Posts Tagged ‘Hollywood’
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I have a quick question for anyone in the know.
I am trying to establish contact with either representatives of Hollywood studios or PR firms that deal with the promotion of upcoming films and DVDs. My hope is to establish more movie-centric content to you guys in regards to movie and DVD reviews while fostering a promotional relationship that might yeild something in terms of prizes for contests for you guys. It’s a win-win situation. I run contests where you guys win cool stuff and the studios and PR firms are provided a unique avenue through while their projects are being promoted on a web site with monthly unique visits in the hundreds of thousands.
It’s very difficult to get in touch with these firms. Believe it or not, their numbers aren’t in the phone book. So I am approaching this somewhat unconventionally, announcing my attention in hopes of poppping up on their radar screens.
If you are employed by one of these firms or know someone who is, please contact me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com
Many 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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Apologies for the tardiness of today’s comic. We were having some server issues that prevented me from uploading it. Something about the disk quota being exceeded. I had to delete a few non-essentials off the server to allow me upload access again. I’m working with my web master to see that we don’t bump our heads against the ceiling like that in the future.
Now that we have that out of the way, I want to remind everyone to pre-order a copy of "Theater Hopper: Year One" before the day is out!
Today is Friday and I know that means payday for a lot of you. I understand that everyone has bills to pay, but if you could set aside a little something-something for us and this book, I would be eternally grateful. Orders took a little bit of a dip on Wednesday and Thursday, so let’s end the week strong!
As always, don’t forget to take advantage of our excellent street team offer! Pre-order a copy of the book for yourself and get five of your friends to do the same and I’ll send you a $20 gift certificate to Fandango.com! It’s like getting your copy of the book for free!
So today is the last day of the Benbots storyline. I hope you guys liked it. I had a lot of fun putting it together. Man, especially Wednesday’s comic. What a blast!
I wish I could have shown a little bit more robot carange because that would have been a lot of fun. But at the same time, I’m a real slave to the concept of ending storylines on a Friday. I can’t end them in the middle of the week or on a Monday. It just feels… wrong.
So if I ended up stretching out this arc to next Friday, I think it would have worn out it’s welcome. I really didn’t have much more to say beyond Jared walking home with Ben Affleck’s head in a bag.
I had a cool experience yesterday that I want to share with you guys.
You’re all familiar with the web comics newspaper Zoinks, right? Well, if not, you should really get a subscription. Because these guys do a bang-up job of promoting a really wide variety of comics. I got the first few issues and they make all of it interesting. The interviews, the articles… they even publish individual comics from all over. Great stuff.
Anyway, I had the opportunity go to one of my favorite local comic book shops and sit down with Nathaniel Payne – who, incidentally run a great web comics commentary site called The Evil Network – for a two hour interview appearing in the June edition of Zoinks. Nathaniel happens to work in the Des Moines area, so the opportunity was there to meet face-to-face and we went for it.
It’s really nice to do an interview with someone in person rather than through e-mail because when I answer questions through e-mail, the answers always feel a little bit canned. I think Nathaniel got some really good answers last night because he asked really good questions that extrapolated into other subjects. It doesn’t hurt that he did his homework a little bit. It was really a good time.
I should probably mention that Chris Cantrell from Please Rewind is also being interviewed in the upcoming issue. Basically it’s Zoinks "BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE EXTRAVAGANZA!" issue. So it should hold a lot of interest to everyone here. Be sure to reserve a copy before it goes to print!
To get you guys excited about it, I’m posting the cover to the issue that Chris and I collaborated on. It was a lot of fun. The whole Zoinks experience was aces all around.
That about does it for me. Remember to pre-order a copy of the book and have a great weekend!
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I was looking at my map overlay statistics from Google Analytics recently. It tells me roughly how many visits are coming from individual countries around the world. You can then narrow the focus down to states and even cities.
