When I started to put together today's strip, it was much more complicated than it needed to be. Originally Cami was going to be lecturing Jared AND Jimmy. Tom was supposed to walk through the background of the last panel and deliver the punchline. There was much more anti-Sharon Stone commentary from Cami. There wasn't one punchline, there was three. Each one threw a spin on the one before. It was a convoluted mess.



Thankfully, I was able to bounce a few ideas off Cami and we were able to parse things down to it's core - which is essentially the insecurity of women.



I don't pretend to have some profound understanding of the opposite sex. So it's very handy to have a woman with whom you share your life to tell you, "That joke is out of bounds" or "I think you're bordering on misogyny with that one." Saves me the trouble of sitting through a lot of boring litigation.



Basic Instinct 2 comes out today and just the thought of it acerbates me to no end. In my mind, it is nothing more than a soapbox for Sharon Stone to say "I'm in my 40's and I'm sexy! I can do a nude scene and you can't stop me!"



Not that a woman in her 40's doesn't have a right to be sexy. Sex it up! Be as sexy as you please! I insist!



No, what draws my ire is that this becomes a topic of media facination like it's going completely against the laws of nature. "Maddona turns 40!" "Teri Hatcher is 40 and fabulous!"



And then along comes Sharon Stone. An actress who, despite protest, really never had very much going for her except her looks. I'm speaking in regard to her professional accomplishments. Since the original Basic Instinct, she's been cast as  the sex object. A shame, since I've read she's a lot smarter than she lets on.



But agreeing to Basic Instinct 2 nearly 14 years after the original and proceed to tell anyone who will listen, "Yes, I will be nude in the movie and isn't that AMAZING?!" comes off as the most desperate, self-promotional ego-trip I can imagine. It's more than a little sad.



I've read commentary about Stone that she's one of the last great movie stars we have. She's overtly aware that it is her job to be a glamorous, iconic personality and to live larger than life. Maybe that's true. But, not to be mean, her star is fading. If forced to watch Basic Instinct 2, I don't think I could be objective enough to sit there and think  "This is supposed to be sexy." Instead, I'm sure all I could think of would be "This is a political statement." The last desperate gasp from an actress facing the impending embargo against employing "women of a certain age" in Hollywood who get by mostly on looks. A big middle finger to the establishment that dictates not everyone can have a career like Judi Dench.

I don't know what's going on with Web Comics List. Seems like it's been down for a few weeks. So you probably can't see today's incentive sketch. Darn shame, because I think it's really funny and it turned out pretty good. I'm thinking I might switch back over to buzzComix on the whole voting/incentive scheme. We'll see what pans out.



Truthfully, I'm not really into the ranking sites like I used to be. It was just a kick to see how long we could stick it out in the top spot for a while and pal around with some good friends in the Top 10. The incentives are always fun, though. I like how I can typically sneak in another extra little punchline that I might not be able to squeeze into a regular strip.



Here's hoping that today's comic isn't too blue for those readers with small-children. I don't know why things have become so sexually-oriented lately. It's certainly isn't sexy, so it's probably not going to drive up traffic. It's not like I have Cami running around in a bikini for no good reason.



Although that's an idea!...



At any rate, I had to do careful research coming up with the porn parody movie titles. Some of them are quite profane, as you might imagine. I needed to find something quasi-graphic so you would get the gist of what I was referencing without crossing the line into flat-out offensive territory.



That said, I wish I could claim these titles as my own, but I'm not that witty. These are - in fact - actual titles off porn parody films.



I remember distinctly my first encounter with this phenomenon. It was 1996 and I was a freshman in college. Cami and I were going to the local campus video store to rent Mallrats. It was in and out of theaters so fast, we never got to see it. By the time we were in school, it was out on video.



Prominently displayed in the tiny, privately owned video store was a comprehensive selection of pornography. Not tucked away in some back room behind a beaded curtain and under black lights. No. I'm talking about these things being within arms reach of the checkout counter and comedy section. You couldn't miss them.



Two titles immediately lept from the shelf. "Black Booty" - a parody of the children's film Black Beauty - and "Wednesday is Humpday." I don't think that second one was parodying anything specific, but the title was so unintentionally hilarious, it became a catchphrase of sorts for the remainder of our college career.



"Hey, what day is it?"



"Wednesday is Humpday!"



Oh, how we laughed!



I'll be back later in the day to annouce a VERY COOL CONTEST. So make sure to visit us later to find out how you can participate!

I've taken a few self-portraits. Yes, I have. Yes, I have.



I know today's comic isn't exactly movie-related. Maybe you were looking for something a little more on-point, genre-wise this morning. But after all the homo-erotic goodness of the last two weeks, I had to take the joke and run with it.



Coming up with the punchline was kind of weird. Since the comic is a autobiographical exaggeration, I kind of resisted the idea of casting myself as vain or being more concerned with myself than Cami. I didn't want to give you guys the wrong idea about out relationship because the joke is kind of at her expense. Truthfuly, I would rather stare at Cami for 100 hours that catch a passing glimpse of myself in the reflection of a storefront window.



But upon realizing that I didn't want to portray myself as being vain, I realized... I was being vain. So I ran with the joke. More movie stuff later in the week. Cross m' heart.



Cami and I saw Inside Man over the weekend and I really liked it. I mean REALLY liked it. As in, "Hey, maybe the situation at the multiplex isn't as dire as the evidence would have led me to believe three weeks ago! There's hope!"



