Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’
8 items.
Today is the day of the big California recall election. If you’ve been watching the news, maybe you’ve heard about it.
I don’t know how much I can add to the cacophony of opinions on the matter, but I will say this: Only in California could a candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger run for governor and be taken seriously. If he tried to pull something like that in, oh, Nebraska, they’d laugh him right back to Austria.
It’s a scary thought that Kindergarten Cop could be in charge of the 5th largest economy in the world. The decisions he makes in office could potentially affect us all.
I think Ah-nold has a pretty good shot at winning this thing. They say name-recognition is the largest deciding factor at the polls come Election Day. Whose name is more recognizable than Schwarzenegger? Well, if you can spell it, that is.
So what if the man has some skeletons in his closet. I think all of us can agree that a man who (as an actor) has performed scenes disposing enemies in some of the most gruesome ways captured on film might have a misogynist streak in him.
And don’t forget this is California we’re talking about. The state that insists on giving Robert Downey Jr. work no matter how many times he turns up stoned and passed out in the backyards of complete strangers. Arnold’s misadventures in groping look like me parking in a handicapped spot by comparison.
I’ll be monitoring the election tonight. You should too. It’ll be a fascinating and wholly terrifying examination of the democratic process.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this fun fact that I found on the Internet Movie Database:
Did you know that the Mattel Toy Company started to make some Conan the Barbarian action figures, but after viewing the film, the executives realized that they couldn’t afford to be associated with a film with such graphic sex and violence. They gave their doll blonde hair, called him “He-man”, and thus created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Who ended up with the better deal? The world may never know.
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S’more Kill Bill action for ‘ya. Man, I can’t wait to see this movie!
I spent most of yesterday afternoon wracking my brain trying to come up with an idea for today’s strip. I thought I was stuck with writer’s block before this idea hit me. I think it turned out really well. Who says girls don’t fantasize?
I really like the poses I was able to draw Cami in, but when I showed it to her, she could only comment on her hair. “My hair doesn’t look like that!” she said. “Let ME draw my hair.”
Women… 😉
Much like I was out of the house all last weekend, this weekend is Cami’s turn. She’s visiting her sister at our alma mater to partake in Homecoming festivities. I’m happy for her. I think she’ll have a good time. I guess all I have left are these sexy poses to keep me company. *Rrrrowr!*
I kid.
I would like to call everyone’s attention to a new advertiser. Please visit Quadboy Presents: Rants of a Madman.
Those of you who visit Movie Comics might be familiar with Quad’s work. He mainly writes movie reviews, but he’s just recently gotten into music reviews. All I can say is that the little bugger is PROFICIENT. He updates often and always has something unique to say, so check his site often. Tell ’em Theater Hopper sentcha!
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Apr11
GUEST STRIP – MICHAEL LALONDE
April 11th, 2005 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(4 votes, average: 7.75 out of 10)
So you’re probably wondering why today’s comic looks slightly different. Please excuse my rudeness for not providing a little forewarning, but I’m taking a little break from the comic and you guys get to benefit from a few weeks of guest strips!
Basically the situation is this: Cami and I will be traveling to Texas to visit relatives on Wednesday and coming back next Monday. Be jealous because I will be attending a NASCAR race! (note playful sarcasm). As a partial effort to cover my absence and a partial effort just to give me a long overdue break, I solicited my friends in the web comics community for guest strips!
I was overwhelmed with the support I have received!
Today’s guest comic comes from Michael Lalonde. That’s the creator of Orneryboy to you and me. You should really reward his kindness by visiting his site. Michael updates every Monday, so there’s actually a fresh comic waiting for you there now! Of course, it probably won’t make much sense as it is slightly out of context. It’s part of a bigger storyline that started here. You should definitely read the whole thing. It’s quite hilarious and one of my favorite Orneryboy arcs.
Michael is a busy guy, so he’s had to scale back his work on Orneryboy. I’ll be the first to step up and say “I don’t care.” As long as I get a weekly fix, I’m good. Michael is too strong a talent to let slip from view. So be sure to tell him that you appreciate his work. Here’s to hoping he will continue his work on Orneryboy for a long time to come!
Incidentally, today’s strip marks Michael’s 150th comic. He plays it down, but it’s a big deal. His artwork and storylines have been some of the most consistent in web comics. I’m lucky to have him as a college!
Can you tell I’m a fan?
Anyway… about my absence. Like I said, I will be gone Wednesday through next Monday. So you can at least expect to see me trolling around the THorum for a little while. And who knows? You might even be able to e-mail me and I’ll respond.
Guest strips will run all this week and all next week with a regular Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. I’m giving myself a little buffer before and after my vacation not only to catch up from the real-world stuff I will miss while I am away, but to also take my comic-making time and convert it into site-redesign time.
