Speaking of LiveJournal, did you know you can add Theater Hopper to your friends list?
*END PLUG*
I realize that I’m pretty late on the whole "Ha, ha! Peter Parker listens to My Chemical Romance!" bandwagon. Heck, some people have integrated the gag into their comic with long-running characters! I guess I didn’t bother commenting on it earlier because, when the trailer came out a few weeks ago, I was in Texas busy being robbed. Regardless, emo Spider-Man is tailor-made for our own emotionally despondant character – Goth Jared! I felt it was high time to dust him off again.
Not a lot to talk about today. If you checked the blog yesterday, you’ll see that I’m kicking around the idea of an interactive talkcast similar to what Scott Kurtz from PvP has been doing with and application called TalkShoe for the past few weeks. I’m planning on doing a dry run this coming Monday at 10:00 PM central time just to get a sense of how the technology works. There’s no format just yet. No structure. Just me on the air for and hour or two (probably talking about movies and comics) and you can either listen in, send text messages in a chat room setting with other audience members or (if you have a microphone) "call-in" to discuss topics with me. I’m already trying to round up a few guests from my circle of friends over at Boxcar Comics, so if you listen in, there might be an extra treat for you.
I encourage everyone to go to the TalkShoe and Skype web sites and download their applications in preparation. Then, 15 minutes before the broadcast on Monday, go to this page and dial in so you’re ready for us when we kick things off. It’s going to be a fun experiment and I look forward to talking with everyone!
One last thing I want to mention before I sign off…
Speaking of Boxcar, one of my good friends Ali Graham just ended his comic Hous’d on Friday with the death of a major character. He’s spinning off the adventures of said character into a new comic called Afterstrife. I have to tell you right now that I’ve seen a handful of pages from Afterstrife and it’s above and beyond anything you’ve grown used to seeing from Ali. He’s knocking it out of the park with this one and you need to show your support. Afterstrife is going to be great and it’ll be an opportunity for you new readers to get in on the ground floor.
Ali’s a great guy and a hard worker. He did nearly 1,300 episodes of Hous’d before taking things in a new direction. I immediately respect anyone with that much dedication to their craft. You know right away that they’re serious about bringing you their best work. Check it out.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you all (in real time!) on Monday!
I know I did a comic about Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj last week, but that comic was all about the anticipation while today’s comic is all about the aftermath.
Yes, it’s true. Cami and I went to see Van Wilder 2 this weekend. I don’t really have an excuse except to say that I’ve always secretly enjoyed the first movie and I spent all day Saturday hanging up window blinds in our house. I was in the movie for something stupid that I didn’t have to invest that much into intellectually.
Well, on that front, Van Wilder 2 delivers by the bucketload.
From the movie’s most improbible opening sequence all the way to it’s uninspired end, Van Wilder 2 delivers a level of stupidity not entertaining, but embarassing. You feel bad for nearly every actor involved. Not because the script is written in such a way that comedic tragedies befall them at every turn but because there is nearly no way for them to wipe this stain off of their resumes.
I used to think Kal Penn was a farily charismatic and likable actor. I was actually upset that he was cast as Lex Luthor’s assistant but given no lines in Superman Returns. After watching him in Van Wilder 2, I’ve pretty much written him off. His performance is lazy and uninspired. He apparently took no notes from Ryan Reynolds in the first Van Wilder. His winking, spry performance is what took an otherwise tepid movie and made it fun. Most insulting was Penn’s accent. I realize that he was neither born or raised in India, but his accent is as woefully inconsistent as the rest of the movie.
Van Wilder 2 is a complete retred of the original. Only the location has changed. Like Van Wilder before him, Taj has his own English bulldog with swollen testicles. There is a horny older woman who tries to put the moves on him. He swoons over a woman who – of course – hates him at first and is dating the film’s villian. Once the woman begins to warm up to Taj’s winning personality, the same upper-crust stereotype employs a willing female accomplis to blackmail our hero. After being expelled, then re-enstated after a confrontation that ends in extreme embarassment for the villian, Taj gets the girl and lives happily ever after. Throw in a few lame jokes about the British empire’s brutal occupation of India, and you have your sequel.
