Posts Tagged ‘Ben Affleck’
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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!
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Jan06
I like the idea for today’s comic, but I’m not really happy with the execution (if you’ll pardon the pun). I dunno. I felt Wednesday’s comic was probably one of the better ones I’ve produced in a while. Doing the follow up is kind of like a reverse adrenaline high.
It’s 2006 and I feel a distinct need to improve the level of my artwork this year. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can at least draw the characters and maintain a consistent look. My backgrounds still need a lot of help. Detail stuff is still kind of hard for me. But I think the major goal I want to accomplish is to learn how to color and shade better. Flesh things out a little bit more.
I think if you look at the work Joe is doing with Joe Love Crappy Movies or troll through the archives of Butternut Squash, their stuff really jumps off the page and I can’t figure out how they do it! Heck, even when Kurtz does color over at PvP, it looks sharp.
It’s like watching some dude on a souped up motorcycle launch himself off a dirt ramp. They make it look so easy when they glide through the air, but you know they had to take a lot of spills before they learned how to stick that landing.
I don’t know why I’m using motorcross analagies, but therer you have it.
Does anyone out there know about any online resources for comic coloring and shading? Any tutorials or walkthroughs? I’d be very interested to read them to learn some new techniques. E-mail me if you have any suggestions.
Much to no one’s surprise, Cami and I will NOT be seeing Hostel this weekend. Gore and torture for the sake of it? Not interested. I don’t care if Quentin Tarantino’s name is attached to it… as what? Producer? I know they’re billing it as "Quentin Tarantino Presents…"
I’m trying to understand why there has been this shift in horror movies where people are being tortured for prolonged periods of time. Used to be movie-sickos would straight up murder you (albeit in creative ways) and move on to the next nubile young thing to slaughter. Nowadays they’ll clip of your middle toe with bolt cutters and scoop out your eye with a mellon baller first. To what end? To show we’re not in control? To push the boundries of taste?
I don’t mean to position myself as some kind of elitist, but horror is a genre that I never understood. Despite the abundance of violence in mainstream American entertainment (action movies for the most part) the horror genre unto itself seems to make this it’s sole focus. In a world where real life horror surrounds us every day, it seems pointless to me to accentuate it in art. It seems redundant. The only way to make it interesting is to go so far over the top – the levels of mayhem being beyond anything you can imagine – it almost becomes a parody of death. What’s the point?
At least with the slasher flicks of the 80’s there was this kind of supernatural boogeyman element that you could tap into. A sort of background narative that begged you to ask "Who is this guy with the knife-tipped glove? Why is he so horribly burned? How is he able to kill kids through their dreams?" I could understand getting wrapped up in the novelty of that.
But some Slovakian dude that wears a bondage mask and likes to slice off fingertips? That’s just cruel and sadistic for the sake of it.
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Drawing Friday’s comic, I realized that Jared holds a lot of grudges against celebrities for one reason or another. It reminded me of the one he hates the most. The one we haven’t heard from in a while…
Okay, okay. So the last time Jared tortured Ben Affleck was back in January. But can any of you guys remember the last time you heard any Ben Affleck-related news? It’s like he seriously fell off the grid! Either that, or Jared’s consistent beatings finally delivered their intended message:
"Leave Hollywood and never come back!"
Who says violence doesn’t solve anything?
Anyway, enough about Ben Affleck’s ties to terrorism. I have much more important news to share.
See this?
That right there is a preview from the cover of the upcoming Theater Hopper book "Theater Hopper: Year One." And I’m excited and proud to announce thatO we’re going to offer it for pre-sale starting Monday, April 17!
It’s been a long time coming and I’ve been working on it for the last three months, but we’re finally ready to go to press with this bad boy. What we need from you is a little support! We don’t have all of the money we need up front to place the order with the printer. That’s why we’re doing the pre-sale. Once enough books have been sold, we can move the project ontothe next stage. So I’m telling everyone about it now so you guys can reserve your copy on Monday.
The book will sell for $18.95 (plus shipping and handling), but you’re getting your money’s worth and then some! The book collects the first year of Theater Hopper. That’s 156 comics, people! Not to mention 11 gueststrips from that era and a 6 strip crossover I did with Carrington Vanston from Movie Punks.
"But Tom," you say "Why do I want to buy your book when I can already get this content on the web site for free?"
