Care to guess what today’s incentive sketch is about? Tom as Spider Man, of course! You’d have to be a blind man not to see THAT one coming! Click here to see it anyway…

Today’s comic is not a singularity in the Theater Hopper universe. Tom has put on a Spider Man mask before. I only had to wait 18 months to dust off the old chestnut and put the joke back into rotation!

Clearly this week will be all about Spider Man 2, and if you can’t go along for the ride, well, what’s wrong with you?

Advance reviews for Sam Raimi’s sequel have been overwhelmingly positive. This is a good thing. It would appear that the franchise is going to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.

I’m trying to keep my expectations reasonably low so that when I go into the theater on Wednesday I can see the movie with fresh eyes. But it’s been hard avoiding all this hype! I’ll just say that I would rather go into the movie expecting nothing than expecting it to be twice as good as the first (which is what I’m hearing). My fingernails? Bitten down to the cuticle in anticipation for this one.

Say – real quick – if you’re in the market for some Spider Man AND Theater Hopper goodness, you should check out the current ORIGINAL art auction I have going on over at eBay. Swing over to the listing now and place your bid. This is a ONE OF A KIND piece of art that will see NO printed reproduction. If you win the auction, you own it free and clear.

Plus, I’m throwing in stickers to the one who walks away with it. EVERYONE loves stickers!

At any rate, the auction ends this Friday, so get bidding!

Cami and I actually sat down this afternoon to watch the original Spider Man on DVD. Cami was kind of dragging her feet at the idea of watching the sequel, but gamely suggested that we re-watch the original after admitting she had SLEPT THROUGH it when we saw it in the theater!

Hold on. Hold on. Before you start slinging tomatoes, keep in mind this was around the time that we first brought Truman into our lives as a tiny, tiny puppy. We were just getting around to leaving the house again, but Truman wasn’t giving us much sleep at the time. We’d often wake up with him two or three times a night. Nodding off in a dark movie theater isn’t totally out of the question.

Regardless, we sat down together and watched the DVD, filling in any holes that Cami may have missed in her intermittent slumber. When it was all said and done, she said she enjoyed the movie and was looking forward to Spider Man 2. This was a VAST improvement from our previous status.

When I watch Raimi’s original, it’s easy to see why it was such a record-breaker at the box office. It stayed true to the characters (well, except for the organic web-shooters… GRR!) but still had a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor (“Up, up and away, web!”)

When you stop to think that most iconic motion pictures have one or two scenes that really stick with you, Spider Man had several. Peter Parker awakening to find his body transformed. The wrestling match with “Bonesaw” McGraw. The upside-down kiss. All of them are seared into my memory.

Can’t wait to see what SM2 has in store…