Posts Tagged ‘comic book’
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Apr18
GUEST STRIP – MIGHTY MITCH CLEM
April 18th, 2005 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 8.20 out of 10)
You’d have to be blind not to notice the distinct style of today’s guest comic author. It’s the one and only Mitch Clem of Nothing Nice to Say!
I love his strip today. Not only because it’s the first full-color strip he’s done since coming back to the web comics fold, but because it does a great job of capturing the playful, sometimes elitist bend to my characters.
Thanks muchly, kind sir. You comic doth rocketh my world.
Hopefully you guys are aware that today is the last day for you to bid on the Sin City-inspired original artwork I’m auction off on eBay. You should scroll down a little ways if you want to learn more about it.
I’ll actually be back from Texas at some point tonight. So if you’ve been sending me e-mails, or anything, I will try to get to a few of them this evening.
Guest strips will continue even though I’m back from vacation. I’m taking a little well-deserved time off to work on a site redesign and opening up the store again with new merchandise. I haven’t taken any time off since last July, so I feel it’s a little deserved.
Be sure to come back on Wednesday for another excellent guest strip!
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I’m trying to decide if this is the most controversial comic I’ve ever done or not. Some people really got up in arms about the Fahrenheit 9/11 comic from a while back, but I think this one may have trumped it. People tend to take religion pretty seriously.
Well, hopefully you all know how to take a joke and realize that I’m not implying Jesus was gay or anything like that. I’m just having fun with all of the ridiculous comparisons the media has been making to Superman now that Superman Returns is in theaters.
By in large, you hear more about the gay thing and the Christ thing more than the immigrant thing – but it all applies. Intrinsically, that’s the appeal of Superman. He’s the EVERYman. As a superhero, since he can DO anything, so he can BE everything to everyone. The fact that only certain facets of what Superman can potentially represent are being talked up in the media in order to stir up controversy I think is really lame.
After all, for every gay man living in the closet who identifies with Clark Kent and the dual life he leads, there is a 5 year-old kid out there who is just as enamored with The Man of Steel for the amazing feats of strength he performs – wishing someday he could grow up to be like him. I know that was certainly the case for me when I was growing up.
But no one talks about the aspirational qualities of Superman. It’s far more interesting to point out the gay thing or the religion thing or the immigrant thing because those are all hot-button topics in the “real world.” Was anyone talking about this kind of stuff when the original Superman movie came out back in 1978? Or even when he came back to television in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman? Of course not.
You don’t need to associate the latest controversy de-jour to make Superman relevant. He’s always been relevant and always will be all on his own.
I know a lot of you have already seen Superman Returns. I haven’t be able to make it out to the theaters since it arrived on Wednesday and it’s killing me. But Cami and I are going to see it in IMAX on Saturday afternoon and it’s going to be great. I’m chomping at the bit to see the “bulletproof eyeball” sequence on a 70 foot tall screen. I’ll tell you if the Big Blue Boy Scout flinches!
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It’s a new year and, as you may have noticed, there is a new coat of paint on the old joint. Welcome to the all-new Theater Hopper!
People who know me are aware that I’ve been kicking around the idea for a redesign probably since last October. At least, that’s when I started working on it. I’ve probably have ideas or at least loose sketches lying about since early last year! But, of course, life gets in the way, you self-publish a couple of books and, well… where does the time go?
Part of the goal behind redesigning the site was purely cosmetic. As you can see, I’ve widened the content area of the site to a little over 900 pixels wide. My counter statistics were telling me that the majority of you were viewing the site at 1024 x 768. So many of you were, in fact that the two resolutions below it (800 x 600 and 640 x 420) COMBINED couldn’t compare. To me, that’s a lot of wasted real estate. Especially considering that those of you viewing the site at a resolution LARGER than 1024 x 768 outnumber those below that resolution by a margin of nearly 3 to 1.
That’s kind of technical. And I’m getting away from my point.
