Posts Tagged ‘torture’
5 items.
Jul09
So how does a rotted corpse wearing a “Will Ferrell Sux” t-shirt end up tied from a tree by his thumbs? Click here to find out!
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy opens today and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it for quite a while. I know Elf was Will Ferrell’s first leading role, but I think Anchorman looks like it was written with his specific talents in mind. Just the name “Ron Burgundy” communicates so much to me. It sounds like a stage name a jock without any creativity would give to himself. It also has vague porn star undertones, which I think makes it even funnier.
Even though I hold Ferrell’s talent in great esteem, I think what will really push Anchorman over the top is the great cast they’ve assembled. Christina Applegate, David Koechner, Fred Willard and Chris Parnell are all great. Steven Carell has the newsman shtick down pat. They also have the woefully underrated Paul Rudd, who can knock an abstract comedic performance out of the park. Anyone who’s seen Wet, Hot American Summer knows what I’m talking about.
I guess the film also has a ton of cameos. Be on the lookout for Fred Armisen, Danny Trejo, Judd Apatow, Luke Wilson, Jack Black, Stephen Root, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. I really like how some of these actors who have been in other pictures together are gravitating toward each other and appearing in each other’s films. It’s quite the little company they’ve put together!
That’s about all I can say for Anchorman at the moment, so I suppose it’s best to turn my attention to another bit of news.
You might of noticed in the upper right hand corner above the comic that today’s strip marks our 300th comic. That’s a lot of doodles, my friends. Almost a year’s worth (if I was drawing every day).
I’ve been doing Theater Hopper almost two years. We celebrate that milestone in less than a month. Although I’m reluctant to do organize any crazy celebration anytime we pass markers on the road, I like to at least point them out from time to time. Because without you guys, there wouldn’t be 300 strips.
Thanks for your support. You keep reading ’em, I’ll keep writing ’em!
[ No Comments ]
If you’re digging on the Reservoir Dogs action in today’s comic, click here for a buzzComix incentive sketch featuring more of Tom as the nefarious Mr. Blonde.
Is the story that Jared mentions in today’s comic true? You betcha. It happened a couple of days ago in St. Petersburg, Florida. A woman was maced by a security officer for answering her cell phone during the opening credits of Catwoman.
Frankly, macing the whole audience in attendance probably would have been a good idea. It would teach them never to see stupid garbage like Catwoman ever again. Y’know… as long as we’re macing people.
I know today’s comic is maybe a little more gritty and violent than you’re used to, but when I read the cell phone story, I was immediately reminded of the annoying Verizon “Can You Hear Me Now?” ad campaign and wanted to spoof it. The grisly scene in Reservoir Dogs where Michael Madsen’s sadistic Mr. Blonde lops off the ear of a cop he’s torturing seemed to fit for some odd reason.
THorum is still down. We’re just waiting for the DNS transfer to kick in before we open things up again. Once we’re rolling, all registered THorumites can expect an e-mail from yours truly with the good news.
Not much else to report. I have some thoughts on the movies coming out this weekend – there are a lot. But I have a killer migraine that I’ve been trying to shake all day and I’m thinking now might be a good time to just go to bed.
Take it easy.
[ No Comments ]
Jan06
I like the idea for today’s comic, but I’m not really happy with the execution (if you’ll pardon the pun). I dunno. I felt Wednesday’s comic was probably one of the better ones I’ve produced in a while. Doing the follow up is kind of like a reverse adrenaline high.
It’s 2006 and I feel a distinct need to improve the level of my artwork this year. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can at least draw the characters and maintain a consistent look. My backgrounds still need a lot of help. Detail stuff is still kind of hard for me. But I think the major goal I want to accomplish is to learn how to color and shade better. Flesh things out a little bit more.
I think if you look at the work Joe is doing with Joe Love Crappy Movies or troll through the archives of Butternut Squash, their stuff really jumps off the page and I can’t figure out how they do it! Heck, even when Kurtz does color over at PvP, it looks sharp.
It’s like watching some dude on a souped up motorcycle launch himself off a dirt ramp. They make it look so easy when they glide through the air, but you know they had to take a lot of spills before they learned how to stick that landing.
I don’t know why I’m using motorcross analagies, but therer you have it.
Does anyone out there know about any online resources for comic coloring and shading? Any tutorials or walkthroughs? I’d be very interested to read them to learn some new techniques. E-mail me if you have any suggestions.
Much to no one’s surprise, Cami and I will NOT be seeing Hostel this weekend. Gore and torture for the sake of it? Not interested. I don’t care if Quentin Tarantino’s name is attached to it… as what? Producer? I know they’re billing it as "Quentin Tarantino Presents…"
I’m trying to understand why there has been this shift in horror movies where people are being tortured for prolonged periods of time. Used to be movie-sickos would straight up murder you (albeit in creative ways) and move on to the next nubile young thing to slaughter. Nowadays they’ll clip of your middle toe with bolt cutters and scoop out your eye with a mellon baller first. To what end? To show we’re not in control? To push the boundries of taste?
