Posts Tagged ‘allegory’
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I know that the punchline to today’s comic is really random. Sorry about that. I just had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea to spoof The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I didn’t read C.S. Lewis’s books growing up and I don’t have much interest in seeing the movies. I’m just burnt out on all of these fantasy movies with kids who must Save The World!
The genesis of this comic was born out of something actual, though. A friend and I went to see Iron Man last week and there was a trailer for Prince Caspian ahead of it. He made a comment to the effect that it was weird to see Aslan so prominently in the trailer because he’s supposed to be dead in the second book. I thought this sound like a good jumping off point. Truthfully, I just wanted to use the line "You can’t keep a good Christ allegory down." Maybe I should have used that for the punchline. Instead I decided to make it weird.
I actually had to do a little bit of research on this one because I wanted to make sure what I was referencing was factual. So of course I checked Wikipedia – The Source For All Things TruthfulTM and consulted friends through LiveJournal. I think I gave myself a little wiggle room by framing the question inside Jared’s confusion.
I felt the need to be proactive about getting my facts straight because the last time I mouthed off about one of these "beloved" childhood fantasy novels turned into a live action movie, I got my head bit off. People take this stuff pretty seriously.
Then again, who am I to judge. Look how serious I take Iron Man…< Even though I know the comic is ridiculous, I would kind of like to keep Señor Guapo around - and yes, I realized that I spelled his name wrong in the comic. Sorry, I was up late finishing it. I'll fix it when I get home. Anyway.... Señor Guapo. Would you like to see more comics that feature him? I have a couple ideas that he might be useful for. E-mail me and tell me what you think.
I feel a little distracted lately. There’s a good reason for it. My dad is going in for open-heart surgery on Tuesday. He’s not having a bypass or anything like that. They’re going in to fix a prolapsed mitral valve. Basically, one of the valves in his heart is weakened and is letting blood that’s supposed to be pumped out seep back into the chambers of his heart. Now his heart has to work twice as hard to do its job. Eventually it would just tire out, so the surgery is mandatory.
I’m a little weirded out by the idea of my Dad having a surgery like this. I won’t get into details, but it’s highly invasive. He had Cami and I watch a video from the hospital letting us know what to expect. I’m not sure if it helped to prepare me or made things worse.
Anyway, I’ll be out of town next week to be with my Dad as he undergoes surgery. As such, there will be no new comics from me next week. Joe, Gordon and I also decided to take a week off, so there will also be no new episode of The Triple Feature.
I encourage you to continue visiting the site, though. I have a couple of great guest strips lined up. A couple of my friends from Boxcar Comics are stepping in to lend a hand. Who are they? You’ll just have to come back next week to find out!
So that’s what’s going on in my world right now. We’re confident about the surgery, but we’re worried about my Dad’s recovery. He’s a young guy, so he has that going for him. But 6 to 8 weeks of doing nothing is going to be difficult for him to manage. I appreciate your patience and understanding while I deal with this family health issue.
Take care of yourselves and I will be in touch soon. Have a great weekend!
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So here it is. The last guest strip before I come back on Monday, January 4th. I want to thank Avi for putting it together for me. I gotta give it up to Avi. No web site to promote. No agenda. Just wanted to draw a guest strip and did. No matter which way you slice it, that’s awesome, folks. So big thanks to Avi. May your New Year be everything you hope for!
As for the rest of you, I hope last night’s festivities treated you well. Since we have Pearl now, Cami and I had a low-key evening at home. We had some good food and a little bit of bubbly to ring in the New Year. My sister-in-law came over and we played games on the Wii. All in all, a good time.
Frankly, I’m just happy to have survived 2009. It’s been a stressful year for me personally. Lots of ups and downs.
Things started off great. We found out we were going to have Pearl back in March and we were excited about the future.
But bad things started happening to the people around me. One friend lost his job, another friend’s wife decided to divorce him out of the blue and yet another friend died in a car crash with his wife. Horrible, horrible stuff.
Not long after that, I lost my job – which is about as scary as it gets with a baby on the way. We kept our head above water with freelancing jobs I picked up here and there. Then I carved up my hand with a router and took a trip to the emergency room. That sucked.
Of course, when Pearl was born, that wiped a lot of negativity off the slate. But if I look back, I wasn’t incredibly fond of 2009.
Things could have been SO much worse. I KNOW that. So it’s not good to focus on the crappy things that happened because I could be living in a box somewhere. As bad as things get, someone always has it worse.
One thing that I’m really, REALLY happy about is the funding of Theater Hopper: Year Three. As you know we met goal, but the campaign officially ended yesterday. We ended up collecting $3,966.77 in pledges through Kickstarter in 60 days time. That’s AMAZING and I want to thank everyone that pledged.
There will be more to say about the project in the next coming months. But suffice to say that the book has been laid out and is ready to go to the printer. So everyone who ordered a copy of the book should see one in their mailboxes in the next couple of months.
As for the immediate future, I’m back in the saddle starting Monday, January 4. I’m a little less nervous about producing comics again then I was when Henry was born. But I’m not entirely sure that I’ll be doing 3 full-color comics a week yet. I WANT to. I’m just not sure if I’ll be able to.
Pearl’s not sleeping through the night yet. Once she does, it’ll be easier to do the comics. Until then, I’ll have one foot in the studio and one foot in the nursery taking care of the baby. We’ll see how it goes.
Thanks again to everyone that continues to support Theater Hopper year after year. Come August, it will be 8 years since I started and I’m amazed that I’ve been able to stick it out this long. It’s all because of you. You give me the support and encouragement to continue and it means the world to me. Thank you.
May 2010 bring happiness and prosperity to us all!
In the meantime, how did you spend your New Years Eve? Tell you tales of debauchery in the comments below!
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