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Wow, you guys. I gotta say that I am overwhelmed by the support you showed the Theater Hopper: Year Three fund raising project over the weekend. When I posted about it on Friday, the campaign had gathered $533 worth in pledges. This morning, we’re up to $868.04. That’s a difference of $335.04 pledged in just a few days and that is GREAT!
I’m kind of chuckling about the .04 that was pledged. That’s pretty cool and it just goes to show that you can pledge ANY amount that you’re comfortable with.
I have to admit that I’m kind of surprised that no one has taken advantage of the $1.00 pledge reward. Your name and a link to your site from Theater Hopper? Seems like pretty low hanging fruit to me. Of course, I’m pleased that more of you are pledging large amounts. So keep up the good work on that front!
If you’ve never purchased a Theater Hopper book before, this campaign is a good opportunity to take advantage of the rewards system and to get your hands on all three books at one time.
Pledging $45 or more opens the door to acquiring Theater Hopper: Year Three as well as TWO FREE BOOKS. Don’t forget the additional rewards, like getting your copy of Year Three signed and numbered with an original sketch. Lots of great stuff to take advantage of.
I still haven’t gotten around to filming my video yet, which is kind of bad. It’s just hard to do at the end of the day when you’re bone tired and trying to put a 2 year-old to bed. I’m also kind of self-conscious about recording myself if Cami is anywhere within earshot. Which is weird, because I bather in typical loudmouth fashion whenever I record The Triple Feature. She says she can hear me in the basement from our bedroom on the second floor.
I guess I’m more comfortable with that because it’s more stream-of-consciousness and I’m free to tumble over my words. I guess I feel like I need to rehearse this Kickstarter video, or something. I gotta get over myself.
In the meantime, if you could help spread the word using the social media links under the project graphic on the Kickstarter page, that would help a lot!
Thanks again for everyone’s support. Let’s keep those pledges coming!
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Hey, guys. Small status update for you.
I don’t know if you tried to access the site yesterday. But if you did, you might have noticed it was down. I have no idea what caused it and we may never know. Sometimes Dreamhost likes to stop displaying your web sites to see if you’re paying any attention.
At any rate, you’ll notice today that I am running a Blu-ray review of Up instead of a new comic. Two reasons for that:
One, the Up review was supposed to run yesterday and (as I previously mentioned) the site was down all day. So I’m making up for lost time.
Two, I forgot my pens at the place where I’m freelancing. I left them there yesterday after attempting to be proactive and completing the comic over my lunch hour. That didn’t happen and then I forget my pens. So I wouldn’t have been able to draw a new comic if I wanted to.
Not resting on my laurels, however, I made SEVERAL significant updates to my Kickstarter fund raising campaign page for Theater Hopper: Year Three.
Read the updates page where I address questions about the book’s eventual availability, the amount of flexibility regarding the custom illustration reward (available at the $20 pledge level) and you get a close look at this:
This is the image that’s going on the t-shirt available at the $65 pledge level. Eventually I will sell the design in the Theater Hopper store. But people who pledge to the Kickstarter fund raising campaign at the $65 level or above will get first crack at it.
I know committing to something like that is difficult if you don’t have a sense of what the shirt will look like. So I wanted to put the image out there to whet your appetites a little bit.
By the way, you can leave comments on any one of these update posts. If you something you’d like to say about the direction of the campaign or the information you’re receiving from me, I would appreciate your feedback!
Lastly, the most important reason to check out the Kickstarter fund raising campaign is because I finally uploaded my project video last night!
I took the time I would have otherwise spent working on the comic and used it to film and edit the video. I’m very happy with the final product and I think it’s worth watching even if you think you already know all of the project details. Hopefully you’ll find it at least a little bit entertaining.
Again, I ask that you pledge whatever you can to the project. It’s very important to me that the book be published this year and your involvement can make that a reality!
Thanks to everyone who has show their support so far. I greatly appreciate your help!
