Posts Tagged ‘No Pants Tuesday’
11 items.
There seems to be a lot of controversy floating around the web comics universe lately and I’m wondering where it’s all coming from.
This morning I was greeted with a message in my in box from Mambo the Breakdancing Clown. If you don’t know him, he’s the guy who draws Super Stick Figure Crime Fighters. Apparently he got his knickers in a twist for being banned from Top Web Comics for violating the terms of use.
The body of the e-mail was basically a call to arms and to rebel against TWC and its fascist ways. While I agree with Mambo that we can do without TWC, he was going at it entirely the wrong way. TWC has a right to disassociate itself with content it finds offensive.
The whole episode got me thinking about the TWC in general and I found it indicative of the problem I have with vote sites in general. If you’ve been visiting the site at all in the last 3 weeks, you would know that I had links up for TWC and was fishing for votes. I later took them down after coming to the realization that these votes don’t mean a damn thing.
Web comics like all art are entirely subjective. What I may find funny, others may not. To try and put a label on it saying “this is good, this isn’t” seems silly and a waste of time. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: If Theater Hopper fails to catch on, it’s my fault for not putting out material of quality or doing the marketing legwork to spread the word. Putting that burden on the audience by whoring for votes just seems really low class to me. I can only hope Mambo comes to the same conclusion. For the record, he later retracted his e-mail saying it was something he put together in the heat of the moment.
In other ridiculous feuds, Zach over at No Pants Tuesday picked a fight with a certain Euro-centric gaming comic. I don’t know how much of my personal feeling I should inject into this commentary. Zach is a friend of the site, so it’s kind of hard not to side with him.
What’s lame, I think is the defense Little Gamers puts up. Basically, they’re saying, “You can’t take a joke” which is fine when you put it in context to the subjectivity I was talking about earlier.
But they latched onto the bit that Zach was complaining about their bashing Americans. That’s not what I took from it. It looked to me like he was complaining more in the overall disappointment the strip had become for him – stale jokes, and what not – and that’s his prerogative. But LG took the criticism, flipped it on its head and politicized it. In my opinion, they got defensive over the wrong thing.
I guess it makes me think twice when they say Americans deserve to be made fun of because we’re violent, gun-toting freaks and then they turn around like a rabid dog lunging at a Slim Jim at the slightest provocation. That’s like me saying it’s okay to make fun of the Sweeds because they’re not worth anything more than cheese, clocks, chocolate and neutrality. It paints them with a pretty wide brush.
I’m probably only adding fuel to the fire, but for chrissakes, people! They’re only comics – you know? Funny pictures with words and all? Lighten up!
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I gotta lot of stuff I wanna get through in this post, so get comfy.
First off, the strip. Basically it’s an answer to Wednesday strip over at Zach Miller’s No Pants Tuesday. Zach was cool enough to stick me into his “Auditions” storyline in a little cameo. You can view it here. I’m the guy in the orange shirt. Anyway, I was so flabbergasted (and I think that’s the right word), it was only fair to return the favor.
Wait. Lemme take the back. Fair? The Gods DEMANDED it! So there you go.
Thanks to Zach for the plug and thanks for letting me portray his character as a bitch-slapping loud mouth. If you’re not visiting his comic at least once every day, then you offend me personally. I wish I could draw his strip every day. For some reason, I found drawing his character easier than drawing my own! Some stiffs have all the luck…
Thursday was such a good day for me personally, I can’t help but gloat a little bit.
I got home after a particularly long day at work to find a certain package from Sony waiting for me. To my delight, it was my own personal Network Adapter for the Playstation 2. Cost to me? Jack squat!
How did I land such a sweet deal? I was one of the lucky bastards this summer to beta test the adapter. My reward was a free unit hot off the assembly line. Joy! Needless to say, I’m waving it all inches from your face taunting “Nah na-na boo boo!”
Now if I could only get an internet connection fast enough to let me use it…
Second order of business. I nuzzled into my La-Z-Boy this evening to watch the MTV Video Music Awards. I had popped a bag of corn and settled in expecting to be disappointed like I am every year. But I watch anyway because I’m an optimist at heart.
