I’ve been making fun of Final Destination running out of ways to kill people since Final Destination 2 came out in 2003.

I guess the joke is on me, though. The Final Destination, the fourth installment of the franchise, was #1 at the box office this weekend. The film drew in almost $30 million of business. I guess audiences will never tire of seeing vapid, pretty-looking teenagers die in terrible, horrible ways.

Still… you’ve see the trailers for this one, right? One girl gets trapped in a car wash, another get struck by a rock sent flying from a lawnmower clipping chute? Or, as Joe point out last week… “Death by NASCAR?”

For whatever it’s worth, I’d really like to see a movie where someone trips over their shoes, falls on top of a bullet and dies. Even if it happens in one of those stupid Scary Movie films. Can someone make this happen?

Not a lot for me to talk about movie-wise, so I thought I would take this opportunity to turn you guys on to some of the comics I’ve been reading.

I’ve been reading a lot of journal comics lately. I had no less than three conversations about journal comics with different people last week. It’s the topic dejour around the web comics campfire at the moment.

Talking about the influx of conversation surrounding journal comics with Michael May of Eros, Inc., I hit upon the idea that the end of the summer is upon us and people are taking stock of their lives and perhaps that’s why there is so much buzz around journal comics.

That could be a complete line of bull, but that’s usually where my head is at around the start of autumn. I’m more likely to take stock of my life in September and October than I am to do so in December or January. I guess I’m just wired different.

Anyway… comic recommendations!

• Inkdick – The journal comic of Pranas Naujokaitis. Pranas is a recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. His comic reminds me a lot of another SCAD graduate, Drew Weing’s The Journal Comic – a long time favorite of mine. I read through Pranas’s archive over the weekend and was shocked at the level of bad luck the poor guy suffered in 2008. I have to admit that I find him a little whiny at times, but you can probably chalk that up to an age difference. I’d like to think I was more mature and on top of things at 21 or 22, but I was probably a lot more like Pranas than I care to acknowledge. Anyway, it’s a great comic with a fun art style that you should check out.
• Lucy Knisley – Although she has a web site chock-full of other comics and illustrations, I’ve become quite attached to Luck Knisley’s journal comics as of late. Recently she posted a series of pages from her trip to Paris that are a great introduction to her voice and her art style. Lucy also published a book called French Milk about an earlier trip to Paris with her Mother that I’ve heard great things about. I still need to pick it up. Think she’d be willing to trade for a copy of Theater Hopper: Year One? Nah.
• The Fart Party – I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned Julia Wertz’s journal comic here before or not, but her’s is another you should check out. I didn’t like Julia’s cynical tone at first, but I’ve really grown to like it over the years. Once you get to know her history, her older work doesn’t come off as jaded.
• American Elf – Although I’m sure he’d bristle at the title, James Kochalka is the grandfather of modern, daily journal comics. I’ve always been peripherally aware of him. But ever since Henry was born, I’ve been enjoying his work much more. The comics that give us a peek into his life as a parent – both good and bad – feel like a preview of things to come for me and I find a lot about his attitude I can relate with.

So there you go. Four new comics for you to check out.

Man, I remember when I used to link to comics all the time from this blog. I don’t do it as much as I used to.

I guess I was inspired to pick up the habit again after combing through a bunch of the old blog posts as I add transcripts to the database. I’m forced to clean up a lot of double paragraphs and stuff and I usually end up re-reading some of the posts. Things were a lot more simple then.

Nothing else to talk about right now except to remind you to listen to The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.com. I’m sure we’ll be talking about The Final Destination, Halloween II and much, much more.

Be there!