Good question. And the answer is "commentary." For each of the 156 comics from the first year, I have included brand new commentary that reveals how I got Theater Hopper off the ground as well as the tips and tricks I learned along the way that helped me refine both the writing and the art as I progressed. If you’ve ever wondered how someone does a web comic three times a week, this book is going to answer a lot of questions! Remember, this content is EXCLUSIVE to the book and you’re not going to see it anywhere else!
Plus, it’s just plain cool to own web comics in print. You can share it with your friends and family and explain to them THIS is what I’ve been reading online and it’s hilarious!
But to motivate you guys a little bit, we’re introducing a new concept. THE THEATER HOPPER STREET TEAM!
Follow the link for all of the details, but it’s a really cool system we have set up. All you have to do is pre-order your copy of the book. Then get five of your friends to do the exact same thing. Once everyone has placed their orders, e-mail me their names and I’ll cross check them against the list. If everything looks good, you get A FREE $20 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO Fandango.com! If you think about it, that’s like getting your copy of the book FOR FREE!
And to sweeten the pot, the first 25 people to complete the task will be rewarded with A FREE THEATER HOPPER T-SHIRT!
To help you get your friends on board, we’ve included a few talking points that you can share with them. So be sure to check out the Theater Hopper Street Team page to get all of the information!
Sound good? Then get you and your friends ready to place your orders on Monday, April 17 when the book is available for pre-sale. Tell everyone you know about it! The faster we gather up the pre-orders, the faster we can get the book to print and into your hot little hands.
As, always, if you have any questions, e-mail me and I’ll answer them.
Thanks to everyone for your support. Putting this book together has been a dream of mine for a really long time and it feels good to know it’s so close to production. All I need is a little support from you guys and it’ll happen! This is the start of a new age for Theater Hopper and I couldn’t be more excited!
THANKS!
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After Monday’s comic where Jared complained that Ben Affleck had fallen of the grid, a few readers brought it to my attention that his real-life counterpart recently made an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher. The show was aired live on Friday, April 7. So much for a low profile.
With egg on my face, I quickly fabricated a solution. One that will unfold in a dramatic story arc over the next few comics. A few people probably know where I’m going with this, but I want to keep it a surprise for the rest of you. My response to the situation was a little glib at first. But now that I’ve had some time to think about it, you guys are really going to enjoy the result. It was kind of a happy accident, but I’m really excited about this.
Something else I’m really excited about is this:
A picture of Cami? Well, yes. That IS very exciting. But more specifically, It’s another preview image from the cover of "Theater Hopper: Year One!" What could Cami be so worried about? You’ll have to wait until Monday, April 17 to find out! That’s when we start the pre-sale for the book and unveil the whole cover for your viewing pleasure.
I know you have very little to go on, but the cover parodies a very famous movie. Hopefully, if I get to do a follow-up book, I can carry out the theme of parodying movies for the covers – each of them tying into the year of the comic they represent. I have some fun ideas on deck. It would be a real treat to draw them.
One way you can help ensure future books (besides placing your pre-order, of course!) is participating in our Theater Hopper Street Team! I outlined the concept on Monday, but it’s deceptively easy! All you have to do is get five of your friends to pre-order the book. Let me know their names, and if everything looks good, you win a $20 gift certificate to Fandango.com! The first 25 people to complete this challenge also get a FREE Theater Hopper t-shirt! Pretty sweet, huh?
For more details about the program including talking points and a four page sample to share with your friends, click here.
Response to the Street Team has been strong. You guys seem to think it’s a pretty cool idea. That’s great! But there are also a few of you who have reservations…
To that I say, "Get creative!"
Rounding up five friends doesn’t mean that you have to convince your roommate, his girlfriend and your bowling leauge to buy the book. They can be complete strangers! If you’re a regular at another forum community, let them know that the book will be available on Monday, April 17! If you have a MySpace or Facebook page, share the details there! Write about it in your blog or from your LiveJournal account! The important thing is that you SPREAD THE WORD! I assure you that you’ll find Theater Hopper fans in the darnest places. Keep them in the loop on the book and you’re looking at earning your reward for participation with the Street Team in no time!
I’m pounding the digital pavement just as hard as you guys to get the word out about "Theater Hopper: Year One!" so we can make sure we get as many pre-orders as possible. But if you represent any kind of media site and want to ask questions about the book or the Street Team, please e-mail me! I am making myself available for interviews!