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Hey, guys. Just a quick update about the Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three. I know you guys know what’s up, so I won’t belabor the point.
I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that, as of this writing, the campaign is now 28% funded with $979 in pledges. We’re so close to $1,000, I can taste it.
I strongly believe that the success of this campaign will be buoyed by the momentum we keep. So if you’re thinking about pledging at all, please do so now. The closer that status bar gets to being 100% filled, the more it will motivate others to help us reach that goal!
If you’ve been following the project updates on the Kickstarter page, you’ll know that I’m considering putting together some original art as part of a giveaway to get people to pledge. The idea is that since I’m starting to replace some of my DVDs with Blu-ray discs that I would make available the DVDs I no longer use and create some original art to go with them. Movies that I’m willing to let go of include A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Wall-E and Iron Man.
I think I’m going to go forward with this. So even though we’re on the precipice of $1,000, let’s make $1,500 the next goal. Everyone that pledges in advance of the $1,500 goal will be entered into a drawing to win a DVD copy of Monsters, Inc. with some original art on a sheet of 10 x 14 Bristol board from yours truly. Once I have the artwork finished, I’ll post some pictures.
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First, I just wanted to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST. Not sure what we’re going to talk about, although I know that Joe tweeted about seeing The Fantastic Mr. Fox over the weekend and I’m very eager to hear what he has to say about it.
Cami and I had a date night on Saturday and we saw Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol, so I plan to spend a little time talking about that. For the Cliff’s Notes version of my review, I can say that the motion capture animation that Zemeckis is advocating continues to advance, but I don’t much see the point of it.
I mean, it’s impressive that they can use the technology to allow Jim Carrey to play 8 different roles (like some kind of digital Eddie Murphy), but the film boats an amazing cast. Between Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes and Robin Write Penn I couldn’t help but think that I wanted to see the live-action version of this movie more.
I think this problem is compounded by the fact that the animators stay a little too close to the likeness of the flesh-and-blood actors and don’t push them far enough into caricature. Obviously Scrooge is an exaggeration of a contorted human face and the fact that you can still see Carrey’s mannerisms through the “digital makeup” is kind of revolutionary.
But it seems like they didn’t even bother to try and hide Oldman as Cratchit, Firth as Scrooge’s nephew Fred or Hoskins as Mr. Fezziwig. Granted, Oldman’s Cratchit is about two feet shorter than the actor in real life. But the faces are almost exactly the same. What’s the point?
At least in Beowulf, Zemeckis went to the effort of bulking up and tanning the other wise chubby and pasty Ray Winstone.
Anyway, check out The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST for more of that.
CHANGING GEARS QUICKLY!
I wanted to point your attention to an interview I did with Andrew McDonald over at New-Gen that was posted over there this morning. It’s an audio recording and it’s a little over a half hour long, but I’m really pleased with how it turned out. If you have the time to listen to it, I think there are some particular insights that you will enjoy.
Andrew asked some very intelligent questions and I thought the conversation flowed naturally. We got beyond the boiler plate about Theater Hopper and my history with the comic and wandered into some really interesting territory regarding digital media, distribution models and webcomics in general. I strongly encourage you to check it out. It will be well worth your time.
Cheers!
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Now it’s time for the obligatory update on the Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three.
I gotta say, when I posted on Friday about meeting the goal of $1,000, you guys responded with gusto! We’re now at $1,090 pledged with 32 backers and 31% of the project funded!
You guys kind of pulled the same trick the Friday before last when you pledged almost $350 over the course of a weekend. Maybe it’s because Friday is payday. But I like to think it’s because you guys are as excited to see this book finished as I am!
I’m starting to think that managing the Kickstarter campaign is all about highlighting smaller milestones among the larger goal. So remember that I am giving away me copy of Monsters, Inc. on DVD along with some original Monsters, Inc. artwork drawn by me after we reach the $1,500 mark.