I don’t mean to position myself as some kind of elitist, but horror is a genre that I never understood. Despite the abundance of violence in mainstream American entertainment (action movies for the most part) the horror genre unto itself seems to make this it’s sole focus. In a world where real life horror surrounds us every day, it seems pointless to me to accentuate it in art. It seems redundant. The only way to make it interesting is to go so far over the top – the levels of mayhem being beyond anything you can imagine – it almost becomes a parody of death. What’s the point?
At least with the slasher flicks of the 80’s there was this kind of supernatural boogeyman element that you could tap into. A sort of background narative that begged you to ask "Who is this guy with the knife-tipped glove? Why is he so horribly burned? How is he able to kill kids through their dreams?" I could understand getting wrapped up in the novelty of that.
But some Slovakian dude that wears a bondage mask and likes to slice off fingertips? That’s just cruel and sadistic for the sake of it.
[ No Comments ]
It’s 100% fact that I was in Florida while V for Vendetta was in theaters. It was released on March 17 of this year and we were actually smack-dab in the middle of a two week long guest strip marathon. Since V for Vendetta comes out on DVD tomorrow, I thought this was a clever way for me to talk about the movie in a way that wouldn’t have been timely earlier this spring.
However, if you’re looking for the ultimate parody of the police state politics represented in the movie, I strongly suggest you check out Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Our good friend put together a GREAT storyline during the period that the film was released, creating a new character along the way… Stoic Joe-replacement-slash-secret-agent George! Classic stuff.
Originally, I wanted to do a week’s worth of comics about Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but I ended up doing this far darker and more paranoid comic instead. I think it’s my way of coping with the paranoia about my attendance at Wizard World Chicago this year.
As I’ve already mentioned, I’ll be at table # 3134 A on Artist’s Alley and I’ll be pretty hard to miss because I’ll be surrounded by the likes of other web comic luminaries like Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey as well as Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex.
I guess I’m nervous because I feel like I have a lot at stake at this convention. I attended in 2004 and that was me putting my toe into the water. Checking out the scene and trying to make sense of it all. In 2005, it was all about strengthening the relationships I made with other artists and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it. This year?… it feels more like business. I’ll have several dozen copies of my first book "Theater Hopper: Year One" with me and I want to make sure that I get it in front of as many people as possible. Obviously that means selling a bunch. But it also means putting it in the hands of other creative people and getting their feedback. It’s all about networking, baby. I’m wracking my brain over the potential of this thing.
Incidentally, if you’d like to order a copy for yourself, you can do so here. I actually just got a bunch of the cardboard envelopes I needed to mail out the pre-orders shipped to my house on Friday. So I’ve been spending the week preparing books for shipment. You guys should be seeing your orders very soon! However, if you recall, I offered free sketches to all orders placed before June 11. So I’m drawing those in the book and it’s going to take a little while. The majority of you should see your books arrive by mid-August!
At any rate, if you can make it to Chicago, please come by the table and say "Hi." If you do, I’ll be sure to give you an invitation to my book release party on Saturday night. Trust me. It’ll be a blast.
Man, three days from now I’m going to be on the road to Chicago. I can’t wait.
[ No Comments ]
Apologies for the delay on today’s blog. I uploaded the comic last night and forgot about it because today I am taking the day off from my 9 to 5 so I can work on a Theater Hopper redesign. I’m really excited, but worried I won’t get everything done before Cami brings Henry home from day care once she gets off work. At least I can lay down a good foundation without a lot of distraction. Although it’s very tempting to want to play Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess all day!
I feel kind of self-conscious about today’s comic especially after Friday’s comic. You wouldn’t believe how many messages of support I got for that comic. More importantly, you wouldn’t believe the number of converts I brought over to my way of thinking after that comic! Lots of people were sending e-mails saying “I thought you were kind of off base with your hatred for Shia LaBeouf, but seeing that picture with Harrison Ford riding bitch has me convinced!” I knew that photo was my secret weapon.
At any rate, I know that social awkwardness on a plane or in a confined space isn’t really new, but I had to figure out a way to get Jared face-to-face with his new nemisis and anything else would have been too abrupt. I’m really enjoying telling this story and feel like I could go on and on with it, but I’m probably going to try and wrap it up this week. I’ve been doing it for about a month and I’m starting to miss the topical stuff. Plus, heading into the holidays, there are going to be a lot of films I want to talk about.
Speaking of movies I want to talk about, we’re going to be talking about A BUNCH of movies tonight on The Triple Feature talkcast. Specifically, we’ll be talking about No Country For Old Men, the new Coen Brothers movie out now in limited release. In support of the new film, we’ll be talking at length about the Coen Brother’s contribution to film over the last 25 years. So if you have opinions about Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski or Fargo, call in! We’d love to talk to you!
The show starts at 9:00 PM CST. Be there or be square!
See you guys then. For me, it’s back to the redesign!
[ No Comments ]