Save the date, everyone! Pre-ordering our first book will be here in less than a week!
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I suppose this is as good a place as any to throw in a cliff-hanger, eh?
Just imagine… a self-storage unit in Van Nuys full of Ben Affleck robotic duplicates. The possibilities! We’ll be sure to revisit the concept on Monday.
Introducing the Benbots is a bit of a patch job over Monday’s comic. I put Ben if Afghanistan. But eagle-eyed readers with pay-cable wrote in to tell me that Ben had been spotted here in the states a week ago on Real Time with Bill Maher. Well, here’s your explaination. The fact that Affleck is now rotting in some cave somewhere is almost incidental. We’re gonna have a lot of fun with these robots in the near future! This, I promise.
Because you’ve been so interested in what I’ve shared with you so far, I have one last image to share with you.
It’s the last preview image from the cover of "Theater Hopper: Year One" which will be available for pre-order in 4 short days! Monday, April 17, to be exact!
I think you guys already know the story about the book. How it collects the first 156 strips from the first year of the site and includes brand new commentary for each strip? You know, the commentary that talks about how I got Theater Hopper off the ground and what I learned along the way to help improve my art and writing? Don’t forget the 11 guest strips from that era as well as a 6 part crossover I did with Movie Punks!
I gotta tell you, you’re not going to get a bigger bang for your buck than this book. 200 pages. Full color. It can’t be beat!
Of course, don’t neglect the street team! Pre-order the book and get five of your friends to do the same and I’ll send you a $20 gift certificate from Fandango.com! If you show a lot of hussle and you’re one of the first 25 people to complete the task, I’ll throw in a FREE Theater Hopper t-shirt, too! Good deal, huh? Click here to learn more! That four page preview of the book in there will come in really handy for showing your friends what Theater Hopper is all about!
I know I’ve been a bit of a broken record this week, but I want to make sure no stone is left unturned and that all of you who read the site are aware that the book is available for pre-order Monday, April 17! It’s imperative that we get as many pre-orders as possible as quickly as possible so we can put a copy of the book into your hot little hands that much faster!
I put a lot of work into writing the commentary and I’m very interested to get feedback and hear what you guys think about it. I’m proud of the work I’ve done and I hope you guys will enjoy it, too!
I hope everyone has a good weekend. We’re supposed to have highs in the 70’s! I’ve actually talked Cami into going frisbee golfing on Saturday! How awesome is she?
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I’m trying to remember where I read that report that said that Ben Affleck literally got down on hands and knees and begged Kevin Smith for a cameo in Clerks II. Oddly, I can’t seem to find it anywhere online! Funny how a rumor starts, isn’t it?
Yes, this is commentary!
I do remember reading the rumor, but there probably isn’t much truth to it. A Kevin Smith without an Affleck cameo is like a day without sunshine. Actually, what I heard is that Affleck was invited to come back to the Askewniverse, but accepted only under the terms that he would be in the background and not play one of his previous Kevin Smith-created characters. After a while on set, Affleck felt it was weird to be there and not have a line, so Smith forged one for him on the spot. I’m sure not unlike a childhood game of "Telephone," the message got jumbled along the way – but I was having so much fun with the idea that Jared had severely stepped up his operations beyond simply physical beatings, I couldn’t turn my back on it.
Clerks II commentary aside, I wanted to take a moment to talk to you about Wizard World Chicago coming up in two weeks, August 4 – 6 at the lovely Rosemont Convention Center right next to the fabulous (and always on-time) O’Hare Airport.
This will be my thrid year going to Wizard World Chicago and I’m hitting the ground running. I will have copies of my new book "Theater Hopper: Year One" for sale and I’m going to try and pass it around to as many members of the media that I can.
To help generate interest, I am having a book-launch party in my hotel room on Saturday night, August 5. It’ll probably start around 7:00 or 8:00 and go until we either run out of beer or get bored and want to go somewhere else. But the idea is not only to celebrate with fans, but to let the media know that web comics are a happenin’ scene and that Theater Hopper ain’t too shabby on it’s own!
