Posts Tagged ‘internet’
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Sorry that Monday’s comic was so late. I was basically wiped out after driving home from the Chicago Comic-Con on Sunday evening and didn’t have time to put anything together. I would have drawn and posted the comic sometime Monday afternoon except Monday’s are the days that we keep Henry home from day care and I watch him. So a Tuesday comic it is.
My first thought with this blog was to embed the video from the infamous parody PSA from the first season of the animated G.I. Joe cartoon show. But the language is a little salty and this is a family site. So I’ll leave it up to you to look it up on YouTube instead.
If you’ve been on the internet at all in the last 5 years, you probably know exactly what Tom is referencing in today’s comic. If not, just look up “Porkchop Sandwiches” and it will become clear real quick.
If you’re still hankering for some video giggles, check out The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Funny or Die. It features cameos from Zach Galifianakis, Alexis Bledel, Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Tony Hale, Alan Tudyk, Vinnie Jones, Henry Rollins and non-other than Sgt. Slaughter himself!
Back to the comic, it guest stars Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Our tables were next to each other on Artist Alley and we made plans to see G.I. Joe with the rest of the Digital Pimp Online crew, Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey and Jennie Breeden from The Devil’s Panties. Our good friend Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex couldn’t go that evening because he had won tickets to see the Arctic Monkeys in concert. I guess it was a sold-out show. So, good for him.
Anyway, before seeing the movie that night, I told Joe in real-life exactly what I said to him in the comic. His response was one of moderate disdain and amplified for comedic effect for this comic. I always like to portray Joe as more exasperated and annoyed with me than he is in real life. But, as they say, all humor is rooted in truth. I’m sure there were several times this weekend where he would have given anything just to shut. me. up.
I thought the movie we went to was fine. I thought it was better than Transformers 2, which is kind of faint praise. But I was able to keep up with the action and despite the wooden acting and transparent CGI work, was able to enjoy myself.
I guess you could say the trailer for the movie had lowered my expectations to the point where anything would have been acceptable. Does that make G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra a good movie? Of course not. It’s horrible. But the action moves along at a steady clip and there are a few fun, over-the-top moments.
The things I was most surprised by were the number of deaths and the amount of civilian property damage going on in this thing. The destruction the Joe’s leave in their wake is catastrophic. I can’t imagine ANY “covert” agency staying under the radar for that long when cars are being jack-knifed 50 feet in the air everywhere they go.
As for the convention, it was a good time. Always a treat to see and talk to old friends. Of course everyone who stopped by the booth was exceptionally friendly and usually the first thing people would ask was “How’s the hand.” It was nice to know that people were concerned for my well being. I appreciate it.
If you’re a new reader coming to the site for the first time, welcome! Not sure where to tell you to start. But I hope the site finds its way into your bookmarks and that you come back to visit us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I promise to update on time from here on out.
Not much else to talk about at the moment. But be sure to come back on Wednesday for more comic goodness! See you then!
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Dec28
GUEST STRIP – INDIGO
December 28th, 2009 |- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(12 votes, average: 4.83 out of 10)
Hey, guys.
First of all, my apologies for not posting a comic on Friday like I said I would. The holidays pretty much knocked me out for the count and we were left digging ourselves out in more ways than one. First, having to shovel the driveway three times over the course of the weekend thanks to the foot of snow we received. Second, having to sort and organize a million toys given to Henry and Pearl by two sets of grandparents bound and determined to spoil them rotten!
So I didn’t post a new comic on Friday and I’m sorry. But I’m justifying it to myself by saying that the person whose guest comic would have run that day would have been given the bum’s rush because traffic always takes a dip over a holiday and over the weekend. So, yeah.
Speaking of said comic, thanks to Indigo for her lovely guest strip! I don’t get a lot of guest strips from women, but I wish that I did because there is something about the way Indigo drew Cami in the third panel that makes me think I’ve been drawing her wrong all along.
Indigo’s comic is called Kismetropolis. Please check it out, won’t you? Thanks, Indigo!
Another reason I didn’t update on Friday is because I received some very big and exciting news on Christmas Eve I didn’t want it to get buried.
True to form (from a Christmas miracle standpoint) WE MET GOAL ON THE KICKSTARTER FUND RAISING CAMPAIGN FOR THEATER HOPPER: YEAR THREE!!!