I know I shouldn’t be this upset. I knew going in that the movie would be trash. But when your expectations are already at basement-level and the film STILL manages to dissapoint, you have the right to be a little angry.
The funniest thing about Cami and I seeing this movie was the conversation we had with her parents the day before. They had asked us if we had gone to see Bobby yet. Because they’re from that era, they’re very much invested into the concept of the film and want us to see it so we can talk about it with them. We told them that we hadn’t seen the film but we were thinking about it and agreed it looked really good. We planned on seeing it, we just didn’t know when.
Then, the moment we have a free evening, we turn around and see Van WIlder 2. What a letdown we must be to her folks! Oh, well!
At any rate, I’ll have a lot more to say about Van Wilder 2, as well as this weekend’s box office tally and this weekend’s new releases on my very first talkcast. You guys should check it out! It’s being hosted by TalkShoe and you can either listen in, send me text-messages in a chat room or "call-in" to my broadcast and talk to me directly. Tonight’s show is going to be really loose and off the cuff as I get my bearings around the TalkShoe technology. If a lot of you call in, I plan on keeping the lines of communication open for you to talk to me. The show is at 10:00 CST tonight, so be sure to download both the TalkShoe application and a copy of Skype and then log on to this page about 15 minutes before hand so you’re on the line when we hit the airwaves.
I hope I see you there tonight!
Just wanted to direct everyone’s attention to a quick interview I did with the good folks over at Komikazee.com. I had a chance to introduce myself to the Komikazee crew at Wizard World Texas last month and they were very receptive to Theater Hopper and profiling it on their site. I would say getting the opportunity to talk with them was probably one of the highlights of the convention for me. They’re very professional and you can tell they care a great deal about comics.
In addition to the interview, Komikazee did a very generous write-up of the first two books which, I’ll admit, knocked me for a bit of a loop. I never know what to do when people respond so favorably to what I’ve done in the past. I’ve always maintained that I put the books together for myself and that if anyone else was willing to buy one, that was the biggest endorsement I could possibly imagine. But to have someone review the books so positively always makes me feel like "Wow? Really? Now you’re just being too nice!"
I suppose it beats the alternative!
Anyway, check out Komikazee.com for the interview and be sure to thumb around the rest of the site while you’re there. They have some really great articles and news about comics in general and I really dig the way their site is laid out!
Being a denizen of the internet – nay, a connoisseur – I take exception to how the internet is being portrayed in the latest Nancy Meyers chick flick The Holiday. As described in the comic, Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet use our global communications tool in order to trade houses over the holidays in order to get over their hearbreak and maybe… just maybe… learn a little about loving themselves in the process. Everyone with me now… "AWWWWWW!"
This is not to say that I find the entire practice of house-swapping outside the scope of reality. I’m sure people do it (on occassion) maybe using a community portal like craigslist to get the job done. All I’m suggesting is that things wouldn’t turn out quite so tidy if the REAL internet was employed?
Have you seen the trailers for this film? Essentially the two female leads live in equally fabulous, well-lit homes, decorated richly within an inch of their lives. "Oh, I have man troubles but I live in a friggin’ palace! Boo hoo!"
Look, I realize that this is a romantic fantasy of sorts and that films of this nature are supposed to be aspirational and fanciful. I get that. How boring would it be to go to a movie that replicated reality exactly. It’s an escape. I’m all for it.
But what are the odds that these two women could find each other online, half a world away and trade environments equally as cozy as the one they just left? In the real world, Cameron Diaz would go online to trade homes with someone and end up at the bottom of a well dug out from the basement of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.
Switching gears… I know some of you are interested in learning about how the first Theater Hopper talkcast went on Monday night. Well, I can tell you that it’s a good thing we attempted to go for a dry run to test out the technology first because I totally screwed things up.
Something I didn’t account for when setting up the broadcast is that TalkShoe doesn’t give you the option of setting up the show by time zone. So when I was telling everyone the show would be 10:00 CST, it was really set to go at 9:00 CST because apparently TalkShoe is hosted somewhere on the East Coast and doesn’t allow for time changes.
