needs to do something like The Good Girl again and quick. If we see this movie at all, it’ll be for Vince Vaughn.
Chances are we’ll catch a matinee of X-Men 3 on Sunday. We actually saw it in France on May 26 – one whole day before you! Booyah! Downside was that (even though were had our fingers crossed for English with French subtitles) it was completely in French. We did a pretty good job following along, though. Big, dumb action movies like that… you’re only job is watching things explode. But like I said, we’ll catch the matinee in English to pick up on the more subtle points.
See you tomorrow!
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Jun04
GUEST STRIP – JOERULES AND MADMUP
June 4th, 2006 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(4 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
Maybe I should be slightly disturbed by that knowing wink that Charlie and Truman share in the third panel, but how can I be wary when the ever-talented joerules and MadMup are at the helm? Seriously, these guys are Theater Hopper guest strips MVP’s. If you aren’t familiar with some of their earlier collaborations, you should darn well make yourselves accountable! When you’re done doing your homework, you should visit their individual websites as well – Digital Pimp Online and MadMup.com!
Come tomorrow I’ll be back in the saddle again doing comics. I always get a little nervous coming back from long breaks like this. So hopefully I’ll be able to fall into a groove fairly quickly.
Cami and I saw X-Men 3 again this afternoon – this time in English. Was it any better? Meh. It was okay. I guess I wasn’t as heartsick over some of the key character deaths as I was the first time around. My complaints are pretty much the same as everyone else’s. Too many mutants, not enough backstory. Would it have killed them to show Iceman in his full ice-form more often in the movie? Ice bridges? Anything? I guess we’re supposed to think of them still as kids becoming familiar with their powers. But a nerd can dream, can’t he?
I was particularly annoyed that Colossus seemed to be relegated to the background a lot. Especially in that last fight. Notice how he’s always over someone’s shoulder and out of focus. It’s like someone told Brett Ratner that for every shot he’s "armored up," that’s $1 million being syphoned away from Halle Berry’s "Gimme More Money Or I Walk!" fund.
I will say this – the guy who played the President in the movie? Worst actor ever. I know he’s been in a ton of stuff. Old time character actor-guy. But he was totally hamming it up. Not on the same wavelength as any of the other actors. I dunno. It’s not like the movie is all that good or any of the dialogue he was given you could say with a straight face. But everyone else played it straight.
We stuck around for the end credits and the big reveal. Again – meh. So Xavier implants his conciousness onto the guy that doesn’t have one? Wasn’t that his warning regarding the abuse of power he was talking about in his lecture to the students?
I suppose it was kind of neat that the movies were following the lead of the comics and painted Professor X as more of a manipulative jerk, but it’s inconsistent with the theme of the movie.
Oh – and no matter how many times Beast saying "Oh my stars and garters!" in the comics was funny, it’s sounds weird as hell when Kelsey Grammer says it. All things said, however – he was the best part of the Wolverine and Storm Movie – er, I mean, X-Men 3.
See you here tomorrow!
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Seems like after being away from the scene for so long, you’d think I’d return by utilizing my own characters instead of a pink-haired make-up artist and a poorly designed caricature of Paul Bettany. What can I say? I’m an odd duck.
Cami and I have been catching up on the pop culture we missed since we were in Europe at the end of May. An adventure I lovingly refer to as "The Deep Dive." As of this weekend, we’re preparing to surface. We’re almost entirely caught up.
We went to see The DaVinci Code last weekend and – as capivated as I was by Paul Bettany’s performance – it struck me that it wasn’t much of a stretch in casting a painfully pale and pasty Brit to play the albino monk. In the back of my head, I always kind of thought Bettany was an albino anyway. Something about his giant forehead and his nearly transparent eyebrows.
I never read Dan Brown’s book mostly because I don’t get into mainstream fiction. Mostly entertainment retrospectives and biographies. So I didn’t have much in terms of bias going into the movie. I thought there were some sincerely gaps in logic. For people that are supposed to be so well educated, they make some supremely dumb decisions while evading the police. Nothing real people would actually do. Then again, the police in this movie are inept at almost every turn. So perhaps it’s tit for tat.
