Archive for ‘Blog’
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I’m feeling kind of spunky this afternoon and I wanted to share a few links to some other web sites that I think you guys should check out.
Used to be, back in the day, I would trade links with anyone who batted their eyelashes at me. These days… well, I’m a little more busy. But I don’t want that to be an excuse. I want to tell you guys what I’m into because that’s really the spirit of the web comics thing, isn’t it? I don’t want to stake off this little piece of internet and feverishly protect it like a frothing Gollum. "My web sitesee! Preccciiouuusssss!" Nope. Instead I’m gonna share the love. It’s good karma, doncha know?
THE PC WEENIES – Krishna Sadasivam is a great guy who produces a really sharp comic about the IT world. I don’t work in IT. I don’t know a lot about IT. But I kow a lot of guys who do, and this kind of stuff rings exceptionally true. I think he has a real strong sense of characterization. It’s just really easy to imagine what Bob and Grampa sound like.
MULTIPLEX – If you like Theater Hopper, you’ll dig Gordon McAlpin’s Multiplex. It’s about movies, but in a different way. Instead of having outsiders running around making commentary about movies, imagine if Jimmy got his own comic. That’s what Multiplex is like. It’s from the eyes of the people who work in the theater! Gordon has a way of taking really funny situations and playing them straight. Which, I think, makes them funnier. Plus, I like Gordon. I’ve chatted him up a few times online and he seems really into what he’s doing. I think that’s worth something right there.
POPCORN PICNIC – Another movie-related comic. This one is just getting off the ground. Chris Shadoian’s artwork is really sharp. Like an Archie comic with a hipster bent. If you’ve read Acid Keg, you’re kind of familiar with the style. Chris is out there, quietly doing his thing and I believe it’s time someone made some noise about it. Incidentally, it was Gordon who tipped me off to this one.
DIGITAL PIMP ONLINE – In my head, everyone in the universe already knows about the great work Joe Dunn is doing with his myriad of comics. This guy’s level of talent seriously freaks me out. It scares me. His work with Mighty Mitch Clem on The Coffee Achievers is about to come to a close, but I think it’s probably one of the greatest colaborations in web comics. Nevermind his work on Matriculated, Free Lunch and Joe Loves Crappy Movies. The later being a movie comic that always comes up with jokes I wish I had thought of! Joe is all over the map with his work and I don’t think he gets enough credit. So check out each one of those comics that he works on and find out why I call him "The Hardest Working Man In Web Comics."
Anyway, those are a few sites for your bookmark folders. If you’re in the mood for some new stuff, I would strongly encourage you to check them out!
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Have you ever heard the expression "If not for bad publicity, we’d have no publicity at all?" I have to imagine that the producers of Curious George are thinking they could do without this kind of publicity…
Allan Shalleck ,a collaborator on the children’s book series Curious George has been found dead on the driveway of his mobile home in Florida. Police say Allen Shalleck’s body was covered in black garbage bags. Neighbors had passed by for a least a day, thinking it was just trash. He was 76 years-old.
The world is pretty screwed up, isn’t it?
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Can I just say something really quick about Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles?
I was watching it last night – Actually listening to it would be more apt. I put on the commentary track with director Brad Bird and Producer so-and-so while I was drawing today’s comic.
Anyway, I was listening to the commentary, and the darn thing is about as funny as the actual movie. What a great commentary track. I live for stuff like this. Most commentary tracks are very flat and boring. They talk about how hot is was that day or how difficult scene "x," "y" or "z" was to shoot. The Pixar guys really go into detail telling you stuff about the production that you actually want to know.
I could watch The Incredible’s over and over. It speaks directly to my comic book sensibility and every time I watch it, I catch some kind of new detail. These was a film made with great love and care. The expressiveness of the animation totally sells. If I ever am at a lose for an expression to give the Theater Hopper characters, I will toss in The Incredibles and pick up a new one every time.
Watching their films makes me want to pack up my bags and move to Emeryville, California so I can camp out at their studios. I’d love to get a job there. But I just remembered I’m not an animator.
