Archive for July, 2004

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READING MATERIAL

by Tom on July 30, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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Since it's a Friday and we seem to be doing "shout out's", I've decided to link up a couple of dudes I think you should check out.

First, whydoncha head on over to Fuitad.com. Please do not confuse this site with my former hosting company. People in the web comic community are already familiar with Fuitad. He's the guy who came up with Top Web Comics. Well, he owned a hosting company for a while - the one TH was having problems with - but sold it two months ago. Long before we were having any issues.

At any rate, Fuitad helped me get out from under that hosting situation and allowed for Theater Hopper to move to a new server. As a way to return the favor, I want you all to check out his site. He has a comic, by the way. It's drawn pretty well!

Another site I want you to visit is a comic that you will be talking about for a long time to come. Don't ask me how I know. I just know. It's called The Useless Superheroes and the illustration on this comic is OUTSTANDING! It's a loving parody of the superhero genre. If you read comic books like I do, you'll appreciate all of the references. It's extremely well done.

Also, because Zach Miller is the most handsome man in Minnesota, check out his new web comic, Joe & Monkey. Just so you know, he

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PAINT IT RED

by Tom on July 30, 2004 at 12:00 am
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(6 votes, average: 9.17 out of 10)
credit card, red paint, The Village, M. Night Shyamalan, bad things, Cosmopolitan, Julia Roberts

Today's buzzComix incentive sketch doesn't have much to do directly with M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, but it's pretty close. It's Tom as a pilgrim, folks. Dig in.

I had a tough time coming up with a way to make fun of The Village. Originally I was going to do a strip where Tom was in control of a nerve center dedicated to uncovering the secret "twist ending" to the film ("I've received a credible lead from my contact in Zurich!"). He didn't know what the ending was, but dern-gummit, he knew there was a twist!

Ultimately I couldn't find a punch line for the setup, so I abandoned it.

Still, I think it leads us to an interesting discussion. Jared and I were actually talking about it yesterday. How much harder has it become for Shyamalan to surprise his audience when they go into his movies EXPECTING a twist?

It's kind of the difference between going into a haunted house when you're a kid versus when you're an adult. When you're a kid, you have no idea what's around that next corner and, in your mind, those monsters are REAL. When you're an adult, you're kind of predicting when something is going to leap out at you. That primal fear is gone, but you're still being entertained because you remember how seriously you used to take this stuff when you were younger.

Out of all the movies being released this week - The Manchurian Candidate, Garden State and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle among them, The Village is the flick I want to see the most. If anything, but to learn if my theory regarding the movie's ending are proven true.

I haven't spoiled the movie for myself and read anything online about it, but I have my own thoughts as to what the twist could be. If you have a brain stem, you've probably already established the obvious thought. But in case you're stemless, I'll keep my theory to myself until next week.

I have good news for fans of the THorum. I received word from my former hosting company that the DNS transfer has been submitted. So hopefully Theater Hopper will be seen from it's new server in the next 48 hours.

You shouldn't be able to tell a difference on your end. We've prepared things in advance so the change over should be pretty seamless. The biggest change will be that the THorum will be open so we can discuss all of the latest films!

Lastly, be sure to check out our new advertiser Dunn Boyz. This comic has been around for a while and it's still as fresh as ever. I read this strip a lot before I started Theater Hopper. I love the art!

I'll be back a little later in the day to share with you a couple of links I think you should know about...

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WE MACE YOU BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU

by Tom on July 29, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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If any of you are interested in reading more about the Florida couple who was maced by an off-duty police office as mentioned in Wednesday's comic, The Smoking Gun has a nice little expose that includes their mug shot photos and a copy of the police report.

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TRAFFIC PATTERNS

by Tom on July 28, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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This is not me bragging. This is me sharing one of those "I am flabbergasted and alarmed" kind of moments.

In some weird quark of fate, Theater Hopper racked up 14,889 unique hits yesterday. I'm not sure what that means. Because on a normal day, we see maybe 4,000 uniques.

