I am painfully aware that today's comic is not laugh-out-loud funny, but I hope for those of you who are somewhat familiar with Frank Miller's work with the Sin City graphic novels and short stories will get a kick out of the visual gag in today's comic. I've been a fan of his for a long time and this has been a visual style I've been aching to try out for a while.

For those of you living under a rock for the past four months, a big screen version of Miller's grim and gritty tales of pulp noir will be opening in theaters this Friday. Former Desperado and Spy Kids helmer Robert Rodriguez is directing it. Frankly, I can't think of another filmmaker who could pull it off.

The Sin City books have a VERY specific visual style to them. Incredibly high contrast work, desperate characters slip in and out of the shadows. Every so often a scene will be violently punctuated by a shock of red or a splash of yellow. Translating that to film wouldn't work unless that style was kept in place. Otherwise, what's to distinguish it from any other detective/vigilante versus scum-of-human society revenge flick?

The movie itself has a light narrative woven through several different stories, all arcing over a multitude of colorful and grisly characters.

Personally, I'm already entranced by Mickey Rourke's unrecognizable appearance as the dive bar brawler Marv. The prosthetics they've slapped on his face make him look EXACTLY like the character. A Roman Centurion after too many highballs and a broken heart.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about Sin City as the week progresses. I plan on building more sand castles in Frank Miller's sandbox this week.

I want to give everyone a reminder that I'll be in Kansas City this weekend promoting Theater Hopper and representing web comics in general with my partners-in-crime Mitch Clem and Zach Miller at the Kansas City Planet Comicon comic book convention. If you're in town, be sure to swing by the Overland Park Convention Center between 10AM and 5PM both days. We'll be there.

We're actually all planning on seeing Sin City together Saturday night. So if you're up for it, I'm sure we could all meet up at the same time.

I'm really looking forward to the weekend. Not just because of the convention and a chance to get out of the house for a little while. But also because my good buddy Jared is going to be taking footage of the whole sordid affair. We hope to combine video from this convention, Wizard World Chicago in August and the Minneapolis Fallcon in October and put together a cool little road-trip/documentary about Theater Hopper, the comic convention circuit and the craziness that comes with it. When it's all said and done, Jared and I are going to sit down and do a comprehensive interview/retrospective looking back on the last three years of the comic. We hope to have everything assembled and ready for purchase on DVD by Christmas. So keep your eyes out for that one!

This has probably been enough self-promotion for the day. Enjoy your Monday!

I'm sorry, but I REALLY like today's buzzComix incentive sketch (click here to vote if you want to see it). The sketch perfectly encapsulates a period of my life where I would come home from school, watch Thundercats, eat a Little Debbie snack cake and play Guess Who?! I'm tellin' ya, this is the kind of stuff X-Entertainment covers in spades.

Although I think the joke is really obvious, I guess I don't know how well it is going to go over with you guys. Some of you may have never played Guess Who?! or are too young to remember it.

The rules were pretty simple. Basically, you and your opponent grab one card from a deck and keep it hidden from each other. You then take turns asking each other questions about the picture on your opponent's card in an attempt to figure out which individual specifically they are hiding from you.

In front of you is a little flip board with about 30 other characters. Using the process of elimination, you flip down the portraits that don't fit the profile.

So if you ask your opponent, "Does your person have glasses?" and they say "No," you flip down all of the faces wearing glasses.

Problem is, that glasses question would eliminate about half of the playing field. So games didn't last very long.

Man, that was a little more long-winded than I anticipated. Wanna talk about movies? Let's shall.

Cami is really excited to see Guess Who? this weekend and I can't really figure it out. It doesn't seem up her alley. She's not a hardcore Bernie Mac or even an Ashton Kutcher fan, so I do not understand the appeal. To me, it looks like a lightweight sitcom interpretation of a far superior movie.

Honestly, what purpose is there to remaking 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? First of all, you're not going to ever top a cast that included Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn - so don't even try.

Second, the context of the original was perfectly metered. It took the delicate subject of race relations at the height of the civil rights movement and literally brought it to your dinner table. But it managed to do it with a light touch and, at times, comedically. No small task.

I have to think Sidney Poitier must be rolling his eyes at the proposition of a remake that will basically distill the concept down to "BLACK AND WHITE PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT!" - to which the audience will reply with a thunderous "A-DUHHHHHHHH!" when the credits roll.

Seriously, if I wanted a bunch of jokes about the differences between the races, I could go to any comedy club and at least order a beer to go with it. All I know is if Ashton Kutcher starts riffing on how small the bags of peanuts airlines give you are, I'm walking out.

Oh, well. Methinks I doth protest too much. I'm going out with Cami tonight and her sister. We'll have a grand ole time, I'm sure.

If you're looking to have a grand ole time, you should really think about registering in the THorum and participating in this week's Friday Five. It's so simple your 6 year-old brother could do it. We ask you five questions, you answer them! It's a great way to introduce yourself to the community and learn something about the people who already post there at the same time!