I had no idea that the show was even up and running at 9:00 until Jared called me at home to notify me. I sent him an invitation to listen in and he was going to leave me a note saying he couldn’t make it when he noticed the discrepency in time, gave me a call and say "Uh… there are people in there waiting for the show to start!"
So I promptly abandoned my TiVo’d recording of Heroes and ran to my computer to hop online. After nearly tearing my hair out when Skype’s touch-tone recognition wouldn’t permit me to log onto my own show (it misinterpreted my ID log on "7738" as "7788") I finally managed to get on and get things underway.
Things were a little rocky for the first 45 to 60 minutes because I was a little bit shaken by the last minute scramble and I tried to invent subjects to talk about off the top of my head. In the effort not to put too much pressure on myself, I went too far and was completely untethered.
Eventually things started picking up when Brandon J. Carr (formerly of The Kenmore) logged in and we then spent most of the evening swapping stories. Everything from the Michael Richards rant, to Spider-Man 3, Van Wilder 2, The Three Stooges and Jabberjaw. It was nuts. A few other people called in and left comments and we had a grand old time. By the time it was said and done, we were had been on the air for almost 3 hours!
Despite the trail by fire in the opening moments, I really enjoyed being on-air and talking to others. It totally reminded me of being on the radio when I was in college and I loved that job. If you weren’t able to log on during the live broadcast, you can download an MP3 of the entire show on the Theater Hopper talkcast page. Check it out. You can have it on in the background while you’re answering e-mails or reading through the topics on the THorum, or whatever.
I had a lot of fun doing the show. That’s why I’ve scheduled another show for next Monday, December 11 at 8:00 PM CST. And don’t worry – I made sure to tell the TalkShoe system that it starts at 9:00 EST – their time – to eliminate any confusion.
It would be really great if you guys could join in. That’s why I’ve scheduled the show for earlier in the evening so more of you can participate. I’m hoping to line up some special guests for the show. You never know who might swing by!
I’ll be sure to remind everyone again on Monday. Until then, take it easy!
I think if you put aside Mel Gibson’s drunken anti-Semantic rampage from earlier in the year, Apocalypto sounds like a tough sell. By now we know the score: Unknown actors, dialogue in a dead Mayan dialect, no subtitles. Who is signing up for this? Dump it into theaters during the holidays when the last thing anyone wants to do is THINK… It’s a gamble.
Still, at the same time, I’m grudgingly respecting Gibson’s chutzpah. Clearly this is someone who is so enamored with his artistic vision, he’s willing to fight the odds and let his work speak for himself.
It puts me in a weird place. Because just for the risk Gibson is taking, it makes me think that the movie is important and that I’m doing myself a disservice by skipping it. But on the other hand, I have a hard time hanging up the whole racial rant for ealier in the year. Drunk or not, he’s responsible for his actions. Apologies are nice, but they don’t carry much weight if that’s the kind of evil that lurks in your heart. A few drinks loosened his lips and now he’s trying to put the demon back in the bottle.
I think about how much larger the firestorm would have been if Gibson pulled a Michael Richards and spoke disparagingly about African-Americans or Asians. Or does Gibson’s clout in the industry shield him somewhat from that kind of scrutiny.
Ultimately what matters is the performance of the film. There will always be some people in the industry who won’t work for Gibson. But if he’s still financially viable, someone will work with him again. As it’s been said, Hollywood doesn’t see in black or white. It sees in green.
Time will tell. I think people will be watching the box office on this once closely.
A couple of small pieces of site news: Comixpedia has an article written by Michael Rouse-Deane from Webcomics in Print about the Top 10 (in no particular order) web comic books of 2006. Theater Hopper: Year Two was listed in the number 7 spoke. Says Rouse-Deane, "When Year Two (and Theater Hopper: Year One too for that matter) were in their pre-order stage, Brazelton hit upon his "street team" sales approach. Theater Hopper was probably the first ever webcomic to publically have the idea of "tell 5 friends to buy the book and if they do, you get something for it". So readers spread the word, leading to more sales for the book, and the fans not only get an immediate reward from convincing others to buy it, but as fans they get an intangible reward from actively helping creator Brazelton succeed with Theater Hopper."