As you know, I was a really, really worried about making goal with the holidays as a distraction. Well, you guys proved me wrong and THEN SOME!
I was honestly shocked and amazed by some of the big pledges that came in just before the weekend. The generosity you guys have shown to me and this project have been a big boost of confidence in what I began to view as a do-or-die situation.
I had become concerned that if I couldn’t raise the money for Year Three through Kickstarter then it would be a clear message there was no demand in the market for the book. And if there was no demand for the book, then I couldn’t envision a time where I would attempt to EVER produce it.
It became such an obstacle in my head I started to think that if I failed to raise the money, maybe it could be construed as a message to stop the comic entirely! It sounds silly now, but at the time, I was having… I guess some kind of crisis of faith!
Clearly I need to stop listening to the voices in my head because they are jerks. Your support for this project proves to me that Theater Hopper has a future and I appreciate it.
And don’t assume for a minute that I’m only considering the people who pledged money to the fund raising campaign. I know there are thousands more of you out there who continue to show their support every Monday, Wednesday and Friday simply by visiting this site. I want you to know that I appreciate you, too!
So, what are the next steps?
Well, the campaign formally ends on December 31. Kickstarter won’t let me shut it down early. So, basically, we wait out the clock. After that, Kickstarter will charge the credit cards of everyone who pledged. Kickstarter will administer these funds to me in 14 days. After that, we should be good to go!
The book itself is finished (except for the Thank You page, where I will list all of the people who backed the project) so I can send the artwork to the printer as soon as that is finished. Assuming it will take a week or two for proofs, four to six weeks for production and a week or two to mail everything out – people can probably expect their books by late February or early March.
As far as the rewards go, I’m going to try and knock down as many of those as I can right away, but there’s going to need to be some one-on-one communication with the people who pledged to make sure everything is delivered to the right place. Kickstarter collects your contact information, so I’ll be in touch with those folks in the near future.
That’s pretty much all I can think of for the time being. In the meantime, I hope everyone had a happy holiday. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to settle back into a groove and get some work done!
Talk to you soon!
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I don’t want to overplay the premise that Tom’s coma caused him to miss out on a bunch of movies for too long, but I really wanted to bring Avatar back into the fold somehow. I mean, when the movie makes half a BILLION dollars worldwide in only 4 weeks, it’s kind of irresponsible to ignore it.
I talked about watching Avatar a few days after it came out on December 21, so I won’t rehash all of the details here again. Seems kind of pointless. I guess you could say that’s another reason I don’t want to revisit all of the movies that came out in December that I didn’t do comics for on the site. Eventually things will balance out again.
Not much else for me to talk about today except to remind you that tonight is THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE TRIPLE FEATURE.
I’ve you’ve been a fan of the weekly podcast I’ve done with Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex for the last three years, then we would really appreciate it if you could swing by TalkShoe.com tonight at 9:00 PM CST as we record our final episode. We’re going to be sharing our picks for the Top 10 movies of 2009. But we’d also like to take the opportunity to have fans of the show call in and send us off on the right note.
Usually we record for one hour. But tonight, we’re going to play it fast and loose. The show could go on for two hours – maybe three. Who knows? It all depends on the turn out we see in the chat field tonight.
So set your alarms – 9:00 PM CST at http://www.thetriplefeature.com. Be there for the end of an era.
Thanks and I’ll talk to you soon!
[ 11 Comments ]
For me, watching football is like going to church. I do it once a year and I don’t pay attention.
It’s kind of hard for me not to get wrapped up in the Super Bowl, though. I have a lot of positive memories attached to previous contests. I’ve had a lot of fun hanging out with people who genuinely care about the game and watching them was almost as much fun as watching the game – if not more so. Since then, I’ve just kind of added it to the “tradition” file.
It was funny reading everyone’s tweets and status updates on Twitter and Facebook yesterday. Almost everyone I know said something to the effect of “Today is the Super Bowl. I don’t care.”
Now, I’ve certainly been guilty of this from time to time. A couple of weeks ago when they were playing the AFC and NFC Championship games, I commented to Cami “Aren’t you glad I don’t care about sports? Seriously. Because if I did, you wouldn’t see me on Sundays, ever.” I’ve even posted my own “What’s the big deal?” tweets and status updates in the past to this effect.