Only people who pledge before that point are eligible for the random drawing that will award one winner! So the more you pledge means the less competition you have in the drawing! If you’ve already pledged, you can go back and INCREASE the amount of your pledge at any time to help improve your odds!
I will be sure to post an update of the artwork when it’s finished. Until then, keep pledging!
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I know I’ve been a little blog crazy today, but I have one more post and I promise I’ll let you go back to your daily lives.
I just wanted to take this moment to point you to my friend Wes Molebash’s new comic Max Vs. Max.
If you recognize Wes’s name, it’s because he was the creator of the excellent comic You’ll Have That which he brought to an end earlier this year. It’s a real treat to see Wes throw his hat back into the ring. As a cartoonist, he has a very relaxed and classic style and as a humorist, he is highly adept at plumbing jokes from everyday situations. I consider him to be a very well-rounded talent that I could benefit from being a little more like. From the looks of it, Wes’s time off has really benefited his art and I’m looking forward to checking out more of his work!
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Since I didn’t mention it on Wednesday, I wanted to check in with everyone and remind them about the Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three. Pledges have slown down a little bit and I want to make sure we haven’t lost the momentum that we built up last week!
I notice that a lot of people have been pledging on Friday’s. I don’t know if that has anything to do with people getting paid, but I thought I would just float that out there. If you think you can pledge $5 from your paycheck today, that would be awesome. You can always increase your pledge later!
I’ve been trying hard to maintain a level of engagement surrounding the project by posting updates on the Kickstarter page. If you haven’t been reading them, it’s a good way to stay connected without me having to badger everyone on the homepage.
Most recently, I posted a video update where I discuss the mini grant I applied for from the Iowa Arts Council. I submitted my proposal before I heard about Kickstarter and I got my notification letter this week. If you want to know the outcome, you’ll have to watch the video.
I’m also taking suggestions on topics to address with my Kickstarter updates. It’s kind of hard to do actual “updates” because the book is already finished. So it’s not like I can post something telling you how “I’ve written commentary for the first 50 comics and I only have 100 more to go!” All of that work is done. The book is ready. I could have it sent to the printer today, you know?
If you have questions about the book that you would like answered or have suggestions to help me promote the book, leave your comments on the Kickstarter page.
…or here, too. That’ll work.
Someone had the simple suggestion that I need to be a little more aggressive about how I promote the campaign here in the blog section of the site. They advised that I need to put Kickstarter updates ABOVE the main blog post so you are at least giving the Kickstarter updates a cursory glance.
It’s a good idea, but I don’t want to do that if I don’t have to. I’m trying not to be to overbearing. But at the same time, the closer we get to the deadline, the more paranoid about it I’m going to get.
There are 41 days left in the campaign. Please consider pledging today. Thank you.
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Something I was remiss to point out earlier in the week is that my good friend Joe Dunn has posted a brand new comic over at Joe Loves Crappy Movies!
I feel particularly embarrassed for not mentioning it on the homepage because 1.) Joe is a friend and 2.) because, for a while, I was probably getting 2 to 3 e-mails a week asking me if Joe was ever going to update his comic again.
This isn’t exactly a new thing for me. For a while I was getting e-mails asking me when Zach Miller was going to bring back Joe and Monkey. Before that, people were sending me e-mails asking me when Mitch Clem was going to bring back Nothing Nice to Say.
It puts me in a weird position because I certainly don’t want to speak on the behalf of any of these guys or accidentally share too much information about whatever is happening in their personal lives that may preclude them from creating new comics.
However, at the same time, I’m a fan and I understand the need for a fan to stay connected to their favorite artists. So you end up sharing what you think is appropriate and maybe it gives that person a little extra hope that the comic will come back sooner than later.
People started talking about this a little bit over in the Digital Pimp Forums. I talked about the e-mails I was getting and Joe said he never saw a single e-mail asking him about Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Many of his readers came back saying that they didn’t want to pester or annoy Joe for not producing the comic. They didn’t want to make him feel guilty or come off too demanding. So in that context, it makes sense that a fan would say “I don’t want to upset Joe, let’s see what Tom knows.”