The proceedings were got off on the right foot when James Brown came out to wrap the opening number, but things were on their way to Hell in a hand basket right-quick with that extremely forced and odd birthday ode to Michael Jackson shortly after. Things weren’t a total wash, though. The back-to-back performances of The Hives and The Vines restored my faith. Plus seeing The White Stripes walk away with a few awards was justified. Have you even SEEN “Fell In Love With A Girl”? I mean, C’MON! Moooooving… Legooooo’s…
But to top it all off, GUNS AND ROSES CLOSED OUT THE SHOW!!! Did anyone else see this? I practically shat my colon when they came on stage. Axl is looking a little beefy and the voice was a bit creaky, but WOW! It was so good to see them in the flesh and blood again, words can’t describe. Of course, only Axl and Izzy are left from the original lineup, but like Jimmy Fallon said after their set, “Buckethead did his job”.
In my opinion, their performance will be what people look back on and say “This was it. THIS is what ended Britney Spears, N’Sync and all their crappy imitators. G ‘n’ R came back and showed them how it was done. Rock has returned.”
I am giddy. Giddy, giddy, giddy.
More later, but for now, visit No Pants Tuesday and also Nothing Nice to Say. Mitch was cool enough to add me to his links so I want to be sure everyone is visiting his site. Go now! (but come back later!)
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Something I wanted to mention earlier, but forgot: Both Nothing Nice To Say and No Pants Tuesday are back in full swing.
Anyone who already checks this site, probably already checks theirs – so this information may not come as a surprise. But both of these guys are buddies of mine and I wanted to give them a shout-out. It’s great to see them back on the horse.
…and nooooo, I’m not talking about heroin!
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Yes! I just cast the vote that put us at #15 on TWC. That’s just ahead of NPT! Rock it!
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I don’t know what it is about summer, but it seems to instgate a lot of change.
First It’s All Been Done hangs up its hat, then I learn that Force Monkeys closes up shop, NOW I’m reading that my beloved Nothing Nice to Say is ending its run in 5 days? Nevermind Zach from No Pants Tuesday has seemingly taken a vacation to Mars, or something. What the hell am I supposed to do with myself now that all my favorites are leaving me?
I guess I’ll have to make some new friends.
Never-the-less, be sure to visit all of these fallen brothers and make sure their archives remain strong.
In more positive news, Mark Velard of Jayhoo and Jawhoo is upping production to FIVE TIMES A WEEK! I guess it just goes to show when a door is closed a window is opened. Check it out!
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Making the rounds this morning, I was pleased to find that Zach finally got off his firmly-toned can and updated NO PANTS TUESDAY! Yippie!
Be sure to swing by and tell him Tommy sent’cha. Give him props for the new art direction, as well. It’s hella tight, peeps.
Fo’ sheezy.
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I just wanted to tip everyone off to the new happenings on the Bonus Materials page.
I’ve recently received some great fan art from T. S. Tennant of Counting the Cracks and Mikey McCollor of Still Untitled. They’re both really cool and you should check them out right now.
And if you have an extra minute, scroll to the bottom of the page for a couple of Guest Strips I’ve posted. One of them was for Zach over at No Pants Tuesday, but he never posted the damn thing. So now I’m beating him to the punch.
The other was for Absath< at Ctrl+Alt+Del – a recent submission for his guest week opportunity.
I had a blast making both and think they might even be funnier than what I do normally around here!
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Well, it’s not 100% official, but it looks like I’ll be going to Minnesota soon for my VERY FIRST comic book convention! I’m getting really excited for it.
Setting up a booth at a convention is going to be a really big step for me. It’ll be an opportunity to meet the fans and maybe sell a little merchandise in a market a little larger than Des Moines.
The real kicker to this event is that there is a strong likelyhood that I will be sharing table space with Zach from No Pants Tuesday, Mitch from Nothing Nice to Say and Carrington from Movie Punks (driving all the way from Toronto!)
This little scheme of ours has been in the works since late spring at least. Finally things are coming together.
