Archive for July 20th, 2009
2 items.
First I just want to say thanks to everyone who wrote a comment or sent an e-mail expressing support or concern after I shared the story of my hand injury last week. I’ve always maintained that Theater Hopper fans are some of the most courteous, supportive and understanding fans in all webcomics and your words encouraged me to get back on the horse that much faster.
That said, a few of you were teasing me a little bit when it came to my hand injury being similar to that of Shia LaBeouf’s while he was filming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A bit of karma played against me for giving the actor such a hard time in the past.
It’s cool, it’s cool. While my injury was nowhere near as serious as LaBeouf’s, turnabout is fair play, I suppose. I gotta give LaBeouf credit, though. He showed up for work with his injury. I don’t know if I would have done the same.
Then again, if a $200 million action sequel were resting on my shoulders and Michael Bay could provide a kevlar cast that looked like skin, I’d probably find the proper motivation to go back to work.
A few of you suggested that I write my injury into the comic. While I recognized that it would be therapeutic to do so, I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. Then I got an e-mail from one CP Newcombe who gave me a nugget of a great idea. Immediately upon reading it, I could think of at least five different directions to take the storyline. So you have CP to thank for this next little story arc that not only bring Shia LaBeouf back into the Theater Hopper, but another long-lost character once thought dead. Who could it be? You have to wait to find out!
I things that are not hand-related, Cami and I saw Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince over the weekend. Cami didn’t like it because she felt the film took too many liberties with the book and was hard to follow. She recognizes that certain changes had to be made to adapt the book to the screen, but was ultimately disappointing.
I, on the other hand, was perfectly happy with the movie and I attribute much of that to the fact that I’ve never read a single Harry Potter book.
I tried reading the first book before the first movie came out, but I found Rowling’s use of language too impenetrable and annoying to bother to continue. It’s all the made up words. They distracted me.
So, as a result, my exposure to Harry Potter has occurred exclusively in the domain of film. Aside from the fourth movie (which I thought was horrid), I’ve enjoyed them all so far.
I suppose now that I’ve had some time to get away from the movie a little bit, there were some things about The Half-Blood Prince that bothered me. Certain revelations that should have a large impact simply don’t shock the way they should and there’s a little too much hemming and hawing over the multiple romantic subplots to keep the tension going.
Something I’ve noticed about the last few films is that their visual tone has become darker and darker, but the plot elements don’t always match up to this. Things should be getting deadlier and more serious for Harry, but the films seem to force this balance with the light stuff which then feels out of place.
I know Joe had some pretty strong opinions on the movie, so I’m sure we’ll debate these issues and more on tonight’s episode of The Triple Feature. I strongly encourage you to listen live at 9:00 PM CST. You can participate in the chat field with the other listeners and we always have a lot of fun. Plus, you get to the listen to the behind-the-scenes stuff before and after we record the show. I’ve been told by some it’s the sole reason they listen to the live broadcast.
Hope you can fit us in tonight and that everyone has a great week. Thanks again for all your support and I’ll talk to you soon!
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This has nothing to do with the comic. But it’s a funny little story related to my hand injury that just popped into my head that I thought you would enjoy.
This took place last Thursday, the day after my visit to the ER. I wasn’t doing much of anything that day except sitting around with an ice pack on my hand, admonishing myself, going “Owie, owie, owie, you stupid muther…”
At some point in the afternoon, there was a knock on my door. I went upstairs to see who it was and it was a solicitor.
A clean-shaven middle-aged man with a handful of pictures informed me that he was going door-to-door asking home owners if they would appreciate his business painting their house numbers on the curb in front of their homes.
“Perhaps you’re familiar with our work,” he asked, as he flashed a series of photographs in front of me. Most of the photographs were of plain house numbers. But some of them were also adorned with the logos of popular sports teams. A Chicago Cubs logo here, a Kansas City Chiefs logo there.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your work,” I said.
“You know, the real reason you want to get your numbers painted on the curb,” the man said as he continued his pitch, “is because they’re much more visible to emergency vehicles. These emergency vehicles can’t see the house numbers when they’re so far away from the street.”
“That’s funny,” I said, holding up my bandaged left hand, “because we actually had a little situation here yesterday that required a visit from an emergency vehicle and they seemed to find the house just fine!”
“Uh? Oh! Oh my,” the man stuttered.
“I’m not trying to give you a hard time,” I said. “I understand what you’re doing. But I don’t think we’ll be in need of your services.”
We wished each other well and the man went on his way.
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