I dunno. I found it interesting.
Anyway, I’m obscuring what’s important about this blog post which is that Joe Loves Crappy Movies is back! Check it out!
And if you’ve never read it before, Joe has almost 500 excellent comics in his archive. SO GET TO WORK!
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Over the holiday weekend, we engaged in a “first” as parents and took Henry to his very first movie – The Polar Express in IMAX at The Science Center of Iowa.
Every year The Science Center shows The Polar Express on their gigantic IMAX screen as a holiday tradition. I’ve seen the movie on TV, but never really enjoyed it (Those dead-eyed children… So creepy!). After seeing it in IMAX through Henry’s eyes… Well, I feel a little different about the movie.
We’ve been wanting to take Henry to a movie for a long time, but we wanted his first movie-going experience to be a good one. A lot of the children’s movies that were out this summer didn’t inspire confidence and, actually, we were going to wait for Disney’s The Princess and The Frog until we realized the movie was coming out the Friday after Cami’s scheduled C-section.
But when Cami suggested The Polar Express, it seemed like the perfect solution. Because right now, Henry is really into trains and just last week he saw Santa Claus at the mall. Perfect!
More importantly, we wanted to do something special for Henry before the baby is born because his world is totally going to turn upside down once that happens.
We showed up a little late to the movie because Henry’s napped a little longer than we expected. So when we arrived, it was already dark in the theater. As I scaled up the steep incline with Henry in my arms, he whispered in my ear, “I wanna go home, Daddy.”
“It’s going to be fine, Henry. We’re going to see a movie!” I assured him.
“I wanna go home.”
We plopped Henry into the seat between myself and Cami as the movie fired up. We were worried that the IMAX experience would be too intimidating for Henry. At the very least, we fretted that the sound would be too loud and might scare him.
Let me tell you, Henry did great during the movie. He didn’t fidget in his seat, he didn’t wander around, he didn’t scream or cry. The movie kept his attention throughout its 99 minute running time. He smiled, he laughed and he squealed with nervous anticipation during some of the film’s more harrowing sequences.
If you’ve seen The Polar Express, you know it’s a little bit of a roller coaster ride. During these action scenes, Henry would clench his fists and tense up his arms. So Cami and I made sure to lean in close and remind him it was just a movie. Putting my hand on his chest to reassure him, I could feel his heart pounding through his chest.
After the movie, Henry told us totally unprovoked “That was a good movie!” When we asked him what his favorite part of the movie was, he said “the Elf center” – presumably the scenes involving the three children running around on conveyor belts as they try to get back in time to meet Santa.
As parents, I think we (collectively) put a lot of pressure on ourselves to provide a “perfect” experience for our children. Sometimes we lose sight of the experience they’re having versus the experience we WANT them to have. It’s a definite tight rope walk between living vicariously through your children and (if you’ll pardon the pun) railroading their own experience with your own expectations.
These thoughts aside, I feel our experience watching The Polar Express was absolutely perfect. It couldn’t have gone any better. I’m not just talking about Henry’s behavior in the movie (because, really, who can predict what a two year-old is going to do at any given minute). Instead, I’m talking about what he seemed to take from the experience. Looking over at him as he watched the movie, he really seemed to be enjoying himself.
That’s all I could have asked for.
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This has nothing to do with anything, but…
I drive with my iPod plugged into my car’s stereo system. I guess when I came back to the house last night, I didn’t press pause. So, when I got into the car this morning to go back to the hospital, it was still “playing.”
Turning the key in the ignition, the car sprang to life and David Byrne’s song “Girls On My Mind” from his album Uh-Oh came through the speakers.
I consider it a weird coincidence since thoughts of both Cami and Pearl were swimming through my mind before leaving the house today.
Life is pretty cool.
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