I feel a little odd talking about The DaVinci Code when the movie has been in theaters for more than two weeks. Typically I pride myself on being more timely. But it’s a pretty big movie and I didn’t want to look back at 2006 having let it slip through my fingers.
I have a couple of other posts that I want to make, so expect them later. Signing off for the moment because it’s late. Despite the simplicity of today’s comic, it took me a while to get back into the rhythm of producing a new comic so long after being out of commission.
More to come!
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Hey, guys. Tom here, back from vacation and back with some important news.
On Sunday the pre-order for our first book "Theater Hopper: Year One" will come to a close. If you’ve been visiting the front page and monitoring the tally, you can see that we’re currently 211 orders shy of our goal. Remember that the money from the pre-sale went toward the production of the larger print run.
I’m not optimistic that 211 orders will come flooding into my inbox before Sunday, but I’ve come too far to let this die on the vine and I still really want to see this book happen.
So what does this mean? It means that despite the lack of orders, the book is still going forward. However, I have to cut the number of books I had planned on ordering, which raises the cost per book and cuts into my profit margin. That’s unfortunate because the profits from this book is what I planned to bankroll the second book, shortening the pre-order period.
What doubly sucks is that even with the lower print run, I still have to pay considerable expenses out of my own pocket to make up the difference. My hope is that once the books are completed and I have them in hand, another wave of orders will come in and I’ll make some of that money back. But there are no assurances in life, as I thought getting a few hundred pre-orders was pretty reasonable.
But things don’t have to be that bad. If you’re thinking that you want a copy of the book, PLEASE DON’T WAIT. PRE-ORDER TODAY. You’ll be helping me more than you know.
For those of you who have already places your orders – THANK YOU. I appreciate your generosity and support. If you can help to spread the word about the pre-order deadline or convince your friends to pre-order a copy, that would be great.
I’m still trying to decide if I bit off more than I could chew or if I planned poorly. Looking back, I don’t think there’s much more I could have done in terms of promotion or advertising to get the word out. So now, it’s all in your hands. I’ve shown my cards. You know that the book is going forward whether you pre-order or if you don’t. But hopefully you recognize the financial stakes for me personally and pre-order a copy of the book before Sunday to help lessen the burden.
If you can’t afford to pre-order right now. I totally understand and I don’t mean to guilt you. This call to action is for those of you who want to buy a book but are waiting for them to be published. My goal is to motivate you NOT to wait.
Until then, your continued support of the site is very much appreciated and I thank each and every one of you who make Theater Hopper a stop in their browser every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I consider myself exceptionally lucky that I’ve been able to make it this far on what is otherwise a hobby.
It’s good to be back. I’ve missed you guys.
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I was kind of non-plussed by my own efforts back at the drawing booth on Monday. So for today’s comic, I tried to do something a little more dynamic. Kind of funny how often the end of the world seems to occur in this comic…
Despite the excellent trailer with the supurb art direction, I won’t be lured by the siren’s song of The Omen. I’ll carefully protect my movie-going dollar from this abomination.
Reviews coming back say that this remake is almost a shot-by-shot reproduction of the original. Only societial tweaks like cell phones and therapy have been added to the 1976 original.
I look at the ads for The Omen and can only imagine some marketing representative at Fox balancing his pencil on the end of his nose before stumbling onto the idea of releasing a movie on "6/6/06."
"The Omen!" he stammers. "It’s perfect!"
To me, it’s a blatant money grab. Was anyone standing around saying "Gee, The Omen is a great horror movie and all, but Gregory Peck just doesn’t do it for me. They should remake it and have Liev Schreiber instead!"
You see what I mean.