To help shape your perspective, that's more hits in one day than Theater Hopper saw in the entire MONTH of December 2002. True, we were only 4 months old at the time, but that's a pretty wide gap.

Checking the registry, I was seeing a lot of hits from the PVP Forums and the forums over at Super Hero Hype. Who ever is linking me up in those places... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

I suppose now would also be a good time to mention that I have some advertising spots opening up soon. If you're interested in reaching a lot of people for a little bit of expense, our extraordinarily fair rates and advertising packages are listed here.

Man, I'm sleazy!

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ZACH MILLER KICKS ALL Y’ALLS BEHINDS!

by Tom on July 28, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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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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THE CHARMING PSYCHOPATH ROUTE

by Tom on July 28, 2004 at 12:00 am
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(7 votes, average: 7.43 out of 10)
mace, cell phone, couple, Florida, Tarantino, Mr. Blonde, ear, torture, Verizon, Can you hear me now, Reservoir Dogs

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.

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IT’S NOT JUST THE CAT SUIT THAT SELLS TICKETS

by Tom on July 27, 2004 at 12:00 am
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(5 votes, average: 8.20 out of 10)
Catwoman, so bad it's good, jury duty, expired milk, punch in the face

Sorry for the delay with the blog. Life has been pummeling this poor l'il web cartoonist as of late. I feel like Li'l Brudder!

Incidentally, I completed a new incentive sketch for buzzComix. Click here if you want to see Cami in the Catwoman costume!

What can I say about Catwoman. Not much. I haven't seen it nor do I plan on ever seeing it. All I can say is that I have never seen so much negativity surround a film prior to, during or after production. The reviews that were handed out on this trash heap were brutal!

It's been quite an adventure bringing Catwoman to the silver screen. Ever since they released photos of Halle Berry in that infamous S&M outfit, the fan boys have been gunning for her.

Remember back in April when they released a teaser trailer and it looked like a giant, campy joke. Then the studio came out and said it WAS a big April Fool's Joke! Well, so much for that. The movie pretty much follows that trailer's lead for an hour and a half.

You know, there's a conspiracy theory going around that Warner Bros. may have INTENTIALLY tried to make a dud - SPECIFICALLY to appeal to the "so bad, it's good" crowd mentioned in today's comic. They had a first-time French director who previous worked in special effects, a go-nowhere plot... why not try to make it as bad as possible?

It sounds outlandish, I know. But with the V.I.P. edition of Showgirls coming out next week and VH1's Best Week Ever celebrating the one-year anniversary of Gigli, one can help but wonder if "bad" has become the new "good"!

Well, enough about Catwoman. Time to talk about more pressing matters. Like how Theater Hopper was down for 3 days.

What happened? Well, the site was intentionally suspended sometime Saturday afternoon and it came back online about mid-morning yesterday.

Why was the site down? Still no official word from the hosting company. UNofficially, they said the THorum was taxing server resources due to all the calls it was making to the MySQL database. It was frustrating getting THAT much information from them.

My current hosting provider is undergoing some kind of internal shift and because of that, their service has really fallen behind. I don't blame them for it. Basically, they've grown too big to take on all the little problems that crop up in a small business.

I can empathize to a degree, because the same thing has happened to Theater Hopper. Essentially, our THorum became so popular, we broke their server! As a result, we've been forced to find a new place to play.

Fortunately, one of the THorum moderators - Brian - owns a server and graciously offered to host the site for free. Can't beat that! Brian is a really good guy, an IT professional and I totally trust him. I think after everything is settled, we can take Theater Hopper to the next evolutionary step.

So where are things now? Well, the THorum has been temporarily closed. Partially because Theater Hopper is still being hosted by my old company and we don't want to tax the server any more than we have to. The other reason is so that I could create a full back up and transplant the community onto the NEW server without missing a beat. So that means once we're established on Brian's sever, THorumites will experience no lost data.

The really good news is that we've already moved the entire site onto Brian's server. The site works. The archive works. The THorum works and even the advertisements work!

