Tom is all man, baby. Borderline offensively so!
I was going to do a comic today about the new Ryan Reynolds movie Wating… but the news of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes pregnancy was too good to pass out. Odd, isn’t it that Tom and Cami can only seemingly have discussion about Tom-Kat’s love life in public?
That aside, I know that I’m kind of skirting the line of good taste with today’s comic, but felt the need to shake things up a little bit.
I also want to make it clear that today’s comic is not a swipe against homosexuals. So it’s understood, I do not consider the relationships of consenting adults any of my business.
What today’s comic is really about is nothing more than outrageous reactions based on rumors. The whole "Tom Cruise is gay" thing isn’t anything new. It’s been floating around Hollywood for years. Don’t ask me why.
I can see why maybe Cruise was defensive to the insinuation back in the 80’s when the spectre of AIDS was looming about. After Rock Hudson died, people weren’t very sympathetic to gay people in the public spotlight.
And even though I think we live in (slightly) more enlightened times, I can kind of understand why Cruise would take to suing each and every person or publication that says he’s gay because now that the lie has gotten so big, coming out of the closet now would significantly damage his reputation as an action star. Plus any good will he’s racked up with audiences over the years.
For the record, I don’t even know if he ∗IS∗ gay. Really, it’s not my business. But ever since that awkward "love" scene he did with his then wife Nicole Kidman in 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut and there were rumors Cruise had to hire a coach to learn how to be passionate on screen with his real-life spouse, the din of speculation is getting louder and louder. All the suing he did didn’t help, either.
Fast forward to the middle of the first decade in the 21st century and he’s engaged to an actress 16 years his junior after 4 months of courtship. She now pregnant with his child – something not accomplished with Kidman as the two children from that relationship are adopted – and the delivery date coinciding with the release of Mission Impossible III on May 17, 2006… Well, excuse me if it all looks a little suspicious.
Maybe it’s just a run-of-the-mill string of publicity stunts. Maybe it has nothing to do with Cruise being gay or not gay. Honestly, it doesn’t make any difference to me. I wouldn’t care if Cruise were gay any more than if you were gay or my cousin were gay.
What I ∗don’t∗ like is the idea that being labeled "gay" to Cruise is as defamitory as being called a murderer or a kidnapper. His proclivity to sue represents the notion that there is something inherently wrong with homosexuality which I do not agree with.
Don’t bother arguing me on this point. With all sincerity, you could talk to me until you’re blue in the face about why homosexuality is wrong or why racism or sexism or ageism are acceptable modes of thinking and I would do my best to listen and to understand where you’re coming from. But no amount of conviction on your part would get me to change my mind about the immutable, simple human rights that I believe everyone should be afforded. You have your beliefes, I have mine. We don’t have to be on the same page, but we can at least respect each other’s ability to come to our own conclusions.
This has been an old-school rant brought to you by the letter "R." I hope you enjoyed it. If you have thoughts about the controversy or lack thereof, please take it into the THorum rather than e-mail me. I’m putting some pretty strong views out in public and would prefer the chance to address them publicly should the need arise.
Come back later today for some important news about the future of the Theater Hopper store.
Thanx.
My original draft of this comic had the infant Jared bursting forth from Jennifer Garner’s swollen stomach like the Alien. Y’know… Demon Seed style.
But I opted against it. I thought it was a little crass.
Still, Baby Jared isn’t someone to mess around with. He’s one tough little customer! Koochie-koochie-koo!
You may have read that Mr. and Mrs. Ben Affleck recently celebrated the birth of their first born on December 1 – a baby girl. So it stands to reason that our favorite punching bag might have a little anxiety about the momentous event.
Still, in all seriousness, congratulations to the happy couple. Just because Ben Affleck sucks as an actor doesn’t mean I should begrudge the welcoming of his first child.
I feel like I haven’t had a lot of movie stuff to talk about lately and that makes me kind of sad. Is it weird that it’s almost the end of the year and the only film I’m remotely excited about seeing is King Kong? I mean, Fun With Dick and Jane looks interesting. I heard it was co-written by Judd Apatow, so that’ll get me in the door right there. I’ll see Munich, mostly because I feel like I should. I’m planning on avoiding The Chronicles of Narnia like the plauge.