If you plan on being in attendance at Wizard World Chicago, please be sure to stop by my book on Artist’s Alley to get your invitation. I don’t really want to share my hotel room number over the internet and I don’t know it offhand anyway. So it all works out. Stop by the booth, get the invite and come hang out with us. You can find me at booth 3134 A and you can view a map of the convention floor here (look on the second page, to the right). Everyone is welcome to visit me at the booth, but 21 and over for the party, please. Here’s a close-up of Artist’s Alley in case you can’t open the larger PDF:
I need to let you know that Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey will also be releasing a book (Volume 2 of his hilarious comic) that weekend and the book release party is a joint effort. There will also be several other web comic stars in attendance. Not only at the party, but on the convention floor. The Theater Hopper booth can be found in immediate proximity of Gordon McAlpin of Multiplex, Joe Dunn of Digital Pimp Online, illustrator extraordinaire and convention stalwart Taki Soma and the previously mentioned Zach Miller. It’s going to be a hell of a time.
If any of you happen to have connections in the comic press, web comic press or small press publication… press, please let me know so I can notify members of the media in advance. I’m not looking to get signed by any production house or anything. Pretty much just looking to network and inform people about Theater Hopper. I can’t tell you how many conventions I go to where people look at my booth and say "So it’s online?" They’re not expecting it. I feel it’s time to get over the hump and bring web comics to a wider audience. With book in tow, I hope to make that happen!
I will have more news to share about Wizard World Chicago in the coming weeks, but I wanted to start talking about it now. I hope to see several of you in attendance and I thank you for your support!
Oh, and if you’ve pre-ordered a copy of "Theater Hopper: Year One," don’t worry. I’m setting aside copies for all of you. Once back from Chicago, I plan on mailing them out as soon as possible. So you should be seeing your book sometime by mid-August (barring the length of time it takes for me to draw your sketch inside the book!)
Thanks again to everyone who has helped to make this possible. I finally feel I have something concrete to exhibit at Wizard World Chicago and that I’m not just there taking up space to say I had been there. It’s a good feeling!
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The two movies Tom is referencing in today’s strip are Catch and Release (starring Jennifer Garner) and Smokin’ Aces (with Ben Affleck). Smokin’ Aces is really more of an ensemble piece, so I’m not sure it actually qualifies as a “Ben Affleck movie.” More like a movie Ben Affleck happens to be in.
Does it surprise you that Catch and Release is the film I’m more excited about seeing? It surprised me. A few years ago, I would have been chomping at the bit for a film like Smokin’ Aces. Large cast full of actors I like, lots of mayhem. Looks like fun. But recently when I look at the commercials or the trailer, all I can think about it how it looks like a Pulp Fiction rip-off a decade warmed over.
Catch and Release, while still wearing the comfortable trappings of a traditional romantic comedy, looks much more interesting to me simply for the inclusion of Timothy Olyphant and Kevin Smith. I’ve been a fan of Olyphant since Doug Liman’s Go and I always found his quiet menace as Sherrif Seth Bullock on Deadwood. He’s not the conventional choice to play a romantic lead and I like that kind of twist in casting.
Of course, Kevin Smith as the wise-acre sidekick adds shading. It’s interesting to see him act in movie that aren’t his. So I’m curious to see how he performs when it’s someone else’s words coming out of his mouth.
Something interesting I learned about the production of Catch and Release is that Jennifer Garner was newly pregnant with Ben Affleck’s child (shudder) and was just starting to show a little. So apparently there are several scenes in the movie where Garner is either standing behind something or wearing baggy clothing to obscure her mid-section. Call it the Steven Segal technique.
I totally didn’t get the impression that Garner was pregnant during filming when looking at commercials, so I guess that’s movie magic at work. But now that I have this information in my back pocket, I’m going to be looking for it during the movie.
I don’t really have much for you today besides that. Real quick, though – does anyone have experience with RSS or, more specifically, Ryan North’s RSSpect application? I’m trying to get Theater Hopper running a little bit smoother on the feeds (in particular the LiveJournal RSS feed) so that the comic will appear with a portion of the blog.
My hope is that people who have friended TH in their LiveJournal accounts will read the comic, see a little bit of the blog and then be inspired to visit the site and read the rest. You know, make it less of a passive experience while still giving them what they want. Plus, I think there is value in people actually being able to SEE the comic in the feed rather than just a link. Who knows? They might end up visiting the site and leaving comments under the blogs! To that end, if you have comments of your own, you’d know I would love for you to share them. What movies are you excited about seeing this weekend? Am I wrong about Smokin’ Aces? Let me know!