Anyway, I was looking at my map overlay stats from February and was a little disappointed to see that Iowa ranked 24th on the list of states that visit Theater Hopper most often. Where’s the love from my home state heroes? I know there’s only, like, 30 of us with an internet connection, but c’mon!
Interestingly enough, the most traffic I receive comes from California. By a wide margin, actually. Almost double that of it’s closest competitor, New York.
So that means I’m really big on the coasts in the two largest entertainment markets, apparently.
How am I supposed to interpret that? Am I seeing this traffic from California and New York because they are states with very high populations? Or are these industry people checking out what I do? Individuals that could possibly open the door to a little networking and help me circulate the comic among more industry professionals?
People who follow web comics know that if your comic is about video games, it’s almost a certainty that it will become a success. Lots of gamers spend time online and media for them is geared toward that.
To that end, I never understood why movie comics hasn’t reached the same kind of instant appreciation. There are just as many movie fans online and all of them have strong opinions that they like to share. Is it quality that’s keeping them away or something else? Have movie comics failed to capture the imagination of media professionals in the industry that could help get the word out?
That’s why I’m throwing down the gauntlet. If you work in the movie industry, I want you to contact me. If you work for the media that covers movies, I want you to contact me. I want to start establishing connections, networking – even if it doesn’t lead to anything. How well known is Theater Hopper in the circles you travel in – if at all? I’m more curious than anything else at this point. Let’s start a dialogue!
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On Sunday I read the news that there was a huge fire on the Universal Studios backlot and my heart sank. I was shaken by it; I don’t know why. And then I felt ashamed by it because it doesn’t seem like there is a year that goes by that huge wildfires rip through the state of Califorinia, decimating homes and leaving families with nothing… but the thought of a movie studio burning to the ground! *GASP!*… It just felt very selfish in comparison. Nevermind the other natural disasters that seem to be happening with greater and greater frequency all around the world. The earthquake in China — even the F5 tornadoes that recently hit here in Iowa. And I’m worried about a movie studo?
I seem to have lost my perspective. Have I bummed you out yet?
All the same, the events on Sunday (ignighted by workers using a blowtorch, incidentally) inspired this comic. So art is born again! Can you see The Circle of Life? I have a few other comics that will be posted in a short storyline, so I hope you appreciate them over the next few days. It’s not often one gets an excuse to do a Back to the Future parody, so I’m taking this flux capacitor and running with it.
I remember going to Universal Studios in Hollywood almost over 20 years ago – and in no way is that depressing. I believe I was 13 years old. My parents and I had gone to Arizona to visit relatives for Thanksgiving and then we hopped a flight to L.A. as part of an extended vacation.
I remember L.A. being very plastic and very fake. And this was during the early 90’s, pre-grunge. So everything was awash in bright neon green and pink. It was like some kind of Revlon candy land. It didn’t help that we were there over the weekend the Santa Ana winds blew into town. We didn’t know anything about it and were almost trapped outside of our hotel with sand and debris whipping down the street. They had locked up the glass doors in front to keep the vaccum of the high winds from blowing them out. We had to get inside through a service entrance. It was like our own mini disaster movie!
I’ve not had a strong desire to return to L.A. since, but if I *were* to go there, Universal Studios would be the main draw. We went there first-thing when we arrived in the city and I loved it.
Going to Universal Studios – Hollywood is a much more stratifying experience than going to the one in Florida or even MGM Studios (re: Disney Hollywood Studios) because it’s so much more authentic and so much less of a theme park experience (despite the theme park elements). We didn’t run into any filming productions when we were on the back lot tour, but several of the outdoor sets were immediately recognizable from other films. I remember when our tram turned the corner into Clocktower Square from Back to the Future and the spectacle of fantasy colliding with reality was almost too much for a young nerd to handle. It was so cool.