The really bad news is that we have to wait for my current hosting provider to transfer the DNS so it points away from their server and toward Brian's server. Even if they took care of it today, there is still potentially a 24 to 72 period where we would wait for it to take effect. As things stand with the current hosting provider's service backlog, it could take even longer. I'm trying to figure out a way around that, so please stick with me.

Until then, you can still expect fresh comics, blogs and incentive sketches. In fact, we'll be back with all those goodies tomorrow. Of course, if you have any questions, you can always e-mail them to me here.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding. Things will be back to normal soon.

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BEAR WITH ME

by Tom on July 26, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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No comic for Monday but (hopefully) you can expect one tomorrow. Where did the site go this weekend? Well, that's a long story which I will also save for tomorrow.

In the meantime, the THorum will be disabled while I try to make order of the house. It's nothing serious, so don't panic. All will be revealed in time.

Thanks for your patience.

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SITE STUFF

by Tom on July 23, 2004 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Blog
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You may not have noticed, but I've been quietly going back through the archives and updating all the old comics with their corresponding blogs.

Readers that have been with us longer might remember that I used to have a separate HTML page for each comic. When we switched over to archiving the comics and blogs with PHP, a lot of the blogs were dropped from the site. I had to re-enter them to get them back on the site. Over 100 comics were missing blogs.

Well, I've finally finished this task and it's like a HUGE weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I'm almost positive no one cares what I thought about Al Pacino's performance in Simone from over a year ago. Frankly, I re-read a lot of the stuff I said when I was first starting out and laugh.

But for me, it was important to get these blogs back in action because otherwise, things just felt half-assed. I hate that feeling.

Of course, the true irony of this is after I've completed all this hard work, I will likely have to reformat several aspects of the blogs when I eventually switch the site design to a structure utilizing more CSS and XHTML. The PHP archives will stay in place, but XHTML gets picky when it comes to some of the tags that can be found in the behind-the-scenes scripting.

:: SWITCHING GEARS ::

Time for a little "Toot My Own Horn" moment. I learned this week that Theater Hopper was the proud winner of the "Best Environment" award as handed out by the good folks over the buzzAwards.

Basically it means that of the nominated comics, they felt Theater Hopper was the best at promoting a community atmosphere, had an easy to navigate structure and that I as the creator was accessible and accommodating.

That's a pretty big validation. My thanks to the judges.

I think that's about it for now. You're probably wondering why I've made no mention of Catwoman yet.

Honestly, people. Why kick an Oscar winner when she's down? That move had wavy stink lines emanating from it way back when it was still in production.

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JITTERY SPIES

by Tom on July 23, 2004 at 12:00 am
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(6 votes, average: 9.17 out of 10)
JITTERY SPIES

For today's incentive sketch, I tried to draw the poster for The Bourne Supremacy from memory. It didn't turn out very well. The perspective is off and I've got some kind of contortionist thing going on with the way I have the character holding the stock of the gun.

Now the question is, are you going to vote to support Theater Hopper, or are you going to vote to see how badly I screwed up? ;)

I'm excited to see The Bourne Supremacy. The trailer released months ago sold me on it. I like the idea of a man on the run taking it straight to the front step of his pursuers. The whole "Where is he?" "Right next to you." moment is a great cliffhanger. I'd pay the price of admission just to watch the five minutes after that revelation.

So I'm already amped to see Matt Damon portray Jason Bourne again, but I think I raised the bar a little when Cami and I decided to rent The Bourne Identity earlier this week. Can you believe we hadn't seen this film up until now?

I guess when I looked at Identity, I saw all of these European locations and immediate thought of that OTHER Matt Damon identity/trashing about Europe flick, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I knew one film had nothing to do with the other, but I didn't much care for Ripley and I think that's what was keeping me away.

Still, if Supremacy is even half as good as Identity, I think we're in for a treat. It's like a James Bond movie without all the gimmicks. Bond is a comic book character. Bourne is rooted more in reality.

I have some other thoughts that I'll be back with soon, but in the meantime, please visit our newest advertiser Hejhox. You gotta give points to a comic as creatively titled as that. Plus it's funny! Tell them I sent you.

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