The only thing that really has me captivated at the moment is the new X-Men 3 teaser trailer.
This kind of caught me be surprise. Because, like any good fanboy, I spent my time hating the idea of an X-Men movie directed by Brett Ratner for so long, I forgot that there might be something worth investigating here.
Some quick thoughts:
Kelsey Grammar as Beast. He looks pretty good. Maybe a little old. A little too fuzzy. But it’s Grammar’s voice and presence that are going to sell this role. Still, I don’t know how they plan on tossing him into any battle sequences. The man is 50 years-old! Maybe they’ll switch him out with a CGI character for the more frenetic stuff.
A character that should have been done totally CGI was Vinnie Jones’s Juggernaut. I’m sorry, but that ultra-buff body suit they have him standing in looks stupid. The Juggernaut is supposed to be 8 feet tall and 5 feet wide. If they could make the Hulk semi-believable in CGI, they could have done the same here. Just stick Vinnie Jones’s head on a digital body and be done with it. That helmet he’s wearing looks dopey, too. I understand that they want to leave the face plate open so you can see the actor emoting, but I much preferred the domed look of the character in the comics. In the movie he looks like and extra from Gladiator.
Good to see Colussus is on the team roster now. You can see him in the background walking with the group in the opening shot. Oh, and eagle-eyed viewers will notice – wait for it – THE FASTBALL SPECIAL! at the end of the trailer.
If you don’t know what The Fastball Special is (and it sounds kind of dirty, now that I think about it), too bad. That’s for comic geeks ONLY. Okay, maybe that’ll make up for the Juggernaut looking stupid.
Other thoughts:
Hugh Jackman is starting to look kind of old to play the non-aging Wolverine.
Halle Berry got a new haircut for Storm! Like I care…
Ben Foster as Angel looks promising. The wings actually look like they should.
Famke Janssen is back from the dead as Phoenix and she appears to have become evil. Okay.
No one passed the note along to James Marsden that his version of Cyclops is the most boring character in the franchise.
Beyond that, nothing much more to say. It’s too bad that they decided to do a movie about "curing" mutants and that there is no sign of the Sentinels. I think movies today need more giant robots.
If you have any opinions about the movie or the teaser, we’re talking about it in the THorum here. Check it out and I’ll catch up with you guys later!
I couldn’t really figure out what somone with cynicism oozing from their pores might look like, but in this comic, I look positively diseased! I think this has to be the most unattractive rendering of myself in three and a half years of comics. What can I say? I’m under a lot of stress right now and I’ve decided to deal with it through the comic.
I’ve already been highly vocal about my suspicions surrounding the life-events of one Tom Cruise and the movies he’s promoting. How can you look at the birth of his child with Katie Holmes "premiering" three weeks ahead of Mission Impossibe: III a happy accident? It certainly gives him something to talk about when he makes the talk show promotional rounds!
Mark my words, there will be another big Tom Cruise announcement sometime this fall or winter to coincide with the DVD release of this picture. Divorce is the hard-line, hyper-cynical view. You’d have to have a Level 12 tollerance for that kind of cynicism. But I digress. I wouldn’t be surprised if they announced that they were pregnant with a second in time to hype things up a notch.
I have more thoughts about how we’re being marketed to on this one, but I want to save some thoughts for Friday’s comic.
One quick note about the book pre-sale – Since I announced the addition of a free numbered and original sketch for all pre-orders, you guys really perked up! I’m repeating it today in case anyone missed it due to my extreme late posting of Monday’s blog.
I’ll also mention that I am accepting guest strips. Cami and I will be on vacation from May 18 – 31 and I need a lot of comics to cover the gaps! So if you’re interested, please let me know!
Gonna close for now. Talk to you again real soon!
GUEST STRIP – JOSH ANDERSON
June 3rd, 2006 | by Tom- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(10 votes, average: 5.10 out of 10)
And the guest strips just keep on coming!
What can I say, I figured if I’m out of commisssion, then it’s just good manners to give you as many great guest strips as I can.
Give thanks to Josh Anderson for his contribution. I loved the Indiana Jones reference in the second panel as – in real life – I tend to invoke that quote whenever there is an obstacle that impedes me from doing whatever it is I wanted to do.
