Today’s guest comic comes to us from Paul Southworth, formerly of Ugly Hill and currently from You Are Dead over at Crispy Gamer.

Paul was a total rock star putting together this comic. He was quick to respond when I asked if he could help me out and was really excited about it along the way.

Before submitting it to me, he asked if I had anything planned for 9 and I had to admit I did not. Within a couple of hours, he sent the finished comic and I was blown away! I seriously need to pick his brain about how to do backgrounds. He only throws in a couple of details, but does a much better job of giving the characters a believable space to operate in than I do.

Oh, and the joke is funny, too! ;D

Be sure to check out You Are Dead over at Crispy Gamer and don’t forget to look up Ugly Hill while you’re at it. Paul isn’t updating Ugly Hill anymore, but the archives are still online and well worth your time.

If you have a Twitter account, I suggest following him there as well. I find his updates consistently hilarious and a fun addition to my Twitter feed.

Thanks again, Paul, for the excellent guest strip!

As for 9, I keep forgetting it’s in theaters today. I don’t know if it’s because it’s coming out on a Wednesday or because I haven’t seen ads for it or what. But it feels like it’s off my radar.

I want to see 9, but I don’t feel as excited for it as some people seem to. It looks interesting, but it doesn’t look like a must-see to me.

The movie is being billed first as “Produced by” Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov which doesn’t reflect the awesome team-up potential those names together might inspire. Basically all it says is that they liked the source material and put up some money to see the movie made. Shane Acker is the director and is essentially an unknown quantity with a handful of credits to his name.

I would say that I was impressed by the voice talent in this movie – Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly and Elijah Wood all star – but, truthfully, voice over work is such an easy paycheck for these actors, it’s hard to get excited about the movie on name recognition alone.

Basically I’m expecting to see a movie unlike anything visually put to screen before. But in terms of story and plot… well, the jury is still out.

What are your thoughts about 9? Are you going to try to see it today, or is everyone staying indoors to play Rock Band: The Beatles?

Happy 9.9.09, everyone! Remember: this will never happen again! Well, until 10.10.10 – which is basically the same thing.

Cheers!