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For today’s Web Comics List incentive sketch, I drew a picture of the man himself – Burt Reynolds.
My rendition looks a little lop-sided and goofy. But I think that’s okay, because the real Burt Reynolds is lop-sided and goofy. I keed! I keed!
I know today’s comic kind of feels like a non sequitur and you may think that it’s coming out of nowhere. But there is actually a good reason for all this talk about Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck and moustaches. Today is actually the unoffical celebration of national Burt Reynolds Day. To mark the occassion, several participating web comics have done strips centered around Mr. Reynolds. As I figure the majority of Burt’s work is in the movies, it seemed to fall well within our thematic scope. And thus, a commemorative comic was made. I hope you enjoyed it!
The holiday was the brain child of Boxcar Comics partner DJ Coffman. If you want the whole scoop behind the christening of the holiday, I strongly encourage you to check out his comic Yirmumah. Answers lie within.
As it happens, Burt’s birthday is on Saturday. Can you believe he’s 70? Yeah. Me either. Maybe you’d like to visit his web site or wish him well with an e-mail.
Not much else to report. Looks like Cami and I will be going to either The Pink Panther or Firewall. It’s a toss up. We know we’ll be dissapointed either way we turn. Do we risk Steve Martin trampling on Peter Seller’s legacy? Or do we bear witness to Harrison Ford’s physical decline as an action star – rolling our eyes as he beats up Paul Bettany.
Then again, I could probably take that pasty Brit to the cleaners, so maybe it’s not entirely implausible.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
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This has nothing to do with movies, but I feel bad about not providing you guys with a new comic today. So I thought the least I could do was tell you a story about the Nine Inch Nails concert I went to last night.
Well, actually – The LEAST I could do is nothing. But you get my meaning.
Jared and I went to the concert together last night pulling into the parking lot about 6:00. We we just kind of hanging out for a while, waiting to go in – when I realized about 6:20 that I had forgotten the tickets!
I felt like such a moron. At the end of the day Thursday, the last thing Jared said to me before I went home (we work in the same office building and department) was "DON’T FORGET THE TICKETS!" I went home, let Truman out to go to the bathroom, changed clothes, made sure Truman was fed and immediately had to turn around to get across town and pick up Jared. In my rush, I forgot the tickets.
So we’re rocketing back across town on the Interstate the day after we got this big snow and ice storm, trying to get back to my house so we can grab the tickets and get back to the arena before the show starts at 7:30. We managed to do it, but what a waste of time. Jared was actually really understanding. I figured he’d be really ticked off, considering he’s the Nine Inch Nails Super Fan. But he was cool about it. I think I was actually more upset.
Our tickets were for general admission, so once we got inside, we headed to the floor. We positioned ourselves center stage half way between the front row and the sound board. It was a pretty good spot. We stood behind this guy and his girlfriend who was a total Avril Lavigne clone. Except she was about 4 feet tall, so it made it really easy to see over her.
The opening band was called Moving Units and the were nothing spectacular. They were out-and-out rip offs of The Killers. And I hate The Killers. Their lead singer was mumbling the whole time and acted barely enthused to be there. I’m sorry, but that’s just posing. If I was in a band lucky enough to open up for Nine Inch Nails and play big arenas, I think I could muster a little more enthusiasm. They left the stage with a smattering of applause.
When Nine Inch Nails started an hour later, Jared and I were shoved toward opposite ends of the crowd, so I didn’t see him until the end of the show.
The show itself was really good. A good mix of new and old songs, frenetic mosh pit anthems and slower, more atmospheric work. Most importantly, they played "Suck" – which is probably my favorite Nine Inch Nails song ever. I remember playing that one over and over when I was in high school. Just taking long walks, stomping around and listening to it on an infinite loop.
