First things first. The Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three. You know the drill. I really, really, REALLY need your support! We have less than a month to raise $2,000, so please pledge today!

As an extra incentive, I am giving away my DVD copy of Monsters, Inc. along with some custom artwork to one lucky person once we cross the $1,500 milestone and right now we’re $50 away from that goal! That means if you pledge $50 right now, you have a 1 in 40 chance of winning! Those are good odds!

If you would like to see what the finished artwork looks like, check out this update I posted on the Kickstarter campaign site. I also threw a camera over my shoulder and shot a time-lapse video of me creating the artwork. So, if nothing else, you can spend a couple of minutes watching that. I threw in some very relevant, very peppy music with the video to help keep you entertained!

Again, I can’t stress this enough, I REALLY need your support on this book. Even if it’s a dollar. If everyone who visits the site each day pledged one dollar, we’d have this campaign in the bag. Please pledge today!

Now, back to your regularly scheduled blog!

Yesterday, Paramount Pictures released the teaser poster and four publicity stills for Iron Man 2. If you haven’t seen them yet, let me get out of your way so you can take a look.

Niiiiiiiiice.

I’m loving this teaser poster. It’s such an improvement over the teaser poster for the original Iron Man. Which, if you remember, kept much of the armor in shadow to whet our appetites for what we would see on screen.

Well, now we have a pretty good idea what the armor looks like from the first movie, so why not put it front and center in glorious color on the second one?

Oh, what’s this? You’ve brought a friend? He’s a little bit shy, isn’t he? We’re only going to get to see the side of his face? That’s okay! I know who you are, War Machine, you rascal!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to see War Machine on the poster for this movie. It let’s you know right off the bat how prominently the character will be utilized in the second film. That’s good news for die-hard Iron Man fans like myself. I just hope the focus stays in that realm. Because, frankly, I’m a little worried that they might be packing too much into the sequel.

Between Scartlet Johansen as Black Widow, Mickey Rourke as Whiplash and Sam Rockwell as Tony Stark’s business rival Justin Hammer, I hope there is enough time left over for a big throw down between Iron Man and War Machine. This, of course, before the eventual team-up that takes down the big bad guy.

As a director, I think Jon Favreau has a pretty keen sense of what fans want to see. I’m optimistic. But Sam Ramii knocked it out of the park with Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 before the major let down that was Spider-Man 3. So anything is possible.

Paramount releasing these images now lends strong support to the rumor that the teaser trailer for Iron Man 2 will appear in front of Sherlock Holmes when the movie is released December 25. Things will be crazy for me around that time since the baby will be born on the 10th. But I’m hoping maybe Cami and I can leave the kids with grandma and grandpa for a couple of hours so we can sneak out to see it.

If we manage to do so, my next concern will not be succumbing to a lack of sleep in a darkened theater!

Speaking of the baby, as I said, she’ll be here in a little over a week. Obviously, we’re over the moon about it. Originally, the idea was that I would take all of December off to give us time to prepare and then (of course) attend to the baby once she’s born.

I have a bunch of guest strips ready to go, but I think I’m going to put off posting them for just a little while longer. We’re pretty much ready to go on the home front and it makes more sense to build in a little extra time off after she arrives. So look for those guest strips in the next couple of weeks!

In the meantime, let’s talk about Iron Man 2! Are you guys as excited for this film as I am? Since the movie doesn’t come out until May 7, how long do you think you’ll be able to tolerate the marketing push before going insane? Does anyone have the number for a psychologist that can help with unhealthy obsessions?

DISCUSS!