Posts Tagged ‘David’
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Whoops. Looks like I forgot to upload today’s incentive sketch. Oh, well. I’ll do it when I get home tonight. Besides, the Chuck Norris one is still funny, right?
So you know, this is the start of a new story arc featuring talking appliances. I have a certain statement I want to make with Tom’s new talking DVD player, but I’m going to let it unfold on its own for the time being. I don’t want to give away too much of the story right now because I’m pretty excited about where I want to take it.
Not much to report from this weekend. My good buddy Brian and I were going to try and take all of Theater Hopper and sneak it over to a new server. Weekend visitors might have noticed that the THorum was down in advance of that. But otherwise, it was supposed to be supah-smooth.
Of course me, like a dummy, forgot to forward the DNS before midnight on Saturday so that it would give us enough time to move over before todays update. Wouldn’t have mattered. I tried accessing my account at GoDaddy.com and I was getting errors when I tried it anyway.
So the hope is that everything will be moved over next week. Business as usual this week.
I got a bunch of really good work done on the book collecting the first year of Theater Hopper strips. I’m about a third of the way through it. There will be 169 comics with commentary from yours truly on each one. Probably a few extras, too. My hope is to have the book completed before March 25. That’s the first day of the Kansas City Plant Comicon Comic Book convention, which I plan on attending. If I don’t have the book, I won’t have much reason for going because all I will have to sell is overstock on my t-shirt inventory. It’s a pretty tight deadline, but if I concentrate hard, I think I can make it. It’s difficult trying to find time to squeeze in work on this book between my full-time job, updating Theater Hopper and the rest of my life! I HAVE to have the book completed by August 3 because that’s the first date of Wizard World Chicago. If I don’t have my book ready by that date, then 2006 is going to be a complete wash for me.
But like I said, if I put my nose to the grindstone, I’m sure I can do it. Who knows – the process might get streamlined to the point that I might have Year Two in production in time for Wizard World! How cool would that be!
When the book is completed, I’m going to need everyone’s help to get it made. There is a very steep up front cost to producing this book. I’m not using a print-on-demand service like LuLu. I’m going through a traditional small-press operation and they demand a minimum order amount. I’ll be doing pre-orders to help meet the up-front cost. Pre-ordering is a good idea anyway. It secures your order before the book is even published. So you know that if you want one, you won’t run the risk of me running out of books. A good deal!
Anyway, that’s about it for now. If I have something else to share, be sure to check back here!
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It’s been one heck of a week, kids.
As you may have noticed, Theater Hopper was down earlier in the week. This was somewhat related to our recent move to a new server. The story is on that’s pretty complicated and one I’ve been wading in up to my eyeballs, so I don’t know how keen I am on retelling it. But we haven’t talked in a while, so I’ll give it a shot.
Basically what happened was that the server move was successful, but we carried over some unwanted guests into our new environment. Dreamhost – Theater Hopper’s new host – caught them and shut us down. What kind of unwanted guests, you might ask? Hackers. They somehow compromised our old server and were using it as a proxy of some sort. Probably for warez sites. We’re not sure. What we *do* know is that some jackass thought it would be fun to leach our bandwidth, slow our server down and cause a whole lot of problems for people who only want to entertain.
At the time Dreamhost shut us down, they fingered us as guilty before even discussing it with us. That left me a little cheesed off. We’re as much a victim as anyone else here. If they had communicated what they had found, we could have partnered with them to resolve the situation faster. But that’s not how things unfolded. Instead, we had to sit on our hands for two days waiting for them to get back to us. It was a bit of a let down for me because I had heard such great things about Dreamhost. This certainly put us off on the wrong foot.
But things are up and running again and we have a new comic for you today.
I should stop to give sincere thanks to Brian for helping to facilitate the switch and talking to Dreamhost in a language they understand. Left to my own devices, I’m pretty sure Dreamhost would have gotten me kicked off the internet altogether. Also thanks to Dave for reconnecting the database that manages the comics and the blogs after the server move. I’d be dead in the water without these guys.
I’ve gotten a few e-mails asking me if I’ve noticed the similarities between my talking DVD player and Penny Arcade’s DIV. My response is "Yes. I’ve noticed them." But I would like to point out the important difference that my character wears shoes and gloves while DIV is essentially walking around naked. Okay. So my talking DVD player isn’t wearing pants, either. But gloves and shoes are better than nothing!
I tried to make my talking appliance look different from the his more well-known counterpart. But there are only so many ways to anthropomorphize small, grey rectangles of technology.
