Cami was legitimately against seeing Nick and Norah’s Infinitie Playlist (and yes I realize I left the “H” out of “Norah” in the comic – typo) because she thought it skewed outside of our demographic. She’s not exactly wrong. It’s pretty much for the Hollister and hoodie set, but I don’t care. I gotsta have me my Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. These two should be in movies together for the next 10 years.

Despite the fact that it’s pretty much pointless, not especially witty or insightful, I really enjoyed Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. It’s almost a documentary in a sense as you watch these two characters bounce around Manhattan, slowly falling in love with each other over the course of a night. I’m not so old that I don’t remember how that feels.

Both Cera and Dennings do their low-key thing here and most of the time it works. Of course, there can be too much of a good thing. There comes a point near the end where there is an opportunity for catharsis, but they let it slip by. That’s frustrating. Bbut by the time they get to the last line, you don’t care. The movie has wrapped you up in it’s spell. I highly suggest checking it out. It’s a good time at the theater with some good music to boot.

Incidentally, regarding the age issue, my self-consciousness about being a 30 year-old guy sitting in a theater by himself waiting for the movie about the young 20-something’s in love was erased when I saw a whole bunch of older couples – people in their 40’s and 50’s come in and watch this thing. Maybe Michael Cera reminds them of their son who is at college and doesn’t call them anymore? That’s my best guess.

At any rate, I’m sure we’ll be talking about the film along with Bevery Hills Chihuahu’s soul-draining first place, $30 million box office take this weekend during The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST. Be sure to listen live and call in with your questions!

If I could change gears for a minute, I wanted to talk to you guys about the donation drive that helped recover the data I lost when my external hard drive failed a couple of months back. But before I get into it, I want to share with you a piece of art I created for one of the people generous enough to donate. Check this out:

This is a fully-rendered original comic created for donator Oscar Velez. Oscar was married this weekend and wanted to do something special for his fiancee. So he took the opportunity offered by the donation drive to commission me to create a wedding gift for her. He was going to give this to her the day before their wedding.

Now, my first reaction to this request was “Wow! What an awesome compliment that you would ask me to do this!” My second reaction was “Wow! I hope I don’t screw this up!”

Oscar didn’t make this easy for me. Buildings, crowd scenes and animals aren’t my strong suit. I poured HOURS of my time into this because I was so afraid I was going to mess it up, I kept going back to tweak it. I worked up to the very last minute on this thing. I sent it overnight to Oscar a day before the wedding.

I sent Oscar the original art – the blue line with inks – and then a full-color print on glossy card stock. He received it in time (thank God) and ended up giving it to his fiancee at their rehersal dinner. According to Oscar, his fiancee was keeping it together during the rehersal, the rehersal dinner, the toasts from friends and family. But when he gave her the artwork, she completely lost it and started crying – which then made OTHER people cry!

So I guess it went over pretty well! And, with all seriousness, that’s the best compliment I could have ever received.

I asked Oscar if I could share the artwork on the site partially because I put a lot of time into it, was proud with the results and wanted to demonstrate to everyone who donated how seriously I take this and how I am committing myself to delivering something worthy of the support you’ve shown me. But I also wanted to share it because I thought it was a really cool story. I offered to post it without the text because, y’know… the message is kind of personal. But Oscar was totally up front and cool about it. “Post it with the text,” he said. “I want the world to know I love her!”

So, there you go buddy. The world knows.

Oscar and his wife are taking their honeymoon at Universal Studios (good man) and he said he’d have his laptop with him and would be checking the site. I hope you two are having fun and I wanted to send you my best wishes! Thanks for making me a part of your wedding. The honor was all mine.

So, to that end, let’s talk about the donation drive in the macro sense.

Similar to how I worked up until the last minute on Oscar’s commissioned piece, I’ve been putting off writting a summary on the donation drive. This has literally been one of the largest undertakings I’ve pursued since I’ve started the site and I was afraid that I would be unable to capture the enormity of the effort or express the etreme amount of gratitude I feel toward everyone that donated.

I think, in the life of a webcomic, you get one or MAYBE two “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards and I think I just used mine with this drive. I didn’t expect it to be as successful as it way. I never expected to meet goal. I figured a few kind people would donate and that would help me get a leg up on recovery costs.

The outpouring of support was amazing. Frankly, it’s been difficult for me to keep up. Not only in terms of responding to everyone who donated and thanking them personally. But also keeping up with the artwork and sending out a high-quality product in a reasonable amount of time.

I try to set expectations. I try to tell people that it might take a little while but that I WILL get to them. Everyone has been more than kind about it. “Don’t worry. I understand. Take your time.” Some people are even telling me that they don’t want anything in return. The just want to donate in appreciation of the comic they’ve come to enjoy.

You have no idea what a validation that is for me.

I feel like no matter what I do, I’m going to fail in articulating the sheer awe I’ve experienced spearheading this drive. That’s why It’s so important for me to get it right and not take your kindness for granted. The data that we sought to restore has been brought back to us with 99.8% completion. I’ve already burned copies of the original art by month and year onto CD-ROMs and have also backed things up onto new external drives. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again and you guys have afforded me that second chance.

So what else can I say but “Thank you?” It’s such a simple expression, but it captures what I want to say so succinctly. Thank you. You guys are amazing. Thank you.

For those of you that donated, I’m still working on your art and you’ll be hearing from me over the course of the next few weeks. That’s it for me today. Thanks again and be sure to come back to the site tomorrow for a review of Allah Made Me Funny, a movie currently in limited release.