Trent Reznor looked really good. I don’t know what he’s been doing lately, but I’d like to look into whatever health program he’s got going on. I’m used to pasty-faced, scrawny Trent Renznor. I don’t remember the man having big muscle-y arms. The crew cut he was sporting made him look like a miniature Henry Rollins! Without the tattoos, of course! ;-D
Something about concert audiences: If you are a crowd-surfer, DIE! Just do us all a favor and die. By the middle of the set, the sway and the crush of the audience squeezed me to about the third row. Really not a lot of room to manuever up there. You couldn’t really leave if you wanted to. As such, you don’t have the ability to turn around and keep your eyes peeled for incoming morons. I took a lot of kicks to the back of the head.
My antigonistic relationship with crowd-surfers leads me to extreme pettiness. If you come anywhere near me, I *WILL* try to steal your shoe. If I can’t get your shoe, I will punch you in the spine.
There were some people giving me some harsh looks when I was taking pocket shots to Johnny Crowd-Surfer’s kidneys. "Hey, man! It’s all part of the concert experience! Let ’em surf, man!"
"HEY, MAN! If they surf, they gotta expect not everyone is going to enjoy having to prop up their dumb asses with the back of their necks when they come out of nowhere!"
Some people were really turned off by my attitude, but you know there are people around you that feel the same way. I saw a few people start grabbing for shoes later in the show and it made me feel like I had accomplished something.
I’m actually leaving out a few important details about the crowd-surfers that had me so cheesed off. Earlier in the show when I was further away from the stage and there were still openings in the pit, a crowd-surfer came near me and suddenly there was no support under him. The dude crashed into me, pushing me backwards. His entire body weight was pressed against my throat as he decended with his forearm across my Adam’s Apple. The crowd response was pretty fast and they helped us back on our feet. But when I got up, I wanted to cave that guy’s head in. He sunk back into the crowd.
Another future brain surgeon tried to prop himself up into crowd-surfing position not by gathering the people around him to hoist him up on their hands. Rather, he put his hands on my shoulders and tried to climb up my back! When that wasn’t working, he actually put his hands AROUND MY THROAT! Okay, party foul, buddy. I promptly spun around, threw his arms off me and politely suggested he not do that. Ah, who am I kidding. I swore up a storm and tried to scare the living crap out of him. "It’s a concert," right?
I don’t want to make it sound like I had a bad time. I also don’t know why I seemed to be exposed to repeated throat injury. The concet was awesome and I had a good vantage point throughout. Those were just the little annoying things that I’m telling you about just to spice up the story a bit. Otherwise, it would be a pretty short story! "I went to a concert. I had a good time. FIN!"
Anyway, there you have it. Story time is over.
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Just wanted to take a quick time-out to say congratulations to Ali Graham for crossing a monumental milestone. As of today, Ali has posted 1,000 strips of his comic HOUSD. It’s an amazing accomplishment and worthy of your attention.
I know you might be thinking to yourself "1,000 comics? Gee, that’s a lot. I don’t know if I could ever read a comic like that. Think about all the stuff I missed!" To that, I say "Don’t worry about it." Ali produces a great comic. Sure, there might be a few inside jokes from time to time, but what’s funny is funny and I know you’ll see where he’s coming from. There’s no reason to feel intimidated.
Actually, there’s REALLY no reason to be intimidated, because today is also the launch date of the HOUSD Wikipedia! So you can get caught up in a flash!
Incidentally, Ali did a guest strip for us back in the day. So if you want a taste of what he’s capable of, check it out here.
Once again – Congrats, Ali. Here’s to 1,000 more.
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So you guys may have noticed that there is a new layout on the homepage. I can’t really explain it beyond the fact that I’m still kind of toying with ad networks and trying to find the right combination that fits. It takes time for the metrics to come back on these things, so sometimes you don’t know where you stand because it takes so long to build comparative numbers.
I know some of you guys don’t like the banner ads at the top of the page. I’ll fess up and say I’m not crazy about them, either. But at the same time, there is a certain amount of cost involved with producing the comic and I’m trying to offset that cost so my Dad won’t get on my case about wasting time with cartoons! Know what I mean?
The comic is still free and will always be free. All I ask for right now is a little patience while I try my hand at a couple of different things.
