It’s been a little while since we last talked. Two and a half weeks, to be exact.

Let me tell you what happened.

On Monday, October 24, I posted my comic about Halloween and social media-themed horror costumes. The very next day, my family and I went on a little vacation. Where’d we go? Walt Disney World! It was Henry’s first trip out of state and – as you can imagine – it was a pretty big deal.

We had a great time going on all the rides and doing all the touristy stuff. Coming back to reality, however, proved a little more difficult.

We came back on Sunday, October 30 – which also happens to be our town’s night for trick or treating. I know, I know. Halloween is on the 31st. But around here, they do trick or treating the day before. It’s a regional tradition that started in the 1930s by women’s magazines as an anti-vandalism campaign and it just kind of stuck.

The point is, that morning, we were up at 4:00 AM EST to make our flight, we got off the plane at 2:00 PM CST and we basically had very little time before we suited up in our Halloween costumes to canvas the neighborhood for free candy that evening.

Naturally, everyone was exhausted and we were in bed by 8:00 PM that evening. That explains why there was no new comic on Monday, October 31.

NOW… should I have anticipated this and created a comic in advance for the 31st? Yes, I should have.

Could I have tried to play catch up that week and produce a comic for Wednesday or Thursday. Yes, I could have.

Neither of those things happened.

You know how it is with vacations – especially if you work a full time job. You go away for a while to decompress and you come back more stressed out than ever trying to play catch up with the life you put on hold.

That’s what happened to me, so I decided to take a mulligan on last week’s comic.

Fast forward to this week… why no comic on Monday? Well, the story is a little less dramatic but basically it involved some personal matters that needed to be attended to over the weekend. I was planning to finish the comic Monday night and post it Tuesday morning, but instead I got a call from a friend who was in town and I hadn’t seen in 10 years. He wanted to grab a drink and catch up. I mean, the dude was in my wedding. I couldn’t really say “no.” So Monday night kind of got thrown out the window.

Anyway, that brings us to the present. I worked on the comic last night and here it is.

Shamefully, I can’t take full credit. My good buddy Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey gave me the idea to dress Tom up like a woman for this comic. But the suspicion surrounding Tom’s choice was all mine.

Looking at the trailer for Jack and Jill, I think Adam Sandler is pretty much daring us to hate him completely now. Either that, or he’s so insulated by money that he doesn’t care. It basically looks like the kind of low-rent movie Sandler’s cynical Hollywood comedian character from Funny People would star in. In fact, the first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a striaght up parody.

I’m a Sandler fan, to some degree. I’ve probably seen more of his movies than I care to admit. But it’s clear from the outset that Jack and Jill is a one-joke premise and, frankly, there’s not very much that’s charming about a 45 year-old man running around in drag.

To me, Jack and Jill looks about as desperate as Eddie Murphy in Norbit or Martin Lawrence in Big Momma’s House 2.

Actually, when I think about it, Jack and Jill is worse.

With Murphy and Lawrence, you could at least argue that they’re trying to create distinctive characters. With Jack and Jill, it’s pretty much Sandler running around in a wig, delivering lines in a pinched-off voice. No one is really going to look at Sandler and give him credit for his character work. He’s basically been playing the same characters since his days at SNL. Keep in mind, this is the man who created “About To Sneeze Man” as a cheap Halloween costume idea on Weekend Update.

I wanted my comic to be more of a take-down piece of Jack and Jill, but I realized that disparaging the movie was not unlike beating a dead horse with a barrel of fish recently shot at.

Man, I seriously can’t wait until The Muppets comes out and rescues us from this nightmare.

Anyway, that’s all I have for you on the comic/movie front. But I did want to share one last thing with you as a kind of reward for being so patient the last two and half weeks.

You remember that I said that the family and I went to Walt Disney World, right? Well, they have this event at the Magic Kingdom on select nights called Mickey’s Not-So-Scary-Halloween Party. They have a specially themed parade and fireworks and you get to run around the park trick-or-treating and collecting candy at all the attractions.

They encourage you to dress us, so we did.

I enjoy dressing up with my kids for Halloween only because I like to think that it makes things a little more special for them. I want to demonstrate to them that it’s okay to have fun and be silly. That said, I was a little nervous about walking around Magic Kingdom dressed up like Thor. It didn’t occur to me until we were on the bus on our way to the park, “What if I’m the only adult in costume?”

I’m pleased to report that’s not the case. There were several adults in costumes and I received many compliments and high-fives.

Incidentally, I take my cues from Henry when it comes to costume choices. Last year, he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. So I dressed up as Woody. This year, he wanted to be Captain America. So it was only natural that I go as Thor. They’re best buddies! “Avengers Assemble!” and whatnot.

Plus, now I have my very on Mjölnir. That’s something you can enjoy year-round.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the photo. Sorry again about the delay. Incidentally, when I’m off-schedule like this, it might be beneficial for you to subscribe to Theater Hopper by e-mail.

WAAAAAYYYY back at the top of the page, there’s a form field where you can input your e-mail address. When the site updates, you’ll receive automatic notification. It’s very handy when I flake out. But I promise to better next week.

Since I haven’t updated for a while, I’d sincerely appreciate it if you used the ShareThis application below to let people know that there is a new Theater Hopper comic up on the site. Facebook it, Google+ is, Twitter that bad boy… whatever your comfortable with. You guys have been doing a great job spreading the word and it really helps. C’mon… It only takes a second, right?

Thanks again and have a great week!