Mowing the lawn, for example. "Dandelions. Why’d it have to be dandelions."
I don’t know.
Be sure to check out Josh’s web site L.A.P. Dance Productions. In addition to comics, they have some great digital shorts, reviews and all-out rants. Lots of quality content to be found there.
I have one more guest strip for you tomorrow and then it’s back to work on Monday. Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Cami and I were threatening to see The Break-Up on Friday night, but the negative reviews kept us away. We’ll see what the word of mouth is. I dunno, is it just me or is Jennifer Aniston incapible of playing anything above Rachel 2.0? She needs to do something like The Good Girl again and quick. If we see this movie at all, it’ll be for Vince Vaughn.
Chances are we’ll catch a matinee of X-Men 3 on Sunday. We actually saw it in France on May 26 – one whole day before you! Booyah! Downside was that (even though were had our fingers crossed for English with French subtitles) it was completely in French. We did a pretty good job following along, though. Big, dumb action movies like that… you’re only job is watching things explode. But like I said, we’ll catch the matinee in English to pick up on the more subtle points.
See you tomorrow!
Henry Finn Brazelton was born at 1:27 PM on Sunday, February 18, 2007 weighing 9 lbs. 2 oz. and measuring 20.5″ inches.
Incidentally, his head measured a little more than 14″ inches around. A “normal” baby has a head circumference of about 11″ or 12″. – victim of the famed “Brazelton Head Syndrome” or B.H.S. A condition in which you a born with a friggin’ huge noggin. Seriously – it has it’s own weather system!
Subsequently, medical professionals in attendance concur – THAT’S a big baby.
For those of you monitoring “Brazelbaby Watch 2007,” the wait is over. Cami performed like a gladiator through 30 hours of labor including 5 hours of pushing before Henry was delivered by C-section on Sunday afternoon. I am beside myself with pride. Never once did she complain and she gave to me a beautiful baby boy. Both Mother and baby are doing great.
I know you may have been looking forward to a new comic here (and there will be one on Wednesday). But since this has been a moment that I’ve been building up toward and involving you guys in for several months, I thought it would be a nice thing to take this time and celebrate it with all of you as well.
Many thanks for your previous messages of support. We’ve saved every one of them and it means the world to us.
It’s been a long ride for the three of us. I think we both got about 4 hours of sleep between us in the last 48 hours. Stay tuned, though. It’s a great story and we’re looking forward to telling it!
With love,
Tom, Cami and Henry
Apologies to Joe Dunn for not publishing his guest strip earlier. The reason for which is two-fold:
1.) Uhh… having a newborn is time consuming. I have recently learned this.
2. Tycho from Penny Arcade linked to the site on Monday and TH was on the receiving end of a proper”wanging.” I’m not complaining. It’s a good problem to have. Service is spotty right now and we’re looking at opening up a little more bandwidth, but I’m kind of on the periphery of those changes at the moment.
Be that as it may, I wanted to get Joe’s comic in front of the new influx of readers because his web comic Joe Loves Crappy Movies is quite wonderful and I want all of you to know about it.
It may have been the lack of sleep, but when Joe sent me his comic not long after Henry had been born, I teared up a little. I found it to be very personal and touching, which is always appreciated. Love that Iron Man reference, Joe!
Thanks also to Tycho for his link. Not for what it means for the site, but so I could share my joy not only with my readers but with Penny Arcade’s readers as well. What a privilege. Not everyone can say they can share the news of their son’s birth around the globe to tens of thousands of people. It sounds like a cool story to tell him when he’s older. “They celebrated your birth around the planet, little guy.”
At any rate, if you’re new to the site, WELCOME! I hope you keep us in your bookmarks and come back to visit us when things have settled down a little.
Thanks to everyone who left their well wishes in the comments section of Monday’s blog before the site went ker-flooey. I read all of them to Cami in the hospital. Both she and Henry are doing great. He was sleeping about 3 hours at a stretch while we were in the hospital, so that gives us hope.
We brought him home today. It’s been a little rough because he’s been very gassy and nearly inconsolable. But as I was typing this, he let out the biggest gurgle of a fart you can imagine and I almost started crying. It sucks when you know what the problem is with your child and you can’t help him. So, just as he was relieved, so was I.
