Posts Tagged ‘technology’
3 items.
I read this article about French movie theaters and concert halls jamming cell phone signals and I simply had to respond. Personally, I think it’s a great idea. These venues have done everything short of taking cell phones away from the more obnoxious among us and giving them a time out. Using technology to keep people from interrupting movies or performances forces a doctrine of public civility without the potential of having an usher punched in the face by a perturbed Chatty Cathy.
In case you weren’t aware, today is the last day you can place your order for one of our new “Spoiler” t-shirts. Since I don’t want to take the gamble you’re not reading this blog, I decided to go for the more direct approach with my message.
That got your attention, right?
Once the clock strikes midnight tonight, I’m going to close off this first round of pre-orders, get everything together and send off the information to the printer. If you aren’t able to make the deadline, don’t worry. I still plan on continuing to sell the shirt. Another pre-order period will take place over the span of another two weeks. This time, the next cut-off will be October 29. So if you miss the boat this time, set aside a little dough next time you get paid and we’ll hook you up.
Incidentally, once I have the “Spoiler” order information sent off, I plan on adding another design to the store.
Yes, it’s the image of Truman stuffed into a purse. Demand was high for this piece, so I decided to cave into peer pressure. This shirt will go on sale Monday and you can expect another announcement about it then.
Incidentally, both of these t-shirts would make GREAT holiday gifts, so if you’re thinking about purchasing a shirt for someone else, it’s always a good idea to pre-order early. The closer it gets to the end of the year, the busier our printer will be. So shirt orders could potentially take longer to fill. Just putting a bug in your ear about it.
That schilling out of the way, I wanted to make a short announcement.
You might have noticed that I didn’t link to buzzComix at the top of the blog. Well, that’s because today I’m doing something a little different.
Usually I provide a reward sketch that branches off from the theme or subject matter of that day’s comic. Instead, I decided to switch things up a little and share a sketch of two new characters I’ve been developing. Their names are Boulder and Mouse. If you want to see an early rendering of the pair, just vote for Theater Hopper at buzzComix by clicking this link.
I was kind of doodling, thinking about the recent story arc with Jimmy and my thoughts started to drift toward the idea that I would like to expand the Theater Hopper universe and give the main characters a larger supporting cast to play off of. Then these two spilled out of my pen.
Looking at them, their personalities and background stories immediately crystallized in my head. I’m not going to share too much right now, because I haven’t settled on exactly when I’m going to introduce them into the comic. But once they arrive, you’ll get the whole back-story. TRUST ME!
I was just really excited by what I ended up creating and I wanted to share it with you. If you’d like to discuss the ever-growing Theater Hopper family, I’ll be starting a thread about it in the THorum soon. You can toss in your two cents there. And don’t forget about our fun community building weekly event The Friday Five going on EVERY FRIDAY in the THorum. We ask you 5 questions about yourself and you answer them! Couldn’t be more simple!
Anyway, that about covers it for me. Cami and I are going to see Team America: World Police tonight at the Century (or as Cami likes to call it, “The America Movie”). It should be a good time.
Don’t forget to order your shirt and my thanks go out to those that already have! You guys rock!
Have a great weekend!
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As you’ve probably heard, District 9 comes out this weekend. Personally, I’m very excited to see it if for no other reason than to watch a science fiction movie with a little more on its mind than the next great space battle or awesome explosion.
Don’t get my wrong – space battles and explosions are great. But that’s also what action movies are for. Whatever happened to good sci-fi movies that twisted the screws a little bit or made us consider the human condition? Between District 9 and Moon, 2009 is shaping up to be a very good year for the genre.
I’m going to try and squeeze in an early matinee of District 9 this morning before rushing to meet Cami for a showing of The Time Traveler’s Wife immediately after. It’s going to be hard, but I think I can do it.
District 9 is showing at the theater that is closest to my house at 11:10 AM. The movie is 111 minutes long. So, with trailers, that means I’ll be getting out of the movie between 1:00 and 1:15 PM.
My in-laws are watching Henry today and Cami is taking the afternoon off to have lunch with her folks and Henry where they live about 20 minutes away.
After I watch District 9, I’m going to try to meet Cami at a different theater in town where her parents live to watch The Time Traveler’s Wife. That movie starts at 1:45.
So, barring no complications, I’m going to be cutting it pretty close. But if we pull it off, it will be awesome.
What’s better is that there is an outside chance Cami and I will be seeing The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard on Sunday afternoon when my parents come over to watch Henry for a couple of hours. I talked Cami into seeing it after I showed her the Will Ferrell sky-diving clip with language and images entirely NOT safe for work.
Now I know to you all of this movie-watching might sound like negligent parenting. Not the case. Cami and I are just looking to spend a little time with each other after I was in Chicago last weekend and she was in Minneapolis the weekend before that. It just so happens that there are a bunch of awesome movies coming out this weekend, so we’re choosing to take advantage of that.
I’m kind of psyched for this little experiment. I haven’t seen 3 movies in one weekend in… I can’t remember how long. Fun!
What about you guys? Which movie are you most psyched to see this weekend? What are the odds of you seeing more than one? Leave your comments below and have a great weekend!
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Oct17
People you have NO IDEA how long this joke has been percolating. I think I came up with it months ago – on Twitter, naturally.
I don’t know why, but the term “retweeted” also kind of had this ominous tone to me. This, despite the fact that I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with pithy one-liners to achieve exactly that designation.
But, y’know, think about it. Big, booming voice like James Earl Jones bellowing at you – “YOU’VE BEEN RETWEETED!” It would kind of shake you up a little, wouldn’t it?
Something else I’ll tell you, figuring out the logo for this fake movie took a lot longer than I thought it would! I guess I’m a stickler for these things. Although, in retrospect, a Twitter bird in a pool of blood is maybe a little on the nose.
And by the way, I’m completely aware of the anachronism of having a girl talk into an phone with a cord on it when I’m proselytizing for a horror movie about technology.
Not much else to say about the comic except that I hope you enjoyed it. But I will bring a couple of other issue to the fore:
- I introduced a couple of new features to the comment area including giving you the ability to give a thumbs up/thumbs down to comments AND uploading images or files into the comment thread. Hopefully this will help promote greater conversation with the comics. Let me know how that works out for you!
- I wanted to remind everyone that you can now buy prints of your favorite Theater Hopper comics. Just look for the “Buy Print” button in the comic navigation to submit your order. All comics are printed on 8.5 x 11″ cardstock and are signed by me. For $5.00 you can have a piece of Theater Hopper mailed to you in a re-enforced envelope. It’s a pretty good deal!
- Lastly, there’s a conversation happening on the Theater Hopper Facebook page that I would like you to participate in. Recently, I got the wild idea to do a children’s book about manners at the movie theater. This project would likely use Theater Hopper characters in a different context and I think the idea has legs. The twist is that the kid already knows how to behave, but comments on the things ADULTS do that are inconsiderate. At any rate, I’d like your feedback on it and if you’re not following Theater Hopper on Facebook, maybe gimme a little “Like” action. We’re 6 followers away from 1,000 and I’d like to pass that mark sometime before I die. You could be a part of history!
Anyway, that’s all I have for right now. Thanks for checking out the comic. Don’t forget the ShareThis plug in at the bottom of the blog to share the comic through your social networks! Facebook it, Twitter it, Google+ it – Heck! Even e-mail it! Everything you do to spread the word helps.
Have a great week everyone!
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