I feel kind of lame admitting it. I mean, I’ve since traveled the world and I’ve seen amazing, indelible, historical structures. But I speak with such effusive praise for a movie set? For a facade? I have no excuse for it. Seeing Clocktower Square from Back to the Future had as much impact on me as when I was standing 10 inches away from “Sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh at The National Gallery in London. I felt like I was face-to-face with history.
Kind of says a lot about the truncated American time line when a movie set from 30 years ago blows your mind.
That’s about all I have to say for today. Be sure to check back on Friday for the next installment of this Back to the Future mini-arc.
Have a great day!
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In all truth, Cami would probably be the LAST person to become irate at the news that the re-release of The Lion King topped the box office after 17 years. But it was funnier to suggest that Tom had a gigantic Jonathan Taylor Thomas collection.
I guess I’m not totally surprised that a re-release of The Lion King would perform as well as it did. This is September, after all. We’re all coming down from the post-summer blockbuster season. Although, I would have thought that if any movie had a chance this weekend, it would have been Drive. Maybe it’s my Ryan Gosling man-crush talking, but that movie looks cooler than cool. I would have loved to seen it this weekend if I weren’t completely wiped out from some kind of late-summer cold/flu thing that left me incapacitated. It’s a good thing I didn’t see Contagion last week or I would have felt a little paranoid!
Not much else for me to talk about this week. But, hey, since I haven’t pimped the Theater Hopper store in a while, how about this: take a look at this shirt I designed a while back called “The Movie Was Better.” I found out last week that the nerd-mavins over at ThinkGeek have a shirt of their own called “The Book Was Better.”
Now, maybe I’m biased, but I think my shirt is better. If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you feel the same way. So let’s make a pact. Buy my shirt and prove ’em wrong. Let’s face it: the design is better and it costs less money. It’s a win-win!
Plus, c’mon… ThinkGeek is producing light-up Iron Man shirts. They’re not hurting for money. Help the little guy for once, won’t you?
That’s all I got, folks. Have a great week!
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Apr06
I’m sorry that this comic is so late. In fact, this comic is ridiculously late, it could almost qualify as NEXT week’s comic. I couldn’t stomach that thought, so I tried my hardest to publish it by today.
A big part of the reason why this week’s comic was late is thanks to Emerald City Comicon. (Well, actually, the real reason it’s late is because I don’t work with a buffer. But I’m going to blame Emerald City Comicon anyway.)
Due to flights leaving from Seattle being both ridiculously scheduled (11:15 pm, REALLY?) and ridiculously overpriced ($650, REALLY?!) I opted to stay in town an extra day and take a cheaper flight that wouldn’t bankrupt me. I still got home pretty late Monday night and pretty much went straight to bed that evening.
Tuesday I spent catching up on life-stuff (hugging my kids, or whatever) and by Wednesday I was battling a full-blown case of Con Crud. I was able to draw and ink the comic on Wednesday, though and spent Thursday night coloring and shading. Remind me again how I managed to do this three times a week? Oh, yeah. NEVER SLEEPING.
Although my recovery has been difficult, the show in Seattle last weekend was AMAZING. By far the busiest con I’ve ever been to and the crowds were FANTASTIC. For whatever reason, I was innundated with requests to do sketches. I did over 40 when – usually – I do maybe 10 to 15. I’m going to upload all of them to the Theater Hopper Facebook page soon. Follow me on Twitter for notification (SYNERGY!)
Doing all those sketches actually gave me a good idea. In addition to the 4×6 sketch I currently sell for $5.00, I’m going to start offering a more highly-detailed 8×10 sketch for $10.00. I’m going to bust those out at C2E2 next week, but if you’re interested, you can place an order in the store today!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The show was great and I met a lot of really cool people. Several fans came up to me and told me they were sorry to hear that I was ending Theater Hopper. But all of them said the same thing – that I was ending it the right way and “thank you” for all the free entertainment over the years.
That made me feel really good. It made me feel like I had friends in Seattle – and you have no idea how valuable that was to me while I spent the weekend away from my family.