The other goal behind the redesign was to get the site to a point where it could kind of generate it’s own activity and help maintain traffic flow. As you may recall, Cami and I are having a baby in February. Clearly my resources will need to be dedicated to my family at that time. But I also didn’t want to abandon the site or come back to comics faced with the challenge of rebuilding what I had lost.
To that end, we have introduced several new features!
First is the Mailing List. Sign up and I’ll be sure to notify you every time the comic updates. This is a great little reminder in case you don’t check the site every day. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spam ya’. It’s just a little extra customer service on our end!
Second is the “Mail This Comic to a Friend” feature. This is so those of you who are already fans of the comic can help me spread the good word. It’s a very easy e-mail form that lets you include a message along with the link to the specific comic you’re referencing and a great way to tell people about that HILARIOUS Theater Hopper strip you read today without having to open your mail client!
Third is the excellent “Rate This Comic” feature. (I’m really thrilled about this one.) It’s simple – just navigate yourself to the comic you want to rank, click on the link and place your vote on a scale of 1 to 5. This is a great piece of instant feedback that I can use to figure out what you guys like to see in the comic! Eventually, once we’ve collected enough votes, we’re going to post a link to a Top 50 page so you can see the most popular Theater Hopper strips of all time!
Again, this will be a great advantage to bringing new readers to the site. Instead of seaching through the archives as a means to being introduced to the site, they can check out the Top 50 page and see if there is anything to their linking! Hopefully, with your feedback, we can hook ’em and bring new readers to the site!
Last, but not least, we are introducing a brand new Commenting feature in the blogs. Now you can leave INSTANT feedback for each of the comics and the individual blogs. This is a major coup for me. For a while now, I’ve been posting a lot over on my LiveJournal page. Mostly because I enjoy the feedback I get from the readers. I thought to myself “Why can’t I have something like this for Theater Hopper?” So, with a little help, we brought the feature to the site! My goal is to post more often to this space and really bring the blog back to the foreground again.
This feature will be great for people who want to leave feedback about the comics who might be a little intimidated by sending an e-mail or joining the THorum Of course, my hope is that if you’re posting, you have a strong enough investment in what’s being communicated to return to the site more often to see how others have responded to what you’ve left behind!
There are also some smaller touches we’ve added to the site including a the weekend box office office estimates for the Top Five films of the week, courtesy of Box Office Mojo as well as a few new pages that haven’t been added to the site yet – permanent homes for information about the history of the site, the cast, my contact information, press I’ve done and which conventions I’ll be appearing at. You’ll see announcements about these new areas as they are added!
Also be sure to check out the new store! All of your favorite goodies are there, but we’re streamlining the ordering process and also adding a permanent section that allows you to bundle different items together at a reduced cost! That’ll be the first part of the site besides the home page to be up on two feet in the very near future.
If you guys are feeling up to it, I would love for you to take advantage of the commenting feature to get your thoughts about the new site design. Test things out. Play with it a little bit. I’ll be making changes and additions to the site all month and I would love to get your opinion about what we can do better.
With all of that said, I need to take a special time out and call attention to all of the help I’ve been given by a wonderful guy – Dave Buist, creator of the online comic Taking the Bi-Pass.
Dave has been an invaluable resource to me over the past month. He’s the guy that actually wrote the code for all of these wonderful applications. He helped me out immensely by creating databases to manage everything and he did it with great enthusiasm and efficiency. Often times, Dave went above and beyond creating features for the site that I hadn’t even considered.
As a small token of my thanks, I have attached a permanent link in the footer of the site to give credit to Dave for his enormous contribution to the site. Without him, none of this would be possible. Please show your support for Dave’s hard work by visiting Taking the Bi-Pass, bookmarking it and adding it to your weekly reads! Thanks, Dave!
That about does it for now – although I’m sure more will come up later. Again, take a look around, rank your favorite comics (use the archive search function if you need to!), leave comments and let all of your friends know about the exciting changes happening to the site.
2007 is going to be better than ever!
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