But reading the cacophony of disdain from my circle of friends regarding the Super Bowl made me wonder with whom were they trying to earn “Cool Points?”
The posts that kind of made me bristle a little bit were the ones that basically communicated “People who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials are dumb!” Maybe I just took the observation personally since the commercials are my favorite part.
I mean, I realize that it’s sad that I’ve been conditions to eagerly anticipate commercials. It just goes to show how deep marketing executives have their hooks into me. But you know what, tonight I’ll leave the TV off and read a book instead. Karmic balance: ACHIEVED.
(For the curious, I’m currently reading Chuck Klosterman’s “Eating The Dinosaur.”)
I’ve always looked forward to the commercials in part because it was always great one-stop shopping to watch the trailers for all of the upcoming blockbusters. I remember a few years ago when the trailer for Iron Man came out and I basically ordered everyone in the room to shut up before cranking the volume. People actually cheered for that trailer after watching it. Badass.
But this year, it didn’t seem like there were any trailers to get excited about. I saw spots for The Last Airbender, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.
I’ll admit to not being as invested in these movies as much as I was for Iron Man (how could I be), but none of these trailers connected for me. I’m not excited about any of these movies!
As I was thinking about this disconnect, it occurred to me that there really is no point in getting excited for these trailers during the Super Bowl because they’ve already been online for months. Oh, internet. Is there nothing you can’t ruin?
I shouldn’t blame the internet. Really, I have only myself to blame. Obviously I’m more connected to what’s happening online than most people. So if a new trailer hits, I’m probably watching it the second it comes out. I’m sure for some, the trailers shown during the Super Bowl were phenomenal. But for me, I’ve lost one of the tethers that convinces me to plop down in front of the television for three hours and watch a sporting event I really have no stake in.
That said, it was a good game. I wanted to Colts to win for no other reason than they represented the Midwest. That and also because all of the commentary beforehand led me to believe that Peyton Manning was the most important thing to happen to football since shoulder pads.
Since I have no stake in the outcome of the game, it would have been easy to root for New Orleans after Tracy Porter ran for a 74-yard touchdown after intercepting a pass from Manning. But it’s pretty much been our tradition to pick a team and stick with them, even when you don’t know what’s going on. It creates the illusion of a vested interest in the game.
What about you guys? Did you watch the Big Game last night, or were you too cool for the room? What did you think of the commercials? What did you think of the movie trailers. If you must, tell us what you thought of the game. Leave your comments below!
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First, my apologies for the lateness of this strip. If you’ve been following me at all on Twitter or Facebook, you know that I’ve been struggling with it.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to make this comic special because it actually has roots in something I posted on Twitter back in November. After seeing the teaser trailer for Sucker Punch and bearing witness to the cornucopia of geek-approved iconography, I tweeted what became the punchline to this strip. “They should have called it ‘Stuff The Internet Likes: The Movie.'”
That off-handed comment was picked up by the good people over at Topless Robot and included in their write-up of the trailer. And, well, I’ve basically been sitting on my hands, waiting to use it ever since.
Fast forward to last Sunday night and I am wracking my brain trying to figure out how to cram everything I want into my usual four-panel setup. I think I sidestepped the issue pretty well with the large diagonal panel in the middle. But it didn’t solve the problem of actually having to DRAW things that are normally way outside my comfort zone.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to illustrate and color a spinning propeller blade? REALLY HARD! Especially when you’ve never done it before.
There were moments when I was drawing this comic that I absolutely hated it and wanted to throw it away. I finished this one in baby steps, that’s for sure.
I will say that after figuring out the problem with the layout, it gave me just enough momentum to start the pencils. And while I hated the pencils when I was drawing them, finishing them gave me just enough momentum to start the inks… and so on.
After nearly 9 years of producing this comic, some things fall into place very easily. NOTHING about this comic was easy. So I really hope you enjoy it!
Feeling guilty yet? Let’s ignore the comic for a minute and talk about Sucker Punch.
I think most people are familiar with my stance against Zack Snyder. He might be the victim of studio marketing trying to position him as the Next Great Visionary Director, but he’s also not shying away from it and I find his hubris off-putting.