That’s it for the moment. I’ll be back later in the day to talk about you know what…
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Hey, guys. If you have 10 minutes, do you think you could answer a few demographic questions for this survey? Nothing complicated and we’re not sharing your personal information with anyone else. It’s basically some information gathering to help fine-tune certain aspects of the site for better performance.
I appreciate your help!
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I think they’ve been advertising Cars ever since The Incredibles came out in 2004 and, since it’s a Pixar movie, I’ve been eagerly anticipating it ever since.
But going on vacation kind of screws up your time table and we’re still trying to integrate ourselves back into the flow of pop culture. That’s why I was kind of caught off guard when I remembered that it’s in theaters today! Yippee!
In my opinion, Pixar can do no wrong. While I was a little skittish about Cars at first, the trailers got progressively better and I knew they had a winner on their hands. There have been a lot of doubters in the blogosphere, but trust me. Cars is gonna knock your socks off it.
I have more to say about the haters, but I’m going to put that on hold for Monday’s comic.
You might have noticed that Cami is sporting a new hairdo. Truthfully, this is something I’ve been itching to do for a while. I kept trying to figure out a way to "introduce" the haircut before finally realizing that was stupid. People get their hair styled differently all the time. I don’t know why everything I do needs an explaination. When I started coloring Tom’s scalp so he didn’t look like Charlie Brown’s long-lost cousin, no one made a peep.
Anyway, I really like Cami’s new look and I hope you do too. Real-life Cami loves the fuller head of hair. The last one looked too much like a swim cap. See? We’re learning new things every day!
I feel good about todays comic. I didn’t think that last two were that good. It took me longer than expect to fall back into things. To think of comics and jokes more organically. I felt like I was really forcing the last two. Hopefully I can keep firing on all cylinders going forward.
Well, this is the last comic update before the deadline on the book pre-orders. If you notice the little countdown thingee in the upper right hand corner, you’ll notice that it’s dropped significantly. Do you believe in miracles? Because I do! Just when I thought things were looking grim, along comes Pierre-Luc Brunet from ZeStuff with a great business offer. He proposed buying 100 books off me to sell in his store that also sells merchandise from web comic luminaries like Ctrl+Alt+Del, VG Cats and 8-bit Theater. How could I say no?! I’m very psyched that copies of Theater Hopper – Year One will be alongside the wares of these other comics that I have enjoyed and looked up to for years. So Pierre-Luc? You’re the bee’s knees!
Incidentally, Pierre-Luc recently welcomed their first son into the world – Vincent. Both Mother and baby are doing great. Congratulations to the proud parents.
I should mention that even though Pierre-Luc’s offer came at the best possible time, your efforts in the last week have really helped as well. I must have gotten two dozen orders in the last 7 days from you guys and that’s absolutely amazing! As you can see, there are still a few book orders that we could still squeeze in. Honestly, there’s always room for more. But I just sent the artwork to the printer today and production starts next Monday. I hope to get a proof back soon and – hopefully – the books will be finished by the end of July. My goal is to have books to take with me to Wizard World Chicgo on August 4 – 6. In fact, we’re even talking about throwing a book launch party to celebrate! So if you’re on the fence about going to Wizard World Chicago, you gotta be there and visit me in my booth on Artist Alley. I’ll be handing out invitations and there will be free beer involved!
Just sayin’…
At any rate, sincere thanks to all of you that have put your faith into me and the book. You didn’t have to pre-order, but you did and you’ve really helped me out tremendously. My first book IS GOING TO HAPPEN! I am really pumped!
Oh, one more thing. I know I was talking about Wizard World Chicago in August, but if you want to see me before then, I will be at a convention here in Des Moines this weekend. In my own backyard! I will be exhibiting at I-Con Comic Book Convention this Saturday, June 10 at the Polk County Convention Center here in Des Moines from 10 AM to 5 PM. This is a big deal for me because I’ve been wanting to go to this convention for two years, but could never make it because I was always out of town. It’ll be great to represent Des Moines along with the other local and regional talent. I won’t have books, of course. But I’ll have t-shirts, posters and buttons. And I’ll sign or draw anything you like! Come down and see me this Saturday!