At any rate, keep your eye on this arc as we’ll probably see a cameo from DIV in the upcoming strips. Maybe a couple other pieces of talking technology as well.
As long as we’re on the subject, you should check out the incentive sketch I drew of the talking DVD player. It was the very first drawing I put together of him, plus some notes for personality traits. The whole idea is that he came to life after being disgusted by Tom’s terrible tastes in movies. So it stood to reason that he should be very tweedy and intellectual. That’s why I’m questioning whether or not he should wear spats. Cuz, y’know… spats make you look REALLY smart!
Something else I wanted to draw your attention to are the FREE COMICS you can download through my page at Clickwheel. If you have a video iPod – or heck, even if you don’t! – check out my most recent updates. I’m adding all of my incentive sketches to the site as miniature anthologies separated by month. This is the first time I’ve made these sketches available outside of the site. If you’re interested, they’re out there!
I’m going to try and keep adding sketches until I’m all caught up. After that, I’ll add more comics.
Thanks to everyone for their patience this week. One thing is for sure, I never really knew how cut off I felt until I was forced into that situation. Not having access to the site for this period of time has made me really thankful for what I have. Thanks to you guys for making that possible!
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Real-life Tom would love nothing more than a trip to the former Soviet Union. Comic-strip Tom just doesn’t get it.
I don’t have a lot to say about today’s comic, so I’m just going to blow over that fact and direct your attention to something very important.
If you visit the store, you’ll see that I’ve put all t-shirts, hoodies and baby-doll tees back on the site. But more importantly, EVERYTHING IS ON SALE!
In an attempt to burn through the last of my inventory and raise money to cover the up-front production costs of the Theater Hopper – Year One book, I have cut costs on everything. T-shirts are now $9.99. Hoodies are $24.99 and baby-doll tees are $14.99. The best part of all? FREE SHIPPING!
Now I have to forewarn you: There are a limited number of sizes in the available designs. So if you’re thinking about placing an order, don’t wait. It’s very likely that your shirt could be snapped up by someone else!
This sale will continue for the next two weeks through February 6th. I don’t think prices can go much lower. So if you want a good deal on Theater Hopper shirts, hoodies or baby-doll tees – now is the time!
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The crowd in the background of the fourth panel is supposed to be an homage to the creators/characters from whom I borrowed our cameo robots for today’s strip. Can you guess who is who? Vote for Theater Hopper at Web Comics List for a clear view. But forget about that guy on the far left. He’s just a stand in.
For those of you detecting the subtle commentary in today’s strip, congratulations. We’ve just reached the pinnacle of this arc. The whole reason behind introducing the talking DVD player was to get to this point.
I don’t fault Penny Arcade for introducing DIV into the world. If you were going to pick a talking appliance to add as a bristling sidekick, the antiquated DiVX technology was a nice, obscure reference. What I’ve noticed since then is if you have a comic that it somewhat technology-based, it must have some sort of ambulatory robotic counterpart. Hence why the X-Bot from Ctrl+Alt+Del and Pintsize from Questionable Content get a shout-out.
This isn’t meant to be withering criticism. It’s just a device that I’ve noticed in other comics that was lacking in my own. I thought it would be fun to introduce my own talking appliance. But instead of treating it like an official cast member, use it as a mouthpiece to deconstruct some of the cliches inherant in comics. In all storytelling, really.
Almost every comic out there has some kind of fantastic secondary character that comments on how foolish we mortals can be. It’s a way for the author to turn the mirror on the audience without getting in trouble for it. Look at something as generic as Garfield. He’s sarcastic toward his owner that can’t get a date. If you gave a human character those lines, you’d have a hard time relating to him. You’d think he was a real jerk. Give them to the cat and it becomes "Oh, isn’t that cute!"
As revenge on the double standard, I decided to take the concept of the fantastic, impossible comic strip character and turn it back on itself. Take THAT, storytelling device!
But who am I to say what works and what doesn’t? One thing I’ll say, each one of the three comics I took a playful jab at today are certainly getting a lot more traffic than I am. So maybe they’re onto something. Blame Stitch. His comics kind of put me on this anarchist bend. I’ll work it out of my system soon and things will return to normal. The talking DVD arc will end this Friday. So thanks for indulging my quasi-rants in the meantime.