I think we can all agree that there hasn't been very many good movies in the theater since the end of the holiday season. It's okay. It's low tide on cinema. Happens every year.



But watching the crafty Inside Man was like a beacon saying "The salmon are returning to spawn!" With spring brings renewal.



The movie is as tense as you might expect and there's always some kind of new twist being thrown into the mix. Each of the four leads - Densel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer - all sink their teeth into their roles and bounce off each other well without being too showy.  Densel didn't launch in to Training Day level histronics. He actually milks a lot of comedy out of the tension just by being his usual, charming self. If anything, I thought Jodie Foster's performance was possibly the weak link in the film, but that's only if you're going out of your way to complain about something.



The film was directed by Spike Lee, which I think made it even more impressive. A mainstream movie like this was something he needed to do a LONG time ago because I think the unfortunate truth is that people are more familiar with his politics than his considerable talent. There's no reason he couldn't tranition between these realms of Hollywood effectively. A movie like this might wake people up to his cannon of work.



If you're dragging your feet on Inside Man for whatever reason, stop screwing around and go see it. I haven't enjoyed a movie as smart as this one in what felt like an eternity!

Today's guest strip comes from Boxcar buddy Fred Grisolm - the very excellent author of the equally excellent Hate Song.



Some of you might read Fred's strip and say he was stealing a page from Brandon J. Carr's guest strip from last friday. To which I would say "Stop flappin' yer gums about things you don't know nothin' about!" Fred developed his comic totally independent of Brandon. They never looked over their desks to see what their classmate was doing. Scout's honor. Just goes to show how great minds think alike!



Either that, or there is a powerfully strong undercurrent of homoerotic tension running through Theater Hopper that I'm totally unaware of putting out there.



I really like Fred's strip because I thought he did a really good job of capturing my writing style. Something about the pace of this one felt right. Kind of like how I would write it. Fred is right on the money when it comes to serial killer movies with the newspaper clippings on the wall. Can we find a new cliche to exploit, please?



At any rate, thanks to Fred for an excellent comic. If you liked his work here, check out Hate Song where he consistently knocks it out of the park.



Changing gears, I'm back from vacation and it's good to be home. Well, good and not so good.



The thing I hate about taking vacations is that time doesn't stop on all the crap going on back home. When you get back to work there are a ton of messages to follow up on, you have to do all the laundry from the trip, catch up on the bills... all that garbage. Honestly, it stresses me out to the point I was stressed at BEFORE the vacation. Thank goodness it's a short work week. At least I don't have to do Friday's comic, either. That gives me a little breathing room.



Walt Disney World was - of course - totally excellent. Although I'll be glad not to have to side-step fat parents pushing double-wide strollers for a while.



WDW gets a bad rap for all the long lines you have to wait in to ride the attractions. And even though it was Spring Break, I think we got off pretty light. We didn't have to wait in too many lines that were longer than 15 or 20 minutes.



I don't know if you've ever been to the Magic Kingdom, but is there a more disproportionate wait time vs. ride time for any other attraction than Peter Pan's Flight? Seems to take two hours to enjoy a ride that's maybe two minutes long.



I'll tell you something that really cheesed me off about our visit. Cami and I were really hyped up to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, right? We loved the ride when we went with our parents in our youth, but when we went 6 years ago for our honeymoon, the ride was closed down for repairs. So this time, we were ready to go. Guess what? It was closed down AGAIN! We found out later it was because they wanted to make the ride more like the movies and were adding in scenes with Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. Double-ugh! That would have been really cool to see. But not this time. So now I guess I gotta wait until Cami and I have kids who are old enough to appreciate the expense and planning that goes into a Walt Disney World trip before I can see the ride again. Of course, by then it'll probably be 2020 and the ride will be under construction again to replace the audio animatronics with holograms.



That's another thing. For the life of me, I don't understand why parents bring their babies and small children to Walt Disney World. I wanted to punch every sleeping child in a stroller. Have they no idea what their parents went through to bring them there?! When I have kids, I'm going to wait until they're 20 before I take them. Then maybe they can chip in for a plane ticket!



I don't mean to make it sound like we had a bad time. Far from it. Cami and I had a great vacation and it was really good to go down there any enjoy it together. We got to see everything we wanted to see and had a great time celebrating our 6th anniversary. I have some more to say about the trip, but nothing I really need to share in this space. Keep an eye out on my LiveJournal page for some extra thoughts about the trip!



Until then, see ya' real soon!

Do you have any idea how tempted I was to title this guest strip "Brokeback Victor?" But I guess Brokeback Mountain jokes aren't cool anymore since the Oscars are over... Oh, well.



Quick question. Did you know that this guest strip done by my good Boxcar buddy and creator of web comic The Kenmore - Brandon J Carr - is, IN FACT, awesome? Cuz, guess what? It is!



I love the lead in panel with the strip name between the characters. I adore that there is no dialogue and everything is communicated crystal clear. And I am jealous with envy that Brandon uncovered a facet of Victor's character that I might have to steal for future installments! This is a Grade A guest strip.



But really, should we consider anything less from the genius behind The Kenmore? Brandon's comic is on hiatus for the moment as our good man moves into a new place. But don't be sullen. Don't be downtrodden. Instead, look at this as an opportunity to check out Brandon's work from the very begining and read all of his stuff before he goes back to producing new material. You won't regret it!



Thanks again, Brandon! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!