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Gone Baby Gone comes out this weekend and it’s about a pair of Boston cops whose personal and professional lives unravel as they try and solve the mystery of a missing 4 year-old girl.
If the setting and the police procedural sound somewhat familiar, it should. The author of the novel from which the movie has been adapted is Dennis Lehane – the same guy who wrote Clint Eastwood’s 2003 award-winner Mystic River.
Not only is true that Ben Affleck is behind the lens on this one, but he also adapted the screenplay, finally returning to the screenwriting roots that won him an Oscar ten years ago for Good Will Hunting.
I have to give points for the casting on this one. Any movie with Ed Harris gets my attention. That goes double for Morgan Freeman (as long as it isn’t Evan Almighty). I’ll tuck in for a Morgan Freeman movie even if he’s narrating.
Casey Affleck is getting good notices for his performances in this one. It’s odd that my mind doesn’t leap to nepotism when Casey Affleck is starring in a Ben Affleck film, but he’s just that good. Who would have guessed that Casey Affleck would not only have grown out of the shadow of his brother, but have Oscar talk swirling around two performances in one year (the other being The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the elder Affleck lately and how he plugs into the Theater Hopper mythology. Long time readers of the comic know that he’s been a punching bag for us going on four years.
It was all good fun for a while. Remember, this was at the height of the whole “Bennifer” media craze. Plus, he was churning out a lot of crap movies at the time. So he was very easy to hate.
Clearly his time with Jennifer Lopez has made him a little camera shy in recent years. I think he’s done the smart thing by marrying Jennifer Garner and not talking about it, having a baby girl and not talking about it and keeping a low profile by taking bit parts in movies like Hollywoodland.
That said, it’s becoming harder and harder to hate Ben Affleck for the things he does. These days he doesn’t DO anything! That’s why I’m wondering out loud if I should maybe transfer Jared’s hatred onto a more timely celebrity.
I think I have a storyline in me that will tackle this subject and I think I’m going to try and make a play for it next week.
This actually dovetails into something else I wanted to talk about. I hinted at it on Wednesday and now I need to spill the beans.
As you may or may not know, Theater Hopper has been regionally syndicated in the youth publication Juice for the last year or so. It’s available in and around the Des Moines area and is a sister publication to the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register.
After next week, Theater Hopper will no longer appear in Juice. The publication does not have a local reviewer due to the difficulty they’ve had working with local theaters. As such, they’re scaling back their movie section and expanding their style section and Theater Hopper has been dropped as a result.
I realize that, for the majority of you, this information does not impact you in the slightest. But what you don’t know is that if you’re a fan of this comic, it affects you significantly.
In the last year or so, have any of you noticed that I haven’t attempted a significant or lengthy storyline? Sure, there’s been the occasional 3 or 4 strip arc. But nothing in terms of character progression like Jimmy losing his job, introducing Charlie or the time Tom got a monkey?
There’s a specific reason for that.
While Theater Hopper was running in Juice, I made the conscious decision to avoid lengthy storylines or continuity of any form largely due to the fact that I only had enough time to produce three strips a week and one of them was being repurposed for Juice. I couldn’t do a longer storyline because the people reading Juice didn’t know anything about the character histories and would not understand the narrative. So, instead, I stuck to a gag-a-day format and fell into a pattern.
If you were a cynical bastard, you could call this “selling out” – limiting one’s creative output for monetary compensation.
You would be right. I wouldn’t argue you on that point.
Don’t misunderstand me. I was grateful for the opportunity to have my comic in a print publication that was produced locally and shared with a wider audience that I would never have access to otherwise. I will ALWAYS be grateful for that.
But it never sat well with me that I couldn’t do a longer storyline or that I didn’t have the free time or creativity to come up with another solution.
I could have walked away. I could have quit at any time. But I didn’t. What would you do if someone was giving you free money? I was a sell out.
I’m actually kind of relieved that my comics are no longer appearing in Juice because it takes the decision out of my hands. I could have never willfully walked away from the opportunity or the compensation. But now that they’ve made that decision for me, it’s a lot off my mind.