Did 300 and Watchmen look good? Sure, they looked good. But how much of that was organic to Snyder – especially when he basically had storyboards from some of the world’s best graphic artists at his fingertips for reference (iconic images that he relied on heavily).
Sucker Punch will be the true test of Snyder’s visual acuity and – begrudgingly – I have to admit, from the trailers, it looks like he will pass.
I do think he’s leaning pretty heavily on the geek iconography, though. It’s like he went to Comic Con and started cherry picking idea from the most popular booths. “Ooo! Girls in short skirts and too much make-up? Okay! Samurai swords? Toss that in! Mech battle suits? I’ll order ten!” Cynically, I believe Snyder’s little shopping spree was set up as a distraction so he would get a pass from Geek Nation.
What’s worse I that I think Snyder is justifying this with mock analysis. In a photo gallery on Entertainment Weekly, Snyder talked about the costuming of the actresses in the film and how the short skirts and plunging necklines reflect objectification.
“…But Snyder says his intention was to make a movie about the very subject of female objectification,” writes Entertainment Weekly. “The look of Babydoll (Emily Browning) was designed to be ”the personification of innocence and vulnerability,” says Snyder, causing the skeevy men in the movie to both target her and underestimate her.
‘The women in the movie take control of the sexual trappings foisted upon them, even turn [that iconography] into their own weapons. The challenge was to confront the concept of exploitation of women without creating exploitative imagery.'”
So, yeah… I call shenanigans on that.
This is off-topic a little bit, but did anyone catch last week’s episode of 30 Rock where they were parodying The Real Housewives series on Bravo? I hated that episode and here’s why… Even when you’re parodying trash television, you’re still MAKING trash television. You dig?
If Snyder thinks he is confronting the concept of exploitation without creating exploitative imagery, he’s failed. Sucker Punch is exploitation PERSONIFIED. It’s 2 hours of explosions and eyeliner. If it doesn’t exploit the women in the film specifically, it is certainly exploiting the audience, their expectations and their passions.
Not that it will matter all that much. Geeks are only fickle when you get the thing they love wrong by getting it mixed up with something else. But the elements of Sucker Punch are non-specific enough that it looks like it’ll push all the appropriate geek response buttons without any of the negative backlash. It’s kind of sinister and brilliant, when you think about it.
Against my better judgement, I might actually end up seeing Sucker Punch this weekend. If I do, I know I’ll be going by myself. This might as well have “NO WUMANS ALLOW’D” stamped on it with big, red letters.
All I know is that it’s been another long winter with dud after dud being dropped into theaters throughout January and February. I might think Zack Snyder is a first-rate hack, but I could be watching Season of the Witch.
And no one wants that.
What’s your take on Sucker Punch? Are you excited to see it this weekend? Are you at all wary of the flotsam of geek iconography that is littering the landscape of this film or am I a completely paranoid jerk?
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW!
[ 51 Comments ]
I realize that the punchline of today’s comic is kind of specific. So if you don’t know what I’m referencing, let me introduce to Rage Guy.
What is learned cannot be unlearned.
When Fast and Furious came out in 2009, I thought it was pretty lazy marketing to simply strip the word “The” from the original title and try to convince audiences, “Hey! Brand new movie!” I didn’t really think they could get less imaginative than that.
Boy, was I wrong.
Fast Five? Seriously?
I guess at this point they’re not even attempting to attract anyone that isn’t already familiar with the franchise. Fair enough. If you weren’t already a fan of the first four movies, there’s nothing about the new one that would probably attract you to it.
I’m just trying to establish context. Free from any other references, if I saw a movie called Fast Five on the marquee, I’m not sure I would be able to reconcile what that title has to do with anything from the movie I paid good money to see.
I feel it’s not beyond reason to presume that they could end up calling the next movie “Fix” or – perhaps more likely – something equally stupid like “F-Six” or “FF6.”
I probably shouldn’t be so hard on these films. As a fan of action movies from the 80’s, the Fast and Furious films are really about as close as we get to that these days.
Keep making cars explode randomly, Vin Diesel! And Godspeed!
Any thoughts about Fast Five, Vin Diesel or internet memes? Leave your comments below!
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