Whew! That’s a big post! A lot of news to share. Mainly, I’m excited about the book. Thank you again. Now that I’ve sent off the artwork, I can stop worrying about it for a little while. Sure, I’ll always have inventory and I’ll remind those of you who haven’t bought a book yet that they’re still available from time to time. But now that you guys have helped me get over that first big hurdle, I can get back to talking about movies and the stuff that interests you.
I feel like I’ve been away for a long time and I’m finally making my way back home.
Thanks again and have a great weekend! See Cars!
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Go on. Admit it. If you saw Cars this weekend, you stepped out into the parking lot with a new interpretation on automotive transport. Seeing the late show on Friday night and strolling out to our lonely Honda Element stranded in the middle of the parking lot, I expected it to ask us "Where WERE you guys?" with incredulous impatience. Or at least a sly "That tickles!" when I put the key into the ignition.
Just like every other Pixar movie that came before it, I was completely enthralled by Cars. How they manage to make these otherwise inanimate objects into characters you care about is a feat in and of itself. But the fact that they stringently adhear to what their real-life counterparts are capible of doing so that the illusion of a photo-realistic world unfolds in front of you is an equally grand accomplishment.
Going further, any movie that doesn’t give me more reason to hate Larry the Cable Guy casts quite the enchanting spell.
Something of note from Friday’s comic – I was innundated with several e-mails from those of you who caught my scripting error when I had Tom say that if he could be any car, he’d be a ’57 Mustang Convertable. Anyone who doubts America’s love affair with the automobile need only look at my inbox for proof otherwise. Several of you wrote in that you don’t often pen letters to comic strip authors, but my error forced you to speak up. You see, there is no such thing as a ’57 Mustang convertable. Ford didn’t start manufacturing them until 1964.
Everyone that wrote in was very sympathetic. Their solution to my shoddy research falling into one of two camps. Either I meant to reference the 1967 Mustang convertable – the first year for such an offering. Or I meant to reference the 1957 Ford THUNDERBIRD convertable – which existed at the time.
Quite truthfully, I just pulled a date and the make of a car out of my ass. But I appreciated all the e-mails none the less!
Incidentally, if people weren’t writing about the car thing, they extended praise for Cami’s new haircut. You guys love it! I was really surprised, actually. Who thought it would cause this much uproar? But if you guys are willing to write in over a haircut, who am I to turn away a compliment? Thank you!
Saturday’s appearance at the Iowa I-Con comic book convention went great. I had prime real estate on the showroom floor. Basically, I was right in front of the entrance. When you walked in, I was the first one you saw.
Obviously no one knew who I was, but I think it was good from an awareness raising standpoint. I was handing out flyers and stickers left and right. Telling people about the comic and where to find us online. So if you saw me at the show this weekend and are coming here for the first time, WELCOME!
I-Con was a great dry run for Wizard World Chicago – which I will be attending August 4 – 6. I was able to look around at other booths and get ideas for things to do in Chicago. Typically how it works is that I show up in Chicago and realize "Crap! I don’t have any flyers to hand out!" So I slap something together really quick and run it down to Kinko’s. This year, I’m going to actually prepare in advance as opposed to TELLING myself to prepare and forgetting about it. As is becoming the tradition at WWC, I’ll probably be giving away commemorative 1" buttons to people who come and find me on Artist’s Alley. So make a note on your calendar to come visit me August 4 – 6!
My primary piece of merchandise will, of course, be copies of Theater Hopper – Year One – which my printer has promised to deliver by July 31. So that means those of you who ordered through the site will probably start seeing them in your mailboxes after I get back from Chicago – around the middle of August. Don’t worry. I set the pre-order copies aside so I don’t run out!
I’ll probably be looking to clear out my inventory of t-shirts pretty soon to lighten the load for The Windy City. So keep your eyes open for that in the future.
Until then, happy Monday!
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