Yes, I know I’ve been threatening a site redesign for a long time. But I’ve finally settled on a look I love. Don’t worry. It’s not that drastic a change up front. What it will revolutionize, however is how the site operates behind the scenes. My hope is that this effort will make the site easier to update in the future. It is my goal to unveil this new look when I return to making comics full time. It is also my goal to reopen the store with a bunch of great new merchandise as well as some old-favorites that have been missing for far too long!
In other words, if you’ve been aching to get your hands on a Spoiler t-shirt (which has been off the market since – geeze? – December?) you may soon get your change to make a pre-order!
As I said, I hope to have these new changes instituted when the guest strips conclude!
In the meantime, please visit Orneryboy and also please continue to vote for Theater Hopper. I will be drawing incentive sketches of my collaborators creations as the guest strips run. So that means you get to see my take on Orneryboy by clicking this little link. Have at it!
Again, many thanks to everyone who is helping me this week and next!
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Can you imagine if the whole world had its contrast thrown out of whack Sin City style? I bet people would be walking around with screaming migraine headaches, that’s for sure.
With the thought of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City hitting shelves on Tuesday with its release on DVD, I decided to revisit a little visual trick that seemed to impress some people back in May.
It’s not as effective this time around, I realize that. It’s visual paraphrasing at best. I didn’t have time to sit down and do the prep work like I did for the earlier comics. Actually, I just got back from Kansas City after going South to see Rufus Wainright and Ben Folds in concert. The concert was delayed an hour due to the weather and we ended up getting rained on anyway, but it was totally worth it. I have a bunch of pictures from the show that I’ll have to share sometime later.
Apologies for the short blog. I’m just out of words for the moment.
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Sincere thanks to everyone who was patient waiting for this comic. It was supposed to be posted on Friday, but due to the fact that the triple A batteries in my wireless keyboard ran out and I didn’t have any fresh ones in the house, it had to wait.
Pan’s Labyrinth has been on my radar for what feels like months and this is the first time in a long while I can remember being excited about any movie that has opened in late January. Typically this is the studio dumping ground. You hardly ever see anything this inventive.
Of course, if you want to get technical, Pan’s Labyrinth was already released last year (to make it an Oscar contender) and it’s only now being released wide. I don’t care. I’ve been starving for something of substance.
It’s true that Cami originally shot down the notion that we would be going to Pan’s Labyrinth. She wasn’t interested – bottom line. I think she felt she "served her time" when she sat through nine hours of Lord of the Rings. Fantasy isn’t really her bag.
But for whatever reason, I don’t really think of Pan’s Labyrinth as fantasy. Sure, it has fantasy elements. But I’m almost less interested in stories about fauns and faeries than I am about seeing Guilliermo del Toro’s interpretation of them. I mean, Hellboy wasn’t that great of a movie. But I think his attention to detail and design pushed it from a so-so movie into a visually rich and textured one. No small task for comic book fare.
At any rate, in order to put Pan’s Labyrinth on the viewing docket, I had to pledge to Cami that I would see that new movie with Diane Keaton where she’s still desperate to prove she’s sexually viable – Because I Said So. Did anyone think of the implications of what Something’s Gotta Give would wrought? Why do I want to see movies about horny people in their 60’s? Or is that a double standard since I happen to enjoy the Grumpy/Grumpier Old Men movies? Then again… Ann Margret. RWWOR!
Thanks again for your patience waiting for the delayed comic. I appreciate it. See you here (on time) on Monday!
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If you’ve been reading the blogs at all – and if you’re reading this right now, chances are you have been – you’re aware that I made a deal with Cami to see Because I Said So when it comes out in two weeks in exchange for her seeing Pan’s Labyrinth with me this weekend. The more I think about the arrangement, the more I’ve been able to mine humor from it. All I know is that when this movie finally comes to theaters and we go see it, it can’t possibly live up the level of awefullness that I’ve made it out to be. It’ll probably end up being a really good move and I’ll be eating crow. But that’s cool. It’s all entertainment.
Cami and I saw Pan’s Labyrinth on Saturday and I think I’m still processing it. The movie certainly as fanciful as I had hoped. There is a certain level of harsh contrast set against the Spanish civil war. But, in terms of it being an effective fairly tale, I think it accomplishes it’s goals. Frankly, when you compare what Guillermo del Toro has created against many other popular fables, the level of violence is appropriate. I mean, Hansel and Gretel are nearly cooked alive! Pretty scary stuff when you’re five years-old. That said, I don’t think your average five year-old can appreciate some of the political and societal references made in the movie, so it’s very much a fairy tale for adults.
I read a review that complained that the movie spends a little too much time focusing on the villain and finding ways to punish him rather than focusing on the small girl for whom the fantasy realm reveals itself to. I have to agree a little bit. Mostly because there is only so much cruelty that can be shoved in my face before I have to step back and say “Alright! We get it! He’s not a nice guy!”