That said… I have a brand new scheme to share with you!
Since instituting the ad networks into the site, I suspended open advertising slots for the everyman. This was regrettable to me, because I always appreciated people who came to the site to advertise with me because it opened my eyes to a bunch of great comics and other sites I wouldn’t have found otherwise. It was always a pleasure to work with them. Omiting the "everyman advertisers" was a downer, but a necessary part of figuring out what balance of ads would work best for the site.
Well, with this new configuration, I believe I’ve hit upon a way to have my cake and eat it, too. As you can see, the banners are still in place. But now, occupying the valuable space between the comic and the blog are eight small banners that now everyone can advertise in for $10 a month!
I must confess, this idea was not mine. I actually stole it from Yirmumah creator and Boxcar partner-in-crime DJ Coffman. He implemented it on his site not long ago and his advertisers have never been happier!
I think it’s a great sollution. I get to help promote other comics and introduce you guys to the broader world of web comics and the advertisers get EXCELLENT month-long coverage for less than it costs to get dinner at Applebee’s.
You can’t beat this deal, guys. If you’ve ever thought about advertising with Theater Hopper, now is the time. Visit our advertising page to learn how you can submit your banner to a sponsorship slot. Hurry! These babies are going to fill up fast! You don’t want to be on the waiting list for next month, do you?
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Okay, the Academy Awards start in about 20 minutes and I said I would come back to make my picks, so here they are.
Originally I was going to do a huge write up about who I thought would win and why, but I don’t think there’s enough time for that now.
Anyway, here’s who I think will win:
BEST PICTURE: Brokeback Mountain. I don’t know if it was the best movie of the year, but considering it’s origins, the difficulty the writers and producers had bringing it to screen and it’s overall cultual signifigance, I think it should be rewarded. Crash looks like it might upset, though. Especially considering the complexity of the storyline, the large and tallented cast and the fact that it’s set in L.A. – where the majoirty of Academy voters live. If any film could pull an upset, it would be this one.
BEST ACTOR: Phillip Seymour Hoffman. If the Academy could nominate and award Jamie Foxx for his performance in Ray, then they most certainly need to recognized Hoffman. His performance transcends pure imitation. You really get to see the person beneath the public facade of Truman Capote, warts and all. Again, considering the difficulty Hoffman and his writing partners faced bringing this production to film, he’s a sure bet.
BEST ACTRESS: Reese Witherspon. It’s her time. Public opinion is with her and there’s rumor that she’s being paid $29 million for her next movie. It’s safe to say she’s assumed the mantle from Julia Roberts. Is there any other actress out there right now that generates this much attention? Okay, Legally Blonde 2 was a turkey. She might not technically be a great actress, but she’s a certified movie star. Moreso than the other nominees. Except for Charlize Theron and she’s already won.
I give points to Felicity Huffman for taking a more challenging, "actorly" role. But tonight, Reese walks home with Oscar.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: George Clooney. I don’t know if his performance deserves it. I haven’t seen Syriana. But, like Reese, he has good buzz around him. Especailly considering his other film Good Night, and Good Luck has him nominated in the Best Original Screenplay and Best Director categories. He won’t win in either of those, so this is his gold watch. I think mosty voters will have his name on the ballot to see what kind of speech he delivers.
If I had my druthers, I would give it to Paul Giamatti – one of the strongest character actors working today, bar none. But I think the negative press around Russell Crowe during the period Cinderella Man was in theaters has hurt his chances. Poor box office of that film also to blame.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Rachel Weisz. I have no basis for opinon here. It just seems to be where everyone else is going. Some people are talking about Michelle Williams, but I really didn’t see anything in her performance that made me stand up and say "Wow!" From what I’ve heard, Weisz’s character is the lynchpin of The Constant Gardner and she delivers on all fronts.