By the way, I know I haven't been mentioning it much, but a week from now I will be in Kansas City with my good friends with Zach "The Maniac" Miller and Mitch "The Bitch" Clem at the Kansas City Comicon Comic Book Convention. We'll be sitting on Artist's Alley and you can't miss us. I just ordered a giant 2' x 4' fire engine red banner with the Theater Hopper logo splashed across it. If you're in the area, come down and say "Hi." All three of us would appreciate it!

Talk to you guys soon! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

And no… Clem isn't that bitchy. Just a little bit!… ;-D

The "Female Empowerment Fairy?" "Mr. Happy?" I have no idea what's wrong with me.

I guess looking forward at the movies that are coming out this weekend, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous served itself up on a silver platter to be made fun of.

I mean, first of all, you have Sandra Bullock who is all of 41 years-old playing an FBI agent trying to compete against 19 and 20 year-olds in a Miss America-type pageant. I don't think there's a bucket big enough for me to dump my disbelief into before accepting this concept.

Second, from all outward appearances, they decided to remove the one redeeming quality of the original movie, which was the potential romance angle with Benjamin Bratt. Instead, they've replaced him with… a back-talking, no-nonsense body guard in the guise of Regina King. Uh, okay. What kind of weird escapism is this?

Don't ask me why I know this stuff, okay? I'm a married man, remember. Sometimes compromise means watching Miss Congeniality instead of taking a nap on a Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, instead of going the obvious route and apply my deeply entrenched male perspective on the "chick flick genre, I thought it was about time Tom was served a little comeuppance - even if it was in dream form. Needless to say, the result is somewhat… unique. Hopefully for the younger readers of this site, the joke will go over their heads.

Incidentally, Tom waking up startled isn't a new concept for Theater Hopper. It's kind of a cheap devise, but I have a lot of fun with it. Especially when I get to dust off the old trick and apply it in a new situation. It's a little experiment to see if I can take something from funny, to not funny and back to funny again. I guess you'll be the judge of that. At least the pajamas are changing from strip to strip!…

Not much else to report today. Stop by the THorum if you feel like saying "Hi." We've been seeing lots of activity in there lately!

If you'll excuse me, I don't have a lot of commentary ready this morning. I had kind of a rough night, so I'm not really in the right mindset to talk about film. I'll be back later to let you know what's going on.

In the meantime, if you want to vote for Theater Hopper at buzzComix, there's a fun reward sketch to view for your trouble. I get a kick out of it. I think it puts a fun spin on the mythology of The Ring. Enjoy!

I like to think I learn from my mistakes, so here's Friday's comic - on time!

I don't know if you want to bother voting for Theater Hopper at buzzComix today. I was totally bankrupt for ideas when it came to penciling today's incentive sketch, so I tried to draw a picture of Darth Vader from memory. It's kinda close, but that's a generous assessment. It's like saying Joan Rivers looks kinda like a human being.

I thought we were at a safe enough distance away from the Charlie storyline to bring back our title character in a more casual context. In some respects I felt like a lot was sacrificed to bring this new voice to the comic and then felt guilty for not utilizing her in the last month. So here she is. Don't worry. We're not embarking on some giant storyline again. This is just a casual insert of a regular cast member no different than Jared or Jimmy.

HOWEVER I will point out that today's comic tells you a lot about Charlie. Probably more in a few panels then I was able to achieve in 6 comics during the storyline. That's right. Charlie's a nerd.

For those of you with active imaginations, let me say right now that Tom and Charlie will not hook up. That's not the kind of show we run here. If you want quasi-angsty relationship humor, there are plenty of other comics that fill that niche. I just thought it would be a fun bit of contrast to take this kind of vapid, looks-obsessed character and make her a nerd at heart. Nothing more, nothing less.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to talk about at the moment that's movie related. But I think you can forgive me for being less pre-occupied with that and more interested in the fact that Cami and I are celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary today!

At the risk of sounding overtly sentimental, I look forward to our anniversary probably more than my birthday, Christmas or even Halloween. If there was ever an event to set time aside for to recognize, I think wedding anniversaries should be at the top of the list.

I talked about this in the THorum, but if you're celebrating a birthday, that's a singular achievement. Basically, people congratulate you for not dying that year. A wedding anniversary, on the other hand, is a celebration of the effort TWO people make to keep a union strong. It's not a given. It's not this arbitrary route-marker on the road of life. Every year is a milestone and worthy of your attention.

I'm not a real religious guy so I don't have the threat of God looming over my shoulder on this one. So don't think I'm expounding on the sanctity of marriage from a secular perspective.

No, I've always been enamored by couples who are able to make it work. I look in the paper for anniversary announcements and see people who have been together 50 or 60 years. Optimistically, I think they're the lucky ones.

So happy 5th wedding anniversary, Cami! I love you!