Of course, I’ve also read reviews that have said the villain is supposed to be a representation of director Guillermo del Toro’s brutal relationship with his father. So, within that context, it makes a little more sense.
Cami enjoyed the movie and recognized it as fine film making, but noted that it doesn’t leave you with much of a warm fuzzy feeling. And, in that sense, the movie oversells itself. The wonderment. It comes in small doses. The rest is fairly tough to digest. Still good work all around.
If you’re interested, we’ll be talking about Pan’s Labyrinth tonight at 9:00 pm CST in the third installment of The Triple Feature talkcast at Talkshoe. By “we,” of course, I refer to myself, Joe Dunn and Gordon McAlpin. We’ll also be talking about the announcement that the MPAA has been hosting open discussions with filmmakers at Sundance this weekend about revising the ratings system. This is a monumental change. There hasn’t been a change in MPAA policy in the organization’s 40 years in existence.
I hope you guys join us this evening. Joe, Gordon and myself have been having a lot of fun putting these shows together.
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Mar19
In real life, Cami like to temper my fanaticism about Iron Man by suggesting the character might possibly be gay. Something about the mustache, she says. Wives always overlook the first rule of a man-crush. Ignore the haters.
That said, I’m probably only giving her more ammunition by producing a comic like this, but so what. It’s all in good fun.
I took a look at this weekend’s upcoming releases to find something timely to make fun of and was uninspired. Drillbit Taylor looks like nothing more than Owen Wilson’s “getting back on his feet” movie after his suicide attempt a few months ago. Audiences will give him a pass on this one if it’s awful and assume he’s still working out the kinks.
Meet the Browns is like the what?… sixteenth Tyler Perry movie this year?
Shutter looks like more reheated J-Horror that I liked better when it was The Ring, The Grudge or The Eye or whatever.
So, just like in the comic, I do what I always do when faced with a problem. I visit my happy place! Admittedly, Iron Man’s May 2 release date is always near the top of my list when I think about stops I need to make while visiting my happy place. Just buckle yourselves in now, folks. Because these random comics about Iron Man are only going to get more and more frequent the closer we get to May 2.
Beyond that, not a lot of news to report. I’m still enjoying my time off and making great progress on the site redesign. I’ve got the template all figured out and now I’m actually in the content writing stage. One of the big problems with my last redesign was creating navigation for stuff I never ended up writing content for. Not this time. I’m not releasing ANYTHING until all pages are written and accounted for.
I think you guys are really going to like the new design. I’m flattening things a great deal. The home page will be the comic, the blogs, and access to the archive. That’s it. There’s a lot of distractions on the home page right now. I’m trying to get rid of a lot of that and shuffle off some of this content to support pages. Y’know – so you have a reason to hang around the site for more than 20 seconds!
Anyway, that’s all for me. I hope you’re having a good Wednesday! See you here Friday!
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May21
GUEST STRIP – BRANDON J. CARR
May 21st, 2008 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(3 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10)
Hey, guys. Thanks for visiting the site today. I really hope you enjoy today’s guest strip from Brandon J. Carr. I think it’s an excellent Indiana Jones parody and I love Brandon’s style. I’ll tell you – if I was one TENTH the cartoonist Brandon is, I’d be going places!
Brandon has a comic called Weird Adventures In Unemployment that you really need to check out. He also has a blog that he semi-regularly updates and the dude just celebrated his birthday! So wish him well!
Thanks, Brandon!
Thanks also to those of you who have sent their positive comments and prayers to me and my family as my Dad underwent open heart surgery yesterday. I tried to provide updates through the day with my Twitter account and it helped keep me sane. It also helped that the hospital staff kept us updated every step of the way. We knew what time he went into surgery, what time the first incision was made, what time he was on the heart/lung bypass machine and what time he was stitched up and moved to ICU. It made the wait much less agonizing.
I came back to the hotel room last night and wrote a complete recap on my LiveJournal. So if you want to read it, that’s where it’s at.
I wish I could talk more about movies. The Cannes Film Festival was over the weekend and Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull is creating a lot of buzz. I am peripherally aware of these things right now, but it’s just not my focus. Give me a week or so to get back on track.
Actually, I have kind of a funny blog post in mind about a Indiana Jones toy I received from Burger King last week. It’s about Shia LaBeouf. I took pictures and everything.
Anyway, that’s all from me this morning. I’m going to get ready and swing by the hospital for a visit. I’ll probably be there until the afternoon before I have to go home to Cami and Henry. I got a call from my Mom this morning. She couldn’t sleep and went over early. Dad is alert and awake. Uncomfortable, but doing well. The surgery really went as well as we could have hoped for. Now we’re focused on recovery.
Thanks again for your patience and support. I’ll talk to you again soon.
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