I want to remind everyone that the big sale going on in the store is still happening, but you’re running out of time to make the purchases I know you’re aching to place. Don’t forget that all t-shirts are $9.99, all baby-doll tees are $14.99 and all hoodies are $24.99. Inventory is limited, so we might not have your size in the design you want. Don’t wait for someone else to swoop in and take it! Remember – FREE SHIPPING on all orders!
If I could appeal to you on an emotional level for a minute, even if you’re not interested in buying a shirt…
I could really use your help right now.
I got in a car accident yesterday. Don’t worry. Everyone is fine. No one was injured and I can still drive the car. But winter’s in Iowa aren’t very forgiving and I need to get this fixed as soon as possible. I haven’t gotten an estimate yet (that’s later today). But my insurance deductable is $500. This couldn’t have come at a worse time for us. Not to start playing on the world’s tiniest violin (and I’m not going to go into all the details) but we have a lot of bills flying out the door at the moment. Fixing the car is just one of those unforseen expenses that we’re having to scramble in order to cover.
My logic is this… I have all of these shirts that I need to sell. You like to wear shirts, don’t you? What’s stopping you from getting something really cool that you know you’ll enjoy and – in the process – help a stranger out of a pickle?
I’m not asking for charity. That’s never been the kind of relationship we’ve had. All I’m saying is that I have some great shirts at the lowest prices I’ve ever sold them and you would be doing me a monumental favor by buying one. All the while, you still get something in return. It’s a great deal all around. Everybody wins.
Think about it and thanks again for your support.
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There’s usually not a lot of argument as to the question of mortality when one is struck broadside by an eighteen-wheeler. But if you need further evidence of David’s untimely demise, vote for Theater Hopper at Web Comics List for the proof.
After "outting" the erstwhile David as a device to lampoon wacky secondary characters, there was no choice left but to kill him. I had pretty much rendered him impotent at that moment, so why not go out with a bang, yes?
That was pretty much the plan all along. Establish a new character, reveal him as a tool designed to deconstruct conventional storytelling approaches, kill him off. I’m begining to worry this might be a theme for me. The killing off of characters, at least. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Dewey met his end at the top of the Empire State Building.
I don’t have much more to say about the arc than that. I feel I’ve pretty much left everything I wanted to say in the strip. I was happy how the art turned out on this last strip. It’s good to go out on a high note, but I’ll be happy to going back to making fun of new movie releases. I say that every time, don’t I?
Sales are going strong on the great apparel liquidation of ’06. I’m not going to beat you over the head about it. After all, it’s the weekend. We could do without the extra shilling.
Okay, one last shill. The sale ends February 6.
Here’s hoping everyone has a great weekend!
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Sorry, guys. Today’s blog post is very short. I was up late last night working on the comic and had to be out the door early to go have my car worked on.
In the meantime, here’s a link to the comic where Jared – not Tom – smashed Shia LaBeouf’s hand with a hammer.
Also, if you’re somewhat new to the strip (or simply don’t remember the character) start here to get acquainted with David. He was introduced and killed off rather quickly. So if his appearance doesn’t ring any bells, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Beyond that, trust that this storyline is actually going somewhere and I might be back later in the day with some more updates.
Cheers!
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I feel kind of weird because I feel like there isn’t much for me to blog about in relation to this storyline. I always get this way. There’s nothing here to explain except for what’s in the comic. I can’t go into much more detail without exposing plot points later on.
I suppose I can address one question a reader left in the comment field regarding Wednesday’s comic. I was asked how Shia LaBeouf could have confused Tom for Jared after the hand-smashing episode if Tom was never at the scene. It’s a fair question. At the risk of being completely opaque, I will say that Shia’s confusion will be explained soon. Don’t worry. This little mini-arc will be done soon.
I already have a joke in mind about The Ugly Truth, which is coming out today. It’s been really funny to watch Cami and her reaction to this film. She hates the commercials for this thing – says it looks awful. Part of me think she’s reacting to the obvious and hackneyed plot any movie-goer could decipher in 5 seconds. I think the other half of her scorn is just watching Katherine Heigl on screen.
If you follow celebrity gossip at all, Heigl has burned a lot of bridges with her diva-like behavior. Pretty much a classic example of a star thinking they have some kind of pull when they’re not famous enough to get away with it.
My parents have offered to watch Henry Saturday evening, so I think Cami and I are going to try and catch something, at least. I have my eye on Moon, the sci-fi movie with Sam Rockwell. Cami thinks it looks scary, so we’ll probably end up seeing Food, Inc. instead.