That’s not to say that I was completely ALONE all weekend. I ended up sharing a booth with Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex and Angela Melick from Wasted Talent. I really want to thank them for letting me crash their table. It was a fantastic opportunity and I’m glad it all worked out.
The booth space was a little tight, though. I know Angela and I bumped elbows a couple of times. If she’s reading this, I just wanted to let her know I wasn’t trying to crowd her out. Thanks for putting up with me. I hope all is well.
I also had the opportunity to hang out with some webcomic folks during the evenings. Randy Milholland from Something Positive, Jeph Jacques from Questionable Content, Alina Pete and Layne Myhre from Weregeek, James and Rebecca Hicks from Little Vampires, David Willis from Shortpacked Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza from Least I Could Do and Joel Watson from Hijinks Ensue.
I’m seriously humbled that I get to talk to these people at all. Often I feel like I’m at the “Kids Table” of webcomics. Kind of obnoxious enough to pay attention to but not serious enough to be part of the conversation. The analogy is kind of appropriate considering I was actually invited to dinner by Ryan Sohmer on Saturday night – which I need to thank him for. It was very thoughtful and he was very welcoming.
I also have to give a special shout-out to Joel Watson who let me crash in his hotel room on Sunday night after the convention to help me save a few bucks. He also had some fantastic tips that helped me out on the convention floor – even if he was being kind of a bossy boots about it!
I tease Joel because I’m insecure. But also because he is a bossy boots. He’ll have the last laugh, though because I plan on using his Proven Money Making Techniques
That’s the funny thing about ECCC this year. I actually picked up a lot of really good ideas that I’m going to be able to turn around and execute quickly at another convention. Typically I go to one – MAYBE TWO – conventions a year. Any insights I glean are usually lost by the next time I make an appearance.
This time I actually WROTE DOWN ideas to take with me to the next convention – a whole strategy document. I even managed to execute one of those idea this week. I created a business card to hand out to people who check out my Spoiler shirt.
In retrospect, this was a completely obvious thing to do. Over the course of a weekend, I would say no less than 250 people probably stop to look at my Spoiler shirts. I place them very prominently on my table and use them to attract people so I can tell them about my comic.
People either say “I gotta have that” and graciously buy a shirt or they say “That’s really funny, man” and go about their business. Either way, I was being STRAIGHT UP STUPID by not giving them something to take home with them to remind them about the shirt. So now the business card exists to say “Hey, remember that shirt you liked? There’s actually a pretty cool comic associated with it!”
Like I said, it’s completely obvious and long, LONG overdue. It’s especially egregious considering people at the convention would ASK me if I had a business card. I never did because I could never really figure out what to put on it. Contact information alone just didn’t seem… clever enough. I’m glad it only took me 10 years to figure it out. Just in time for me to end my comic! My business acumen, you see, is (how do you say it?)… not strong.
Speaking of my Spoiler shirt, by the way, we got a pretty cool shout out over at AV Club in an article called “Favorite Pop Culture Apparel.” We’re mentioned right at the top. Tasha Robinson, wherever you are, thank you! Also thanks to Ryan Estrada for sharing the link with me!
Last thing I’ll mention (again) is C2E2. I’ll be at table O2 in Artist Alley. Here’s a link to a map in case you want to find me later. I’m in the back of the hall, kind of by the Food Court. Be sure to visit me, okay, because I’m going to be lonely. My good friends with the Digital Pimp crew secured a booth this year up in the front of the hall next to the Marvel Comics monolith. That’s what I get for making arrangements at the last minute!
I’ll be selling books, shirts, buttons and sketches and I fully intend to leave as much of it on the floor as possible. If you’re at all anxious about not being able to pick up some Theater Hopper merch, I would strongly encourage you to do it this week. I’m not sure what my inventory will look like after next week and I don’t plan on restocking these items any time soon!
Next week’s comic should hopefully be a little… less late. Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding. See you again in a couple of days!
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