So if you feel like coming to Minneapolis to meet the 4 of us, mark your calendar for Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5. It’ll be a blast. If you’re interested in learning more about the convention, you can find their website here.
Oh, and Carrington, if you’re reading this – Send me or Zach an e-mail with your instant messenger address if you have. We need some information to submit to the convention organizers to confirm our table reservation.
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In my rush to post a comic today for the one I missed on Monday, I totally neglected to post a blog recapping my experience at the Minnesota FallCon comic book convention this weekend.
I had been geared up for the event all last week. As I was making final preparations, I could hardly contain myself. I started having trouble sleeping Thursday night before we were to make the 4 hour drive to Minneapolis on Friday. By the time the first day of the convention rolled around on Saturday, I couldn’t sit down.
Being as amped up as I was (and also trying to navigation an unfamiliar city), I decided to head out to the convention center early. I was there to greet everyone when the doors opened. I met Zach from No Pants Tuesday first, then Mitch from Nothing Nice to Say arrive and finally, Carrington from Movie Punks . Suffice to say, they were all really cool.
It was weird to meet these guys in person after corresponding with all of them in one form or another over the last year. I knew what they looked like, I knew their sense of humor, but it’s like they weren’t real people until they were right there in front of you.
Conversation flowed like wine and we were all getting along great. Sometimes, we’d be so deep in conversation, we’d ignore people checking out our booth! Whoops!
But I’m glad things turned out that way and not the other. It would have really sucked if we were all just sitting there, staring off into space with nothing to say to one another.
In terms of people who came to check us out, I’d say the turn out was pretty good. True, the majority of people who stopped by didn’t know who we were or what our comics were about. And when we told them they were on the web and that we update multiple times a week, we got some interesting reactions.
But I’d say most of those reactions were positive! A lot of people promised to check out the site. And if you’re one of those people and you’re reading this right now – I love you!
Carrington and I would sometimes have some odd overlap when were explaining our sites to people. People would ask one of us what it was about, and we would say “Well, it’s a comic that makes fun of movies and it’s updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.” Then they would turn to the other and we’d say “Ditto.” We had fun playing around with people and charge that one was ripping off the other. Good times.
The biggest treat of the convention was meeting the people who were already familiar with the site. The crew from Still Untitled came to visit and we chatted them up for a good while. They were really cool. BobaBen from the forums also said hello and it was good to see him.
All in all, it was a great experience and it was great to sit around and talk shop with the other creators. I had so much fun, I’m thinking about heading out to another convention in Kansas City this November. Theater Hopper Tour ’03!
Be sure to keep checking the site because I’ll be offering TWO posters that were on sale at the convention. I have a new one for Theater Hopper and a SPECIAL EDITION poster created by the four of us who shared a booth together. It’ll be a trip!
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Something I wanted to mention yesterday but was too busy fighting off a migraine to recall is that Zach Miller – yes THAT Zach Miller, the one from the erstwhile No Pants Tuesday – has thrown his hat back into the web comic ring with a new strip called Joe and Monkey.
What’s Joe and Monkey about? Simple, really. It’s the tale of a delivery boy named Joe and a monkey named Monkey. Oh, and be on the lookout for Kleptobot!
Anyone familiar with Zach’s work knows that Joe and Monkey has been in development for a long time. There’s a good reason for that. Y’see, Zach sometimes has a little problem with updating on time. Not a strike against him! Just stating a fact!
Well, Zach knows it just as much as we do, so he decided to do something about it. That’s why he produced A TON of comics in advance so he would never miss an update. You think I’m joking, but the amount of comics he produced weighs literally 2,000 pounds.
At any rate, I’m really excited to see Zach producing comics again and also experienced a warming of the heart when he mentioned Theater Hopper in his opening blog and had lots of nice things to say. Thank you, Zach! You cut to the core of me!
Incidentally, I will be sharing a booth with Zach at Wizard World Chicago August 13 through 15. Don’t forget Mitch Clem of Barrett’s Lament or Neil G from Robot Stories. They’ll be there, too.
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