BEST DIRECTOR: Ang Lee. I think this one is a landslide. None of the other nominees lensed anything quite so peaceful, beautiful and poetic as Brokeback Mountain. As the director of Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and even Hulk, his versitility should be recognized. Right film, right time to give him the nod.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Brokeback Mountain. It says more with less. Again, cultural signifigance pulls rank here.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Crash. The complexity. The characterization. The multiple angles on the same story. It’s the most ambitious of the nominees.
Anyway, those are my choices. Really, a lot of the media outlets I’ve been keeping up with predict it the same. Really the only nailbiter is Best Supporting Actor. It could go in any direction. But the rest seem like locks. I think it’ll be a pretty standard affair for Oscar tonight. That is, unless Crash was able to perform some kind of last-minute rally. I view it as the dark horse. We’ll see!
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I have a quick question for anyone in the know.
I am trying to establish contact with either representatives of Hollywood studios or PR firms that deal with the promotion of upcoming films and DVDs. My hope is to establish more movie-centric content to you guys in regards to movie and DVD reviews while fostering a promotional relationship that might yeild something in terms of prizes for contests for you guys. It’s a win-win situation. I run contests where you guys win cool stuff and the studios and PR firms are provided a unique avenue through while their projects are being promoted on a web site with monthly unique visits in the hundreds of thousands.
It’s very difficult to get in touch with these firms. Believe it or not, their numbers aren’t in the phone book. So I am approaching this somewhat unconventionally, announcing my attention in hopes of poppping up on their radar screens.
If you are employed by one of these firms or know someone who is, please contact me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com
Many thanks.
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I made a promise to come in and talk about the controversy over Crash upsetting Brokeback Mountain for the Best Picture Oscar.
But I gotta be truthful: I’m not as upset about it as I was before.
I haven’t seen Crash, so I can’t vouch for it’s worthiness or unworthiness. But at the time when Jack Nicholson read the name of the winning film from that card, I was shocked. To me, Brokeback seemed like the more culturally relevant film. Just in terms of the awareness it brought to homosexual relationships as fully realized partnerships. Not a gimmick. Not a flamboyant supporting plot device. But just as rich and detailed as any straight love story.
I’ve heard from some people that Brokeback wouldn’t have gotten the same amount of attention if it weren’t about gay cowboys. There might be some truth to that, but I don’t think so. I think audiences are interested in well-crafted stories regardless of the main character’s sexual orientation. To me, the fact that Brokeback was about a gay couple was secondary. It’s about cowardace and not standing up for the most important things in life. It’s about caving to self-imposed and societal expectations and not having the strength to question them. You could swap out two gay characters with two straight ones and it wouldn’t have changed the overall theme of the movie – That love is hard-earned and not for the weak. The characters could be a Muslim and a Jew, a black man and a white woman or your next door neighbors. The whole "gay issue" is a non-point to me.
That said, and presuming that both Brokeback and Crash are equally well-made films (represented by their equal share of earned Oscars in technical categories), at one point I questioned if there was perhaps some kind of bias against Brokeback because Academy voters couldn’t see past the "gay issue."
I think Crash may have also had a "home-field" advantage in and of that it is a movie set and filmed in L.A. and that’s where 80% of the voting block resides. Also considering the location of the shoot was probably a touch point for voters considering that most productions are being farmed out to Canada, Australia and Prague to cut costs. Filming in their own backyard was something the voters wanted to reward perhaps as a means to encourage production to stay in Tinsletown.
But overall, you have to question if perhaps the homosexual aspect of the film was not something voters wanted to appear to endorse. It was tackled at the top of the show that Hollywood was out of touch with mainstream America. A win for Brokeback would have been a strong confirmation of that point to those critics. Why give them more ammunition?
Jeffery Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere made an interesting point about the whole thing. I quote,
"Is anyone besides me seeing the irony here…the irony that howled and flooded the skies above Los Angeles last night? The very thing that Crash laments — prejudice against people of different stripes and persuasions — is what tipped the vote and delivered the Big Prize."
It’s food for thought.
I shared that thought for a while, but I think it’s since worked it’s way out of my system. Friday’s comic will reflect that and, I think, from there we can all move forward.
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