I think it was really cool for Rouse-Deane to speak to the marketing of the first two books specifically as it pertains to you, the audience. I think it’s a great compliment that he attributes part of the book’s success to your involvement – which is exactly how I prefer it. Neither book would have gotten off the ground if you guys hadn’t supported me early on, pre-ordered (and were extremely patient waiting for them to come in). So, in a roundabout way, I just wanted to say "Thanks!’
If you wanted to read the rest of the Comixpedia article, click here. Of course, if you wanted to buy your own copies of Theater Hopper: Year One and Year Two for $15 each (plus shipping and handling) you can do so here.
Quick reminder about next Monday: I’m doing another TalkShoe talkcast at 8:00 PM CST. I’m broadcasting a little earlier so more of you can participate. If you haven’t tried this talkcast thing, it’s great. You should really give it a shot. Just log in through this page. Also, if you want to download the first show, you can do that through that link as well.
I’ll remind everyone again on Monday. Have a great weekend!
Apologies for the delay on the blog, guys. I stayed up late last night working on the comic and it doesn’t look like things are shaping up for me to put anything together this morning.
I just wanted to leave a quick note to remind everyone of my second talkcast tonight at 8:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. Be sure to download both the TalkShoe and Skype applications and log in about 15 minutes early. Still kind of feeling things out format-wise. But I plan on taking lots of calls and talking to you directly! So be sure to check it out!
Apologies for the delay with today’s blog. As I explained earlier, I stayed up too late last night putting together the comic and there wasn’t an opportunity over my lunch hour today to update the site.
But I’m here now, babies. We’re together again. That’s all that matters.
It’s rare that I should be forced to dip into DVD satire during the holiday season. So it might seem a little out of place that I’m riffing on Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. What can I say? There’s very little humor to be mined from movies like Blood Diamond.
Sidebar: Cami was watching E! News this evening after we came home from work and they made some passing reference to Blood Diamond and the extremely rare pink diamond at the center of it’s plot. They then seugeway into a story about a "Jewler to the Stars!" Someone who finds rare diamonds to adorn the spidery fingers of the Hollywood elite – totally side-stepping the geo-political strife surrounding diamond mining integral to the film’s message.
I’m treading on thin ice right now. I got taken to task last week with my Apocalypto strip and the accompanying Mel Gibson assessment because it showed a lack of understanding of the larger world. My defense at the time was that as an and entertainment side, I didn’t feel particularly responsible for addressing larger issues. So I suppose it would be slightly hypocritcal to accuse E! News of the same thing. No one would ever confuse that program for one with any actual integrity. At any rate, I thought it was a very awkward transition.
Back on track – I’m very anxious to get Talladega Nights on DVD. I only got to see the film once this summer and it’s authentic that I didn’t feel like I was able to download the film’s one-liner’s completely into my memory bank. Anchorman was filmed two years ago. I’ve seen it two dozen times on DVD. I know that film backwards and forewards and I enjoy quoting it with friends. I want the same thing with Talladega Nights. Is that selfish?
At any rate, I read that there is a hilarious commentary track on the DVD purportedly recorded in 2031 in which John C. Reily has become a milita leader in the "island state" of Michigan. That alone is worth the price of admission – to say nothing of the customary deleted scenes and alternate takes of these kind of films.
I’d better wrap things up. It’s getting to be the time that I need to set up for my weekly talkcast. I hope you guys check it out! Talk to you soon!
Observe the work of a fevered mind.
I ran into all kinds of writers block when I tried to come up with some kind of commentary about Eragon. I don’t know much about the movie other than it’s based off a book that was on the New York Times best-seller list for something like 80 weeks, that the original story was written by some kid when he was 15 or 16 and that if the movie is some kind of mideval fantasy and requires a British actor, Jeremy Irons is contractually obligated to appear in it. My thing with the unicorns was pretty much rooted in my deep-seeded need to take things that are beautiful and ruin them for everyone else. Plus, I just thought the name "Hillstryder" was really cool.