Pictures and whatnot are still forthcoming. We just have to find some gaps in the day when we aren’t sleeping to do it. It’s nice being home. All three of us were getting a little annoyed at how often people were coming into the room for one reason or another. I’m not talking about the friends and family that came to visit us. We were always thankful to see them. I’m really not even talking about the doctors or nurses. They provided us with EXCELLENT care and we were thoroughly impressed.
It’s just that… after a while… it all becomes a little overwhelming and you need a quiet moment. Coming home with Henry today was all about having that quiet time together. Phones were unhooked, televisions were turned off and we spent all of our time just staring at him.
Oh – for anyone who was wondering, Truman took to Henry immediately and their introduction couldn’t have gone smoother. We put him down in his car seat and Truman stuck his nose in under the blanket we were using to cover him up. We took the blanket away and Truman sniffed him all over, wagging his tale happily. He didn’t lick or bark or do anything to startle him. I think he was happy to see Cami and I after three days and really happy to meet the newest member of the family. He’s been great all day. He can certainly sense that Cami is a little tender from her surgery and that’s she’s recovering. He’s not as rough as he sometimes can be. He’s curling up at the foot of our bed and sometimes giving us our space by sleeping on his floor pillow – which he NEVER does.
Anyway, we were thrilled that he took to Henry so well. We were a little worried he’d get too excited and would be careless.
As for me? What can I say? I’m happy and that sums things up perfectly.
Come back to the site again on Friday. I’ll have a whole new comic from yours-truly posted on the site. Hopefully on time.
Thanks for your patience and support as we sort things out around here. Cami, Henry and I appreciate all the kind words!
If you read these blogs, you know that 2009 has not been a very good year for me. I’ve seen the lives of friends shatter and crumble around me – divorce, miscarriage and death. My own life has been beset by difficultly – my job being eliminated, emergency room visits. In general, 2009 has been tough to muddle through.
But I have something waiting for me in December that I think is going to make everything worth while…
Cami and I are expecting our second child.
As you can see from the date on the sonogram – July 23 – I’ve been sitting on this information for a while. Not for any particular reason. Except sometimes it’s hard to wrap my mind around the thought that we’re having another baby. I mean, Henry keeps us so occupied already, the fact that Cami’s pregnant sometimes slips my mind.
I would feel bad, but I’ve talked to friends who are also in the middle of their second pregnancies, and they admit to the same thing. You’re so busy trying to keep the first one from stabbing his eye out with a fork, you kind of forget the second one is on the way.
Well, there is no avoiding it now. Cami is showing beautifully and thoughts of the pregnancy consume my thoughts every day. Sometimes those thoughts are “Holy crap, I don’t have a job. How are we going to afford two kids in day care?” But most of the time, they are less panicked.
At any rate, for those of you wondering: Yes, we do know the sex of the baby and; Yes, we are sharing that information…
It’s a girl.
As for the name? We’re keeping that one close to the vest.
Having a girl let alone having a sibling for Henry to interact with is new territory for me. I’m not worried about the burping / feeding / rocking phase of development. I feel like I have those skills finely tuned. What freaks me out is what will happen when the kids are older and start bouncing off each other.
I never had a brother or a sister, so I understand very little about family dynamics. Cami has a younger sister, so she brings some experience to the table. But I’m coming at this with no idea if or how these two are going to get along.
This is my problem as a parent – I’m always thinking three years ahead of myself. Before Henry was born, I had all these big ideas about going to the zoo, playing catch and hanging out all the time. I gave no thought to the burping / feeding / rocking, etc.
I feel like I’m falling into the same trap with the new baby. “What’s it going to be like when she comes home crying because another girl said she didn’t like her shoes?” That kind of thing. What kind of advice can I give? Except for the highly acerbic kind?
Like anything else, I suppose I just have to play things by ear. All I know is that it will be a different experience for me.
Cami’s due date is sometime around the middle of December. But since Cami is planning on having another C-section (after delivering Henry by Cesarean last time) we won’t know the exact date until we meet with our surgeon.
All I know is that I’m very much looking forward to meeting Baby Brazelton and as I know more, I will be happy to share details with you.
In the meantime, I just wanted to put the good news out there and share a little bit of my life with you.