So now Theater Hopper is going in another direction. I suppose there was no reason to tell you why. I could have just let the change in the storytelling speak for itself. But I guess I wanted to get it off of my chest. If there was ever anyone out there reading the comic and thinking I was just going through the motions, I wanted to let them know the reasons why.
Now that everything is out on the table and I can go in any direction I want, I feel liberated. I just wanted to share that.
I think I’ll leave it at that.
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you here Monday, fresh as a daisy!
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So today’s comic is a continuation of the story arc I kicked off last Friday in which Jared has a crisis of faith in the wake of Ben Affleck’s directorial debut of Gone Baby Gone. Lest you think I’m pumping up the quality of this picture to service the needs of my story, check out the 93% positive rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. It’s got to count for something.
I know today’s comic doesn’t exactly deliver the funny. But sometimes you have to sacrifice a day for the greater good of the story. Jimmy getting thrown out of his house (lo, those many years ago) didn’t exactly illicit chortles, either.
Exposition, folks. Exposition.
As to why I’m going back to storylines, if you didn’t read last Friday’s blog, I strongly encourage you to do so. I posted it a little last week and it explains a lot. Including stuff going on behind the scenes that prevented me from doing what I’m doing now.
Back to movie talk (sort of), I didn’t get a chance to see Gone Baby Gone this weekend. I mostly spent my time catching up on household duties after being in Chicago last week. I had kind of let the grass grow in our yard a little too long before I left and then we got a full week of rain. So I spent about 2 hours mowing, re-mowing, raking up clippings and fertilizing the front yard and another 3 hours the next day doing the same in the backyard. Plus, I had to clean out the garage and, well… isn’t the minutia of suburban living interesting?
At any rate, if you want to see some photos of a walkabout I took in The Windy City, I posted them to my Flickr account. I was bitching and moaning about it in my personal LiveJournal about it all last week, if that interests you. It might give you some context, especially about the crap-tastic Congress Hotel, where I stayed.
Incidentally, while I was in Chicago last week, I hung out with Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex and we tried to get our weekly installment of The Triple Feature talkcast off the ground with our good friend Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Talkshoe was broken, or something, so we had to abandon the show. But we’re giving it another try tonight! So be sure to participate this evening at 9:00 PM CST. Hopefully we won’t have any problems!
That’s about it on my end. See you Wednesday!
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I was trying to think of something witty to talk about in today’s blog post or at least something movie-related. But this is the down side of doing a longer story arc. There’s not much to say. I can’t really tease too much what’s going to happen. So I feel like this blog post is the internet equivalent of two people sitting in a room together staring uncomfortably at each other.
*cough*
I guess I can say that I’m having fun writing Jared as emotionally conflicted. It’s probably funnier for me since I know the real-life Jared and he’s about as mild-mannered as you can get. To depict him as aggressively bi-polar (and violent, to boot) is endlessly hilarious to me.
I know that for you, the reader, your perception is somewhat different. After all, this isn’t the first time that Jared has demonstrated random violence in the strip. Some readers have come to know him as mostly quiet, but secretly unhinged. I’ve read descriptions of him where I think to myself “No, that’s not him at all!” But then I look at the comics and think to myself “Well, I can kind of see how you came to that conclusion.”
The tone of today’s comic is somewhat apt because I’ve been in a cranky mood lately. I can’t discuss it. I’m not even sure if I can put a finger on it. But let’s just say that I’m someone who is very in touch with his anger. I’m not advocating violence as depicted in the comic. That’s just taking a mood and exaggerating it for effect. But my personal interpretation of anger is that it can be an effective tool and not always a negative. Anger is the flip side of passion, if you ask me. It can be scary, it can be confrontational, it can be ugly. But anger should never censor itself or be censored by others. People wouldn’t work themselves up into a frenzy if they didn’t care.
And that’s the opposite of anger. Listlessness, uncaring, unengaged. I would rather have someone angry at me than disinterested in me.
Wow. What a weird little essay to attach to a comic about a guy who has lost his hatred toward Ben Affleck.
Not much else for you today. Download Monday’s Triple Feature talkcast if you’re so inclined. It was a really weird show. It just kind of… stopped. I guess that’s what happens when we go a week without talking to each other like we did last week due to technical difficulties. We get rusty.
At any rate, download the show. Complete your collection! Gotta have ’em all!
See you later.
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