I’ve been hearing some pretty interesting things about Food, Inc. Basically, that after watching it, you’ll never buy anything that isn’t locally produced again.
Considering my terrible eating habits, Food, Inc. could end up being twice as scary as Moon could ever be!
That’s about it for me right now. I know everyone is at San Diego Comic Con right now, but my mind is on Chicago Comic Con coming up in two weeks. I’m putting together 1″ pins for giveaway and a press kit I can hand out to people who stop by the booth. It’s good to have a goal.
Speaking of goals, before I leave, I want to point out the t-shirt pre-order goal I have at the top of the page. We’re half-way to the 50 orders I need by the end of the month. If you’re at all thinking about buying a shirt or a book, please do so now! If you want to float a donation my way, every little bit helps! I could really use your support before going to Chicago Comic Con!
Thanks again, guys! Have a great weekend and I’ll see you here on Monday!
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To me this comic is funny not because Jared doubts Tom’s story about being assaulted by an anthropomorphic piece of audio/visual equipment. Instead he finds the story questionable because Tom’s injuries are not consistent with the length of his beating.
Hate to spell it out for you, but it makes me smile.
I’m coming to a close on this little story line, so I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Not much for me to talk about except that Cami and I saw neither Moon OR Food, Inc. Saturday night as my parents had Henry stay over at their place. Neither of us could muster up the enthusiasm for Food, Inc. and we missed the only showing of Moon that evening before we left my parents house.
Instead we watched my review copy of I Love You, Man on Blu-ray. I’ll be reviewing it for the site and you can expect to find it here tomorrow. I’ll be sure to remind you on Twitter in case you forget.
I’m sure my lack of commitment to new movies will get me in trouble with Joe and Gordon tonight during our recording of The Triple Feature at 9:00 PM CST, but we’re probably going to talk about 500 Days of Summer, which isn’t even in wide release here until Friday. So what can you do?
I’m kind of annoyed because both 500 Days of Summer AND Funny People come out here on Friday and I can’t see either of them because Cami will be out of town with her Mom and Sister celebrating my Mother-in-Law’s birthday. I guess I’ll have to get caught up in the week before the Chicago Comic Con.
If you’re looking for something to do between now and The Triple Feature at 9:00 PM CST, I encourage you to swing over to my good friend Zach Miller’s web comic which you might remember is called Joe and Monkey.
I’ve been talking to Zach lately and he’s been drawing panels like a fiend preparing for JaM’s return. If I’m not mistaken, he’s already several weeks ahead and plans on updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the foreseeable future.
It brings me great joy to make this announcement because I am constantly being approached by Zach’s fans about when he is going to bring Joe and Monkey back. Zach and I are friends and speak on a semi-regular basis, but I’m usually as much in the dark about this subject as the rest of you. So I always feel like I’m disappointing the person asking the question when I can’t give them a definitive answer.
But Zach is back on the horse and updating again. So be sure to swing by Joe and Monkey to see what he’s up to.
Incidentally, Zach and I will be sharing a table on Artist’s Alley at Chicago Comic Con August 6 – 9. You can find us at table #3414. If you plan on attending the show, it would mean a great deal to both of us if you came by and said “hello.” We are both very friendly and will likely chat your ear off.
Cheers!
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Jun07
GUEST STRIP – JOSH ANDERSON
June 7th, 2012 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 9.80 out of 10)
Wow! When I announced on Tuesday that I was looking for guest strips to help flesh out the last few weeks of Theater Hopper, I didn’t think I would receive a comic the very same day.
But that’s exactly what Josh Anderson from Worsted for Wear pulled off – and it’s hilarious!
If you’re kind of new to the site and don’t remember David, I encourage you to check out his first appearance from back in 2006.
What follows is a short story arc that takes to task the interesting phenomenon in webcomics at the time where household appliances were gaining sentience and becoming full-fledged cast members. I always thought the idea was kind of dumb, so I wanted to poke at it a little bit. I did that by quickly killing David off four strips later.
I wrote David back into the strip briefly in a story line where Shia LaBeouf used him to attack Tom. It was a case of mistaken identity.
The story line was actually a fabrication on Tom’s part to explain how he had damaged his hand and had to go to the emergency room. That was my funny way of incorporating a real-life injury I had inflicted on myself back in 2009. So David’s appearance was more of a cameo than an actual reappearance. I assure you, he’s still dead.
So, now that we’re all up to speed on David, take a minute to thank Josh for his excellent work and check out his comic Worsted for Wear!
Thanks, Josh!
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