Thanks and take care.
As you may have guessed from the image above, I have some wonderful news to share with everyone!
Yesterday, at 11:07 AM, Cami delivered our little baby girl into the world. She weighed 7lbs, 11oz and measured 19.5″ inches long.
We named her Pearl Eveyln Brazelton.
Pearl joined us a little sooner than we expected – her original due date was the 16th and her C-section was scheduled for the 10th – but we’re thrilled to have her with us.
Things went much more smoothly with Pearl than they did with Henry. Basically because we knew a natural childbirth was off the table from the get-go. Since having a c-section was always our plan, it was just a mater of being taken into surgery once Cami was admitted to the hospital.
I first had a sense that something was up about 5:30 yesterday morning. Stirring from my sleep and barely awake, Cami tells me “I think I’m having contractions, but I’m not sure. It’s no big deal.”
“That’s kind of heavy to lay on someone first thing in the morning, honey,” I replied, still hazy.
But we went about our morning, getting Henry out of bed, dressed and preparing to take him to day care.
Funnily enough, Cami and I were supposed to meet with our doctor yesterday morning to discuss the C-section that was scheduled for one week later. Cami and I had planned on carpooling to work and dropping Henry off at daycare. But Cami’s contractions didn’t ebb and she sent me and Henry out the door without her. Our plan had morphed slightly. I would take Henry to day care, work a couple of hours and then meet her at the doctors office at 9:00 AM.
After dropping Henry off, I got a call at my desk from Cami. “I’m not going to make it to 9:00 o’clock,” she said. I rushed home to get her.
Bags packed, we headed to the hospital. We arrived at 8:30 and they quickly confirmed that Cami was in labor.
Long story short, they took her into the operating room and Pearl was born at 11:07 AM!
Since we didn’t have our parents waiting around in the lobby like we did when Henry was born, Cami and I were able to relax a little bit and enjoy our time with Pearl before we started to welcome visitors.
I cradled my daughter in my arms. Bundled tightly in her blankets, she chirped and cooed. Snow flurries swirled outside our window overlooking the hospital’s garden. And I knew peace. It was a wonderful feeling.
There will be more information later. But for now I wanted to share the good news and thank everyone who has already sent message of support. We appreciate your kind words.
Look for a series of guest comics in this space starting Monday. Until then, have a great weekend!
I had a lot of fun drawing the expression Tom made in the fourth panel of today’s comic, so I decided to see if I could push it father in today’s Top Web Comics incentive sketch. I believe this is what’s called in the comedy world as “pulling a face.” Check it out!
Sorry for the delay posting today’s comic. There was a bit of a kerfuffle involving the site’s server host. Apparently there was a potential security compromise and our host was forcing password resets on an incremental basis. I didn’t find out about it until after I tried to upload today’s comic! But things are back to normal now.
Considering Theater Hopper’s slow descent into oblivion this August, I had the idea that I should recognize certain mile makers along the way. That’s why Cecil showed up into today’s comic.
I never really took advantage of Cecil. I basically created him to give Jimmy someone to bounce things off of when Tom or Jared weren’t around. He didn’t say much, he appeared in maybe one or two strips and he will be missed barely – if at all.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, CECIL.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the larger narrative of this story and realized that I really haven’t planned things out very far.
I mean, I have dozens of ideas for strips and I have a general sense of how things are going to go. But I haven’t sat down to actually plot things out.
That’s kind of a concern. Because, in the past – whenever I wrote a longer storyline – I would use this thumbnail approach and things worked out fine. If things went on a little too long, I’d could end the story with very little impunity before moving on to the next thing.
But now that there is A DEADLINE looming on the horizon, I need to be a little more economical about how things unfold.
There are 28 weeks until August 6. That means only 28 more Theater Hopper comics on the present once-a-week schedule before I wrap things up for good. My concern at this point is that I might take more than 28 comics to finish telling the story I want to tell.
That’s good news for you, I hope. I have no problem producing extra comics if it helps me tie things up in a nice little bow. I just need to make sure I time this out right. I’m going to start to have planning in advance, outlining plot points and sticking to them.
Y’see… this is why I announced the comic ending so early. It gives you pleanty of time to iron out pesky little wrinkles like this!
DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE STORE
Several of you took my words to heart last week when I blogged about getting rid of my Theater Hopper inventory. Many thanks to those of you who placed orders. I’ll be shipping them this week!
I want to keep the store top of mind for everyone, though. I’m sincere about selling this stuff off.
Food for thought: If you buy any two Theater Hopper books, you get the third for free. That’s a savings of $15, folks.
Did I mention it includes the Artist Editions? Get a sketch thrown in, while you’re at it! I’d be happy to draw whatever you like.
Be sure to spread the good word around. I could really use your help!
That’s it for today. Thanks for your patience and I’ll see you next week! Or maybe sooner!
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss Victor? Click on this link, vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics and find out!
As I’ve stated before, I’m kind of dragging all of the characters out of mothballs for this last story line to give them their time in the sun. Today it’s Victor’s turn.
Victor was a character that I created as an antagonist for “the gang” and he was supposed to be an imposing monster – a mountain of a man who said very little, but who had a very black and white view of the world. Most of that has been retained over the years. As you can see from today’s comic, I think I’ve drawing Victor larger than usual. Mostly because I just like toying with the perception of him.
But what gave Victor dimension was a guest comic drawn by Brandon J. Carr several years back that suggested that Victor was dangerously enamored with Tom. I thought it was an interesting wrinkle in the character and decided to carry it forward as far as I could.
I’ve always been very careful not to exploit Victor’s sexuality – especially when he’s depicted as aggressive or imposing in a different context. He’s an extreme character, of course. But that’s where a lot of interesting comedy comes from. Just know that it’s all very well intentioned and I hope to have depicted Victor with some dimension. I think you’ll see that as the aftermath of today’s comic plays out in later strips.
LIVE-BLOGGING THE OSCARS
I wanted to give everyone a head’s up that I, Brandon J. Carr and Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies will be live-blogging the Oscar’s Sunday night. We generally have a very effective comedic rapport with each other on Twitter, so we decided to try to apply it to something in real time that everyone else can enjoy along side us.
We’re running the session through Cover It Live, which is a fun little widget that allows moderators to talk and other people to submit comments in real time. Set your bookmarks now. The fun will take place this Sunday at 7:00 PM CST at http://oscars.alloftheawesome.com. You can enter your e-mail address into the widget today and be sent a reminder just before we go live. It should be a lot of fun!
THE FAREWELL TOUR
You might have noticed that I’ve put two banners at the top of the page. One of them is linking back to the announcement that I made back in January that I’d be ending the comic this August. It’s been about a month and I’m still getting messages from people who said they just heard the news. So I wanted to make sure the news didn’t get buried and people were up to date.
I’ll admit that it kinds of stings a little when people bring it up only because it throws me back to that moment in time when I was seriously questioning whether or not I was doing the right thing. That malaise was captured perfectly in the video I posted the day after I made the announcement, if you ask me.
The other thing I will mention is my Farewell Tour Fundraising Drive. I decided at the last minute that I need to try to go to as many conventions here in the midwest as possible before I close up shop in August. So I snagged myself a booth at the last minute and will be appearing at C2E2 April 13 – 15. I’ve also got my eye on Minneapolis Spring Con in May (if they’ll return my e-mails) and possibly Chicago Comic Con in August.
That last one is kind of funny, because it will actually take place 3 days after I end the comic. IRONY!
Anyway, going to shows costs money. Hotel reservations, table reservations, food, gas… it adds up quick. And since I wasn’t planning on attending any shows until just recently, I’m not sitting on very much discretionary cash.
That’s where you come in. I’m not asking for much. I’m just asking you to consider buying something in the store. If you already own a bunch of Theater Hopper merchandise or can only afford a dollar or two, I’m also taking donations.
Donate what you think is fair. Five dollars… one dollar. Whatever you can spare. All of it helps. If I’ve made you laugh at all in the last 10 years, now would be the time to kick in on that front. My goal is to get out and meet as many of you as I can before my time is up so I can thank you in person. You can help make that happen. Who knows? We might raise enough money that I can fly somewhere further than the Midwest! Somewhere I’ve never been before. That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?
I’m just asking you to consider it.
Thanks for your patience and support. I’ll see you next week!