This has been, like… Unicorn Week for me, or something. On Monday, my office had a white elephant gift exchange, so I purchase this good vs. evil unicorn playset from Archie McPhee to give away. The conversation that resulted from the giving of this plastic oddity led to a discussion about the Rankin & Bass production of The Last Unicorn. Things came full circle during Monday night’s talkcast when – completely unprompted – the converstation once again led to The Last Unicorn. Maybe you can figure it out. I have no clue.
Incidentally, if you were unable to join in on Monday night’s talkcast, you can download a copy to listen to at your leisure. Brandon J. Carr, formerly of The Kenmore made another appearance as well as Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey. The three of us shoot the breeze in the second hour. The first hour was pretty much me flying solo, talking about everything from Apocalypto to Rocky Balboa.
I pretty much burned through all of this week’s new releases all the way into the releases lined up for Christmas. That’s okay because I probably won’t be doing another broadcast until the new year. It’ll be enough to juggle the comic, my 9 to 5, the holidays and my family.
A concept that became cemented for me with Monday’s show is that I really need to settle on a name and a format of the show and that I absolutely NEED someone else in the "booth" to bounce things off of. I’ve had a co-host in mind since before I did the first broadcast, but technology issues have prevented it. Until I can get him on board, I think I need to take a hard look at how I’m organizing the show, which areas of conversation I want to cover and then create a schedule and stick to it. I think it would be a much better program if I made it an hour long with segments that repeat from week to week. That way, people know what to expect without having to listen in for so long.
At any rate, it’s a fun little experiment and I’m eager to see where it goes. Remember to download episode two and give me any feedback you have in the review section on the TalkShoe page.
That’s it for Wednesday. Talk to you soon!
This isn’t the first time I’ve depicted a minature faximile of myself. Of course, the first time was several years ago and this time around it involves actual biology.
I think it’s pretty interesting that Will Smith is starring with his son Jaden Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness as father and son on screen. At first glance, this kind of thing looks like raging nepotism. But if you really stop to think about it, there have been a lot of very effective parent/child parings in cinema. Tatum O’Neil and her father Ryan O’Neil in Paper Moon, for example. Or Jane and Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond. I presume it has something to do with the level of authenticity between family members. Or maybe the kids are just trying to upstage their folks. After all, living well is the best revenge – but I suppose that’s a cynic’s take on the issue.
I’m very much attracted to seeing Thr Pursuit of Happyness this weekend. As you may or may not know, it’s based on the true story of Christopher Gardner. In the early 80’s on the cusp of the stock market boon, Gardner took a job as an unpaid intern at Dean Witter. His wife had left him and he was basically homeless for a period of time while taking care of his young son. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to share that the guy eventually ended up a vice president and did quite well for himself. I remember seeing the original story on 20/20 or 60 Minutes years ago. I’m surprised it took them this long to make a movie about it! Gardner’s is truly a wonderful story about facing down adversity and overcoming obstacles. Normally I don’t fall for that kind of tripe. But hey, it’s the holidays!
A quick note for those of you who ordered shirts a few weeks ago – I’m having some problems with the printer and they don’t think they can turn the shirts around until early next week sometime. If you’re in the lower 48, there’s still a good chance you’ll get your order before the holiday. But if anyone was patiently waiting by their mailbox for their order to arrive, I wanted to let them know the score. Everyone who ordered books, however… your purchases have been mailed.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Have a great weekend everybody!
This comic was originally intended to be a lot more political. I was going to make references to the United States trying to establish a democracy in the Middle East and bullying the U.K. into supporting the war. But then I thought… that’s giving a little more weight and credence to The Golden Globes and the Hollywood Foreign Press by comparison than I’m intending.
Every year The Golden Globe nominations are announced and every year I have to find a new way to comment about their irrelevance. But you don’t want to overdo it!
Cami and I went to see The Pursuit of Happyness (with a "y" – that’s not a typo, folks!) on Saturday night and I wasn’t very pleased with the movie. It’s a lot more depressing than you think. By now you probably know the story about Chris Gardner’s money problems in the early 80’s as he tried to care for his son while homeless and chasing down a job through an unpaid, competitive internship at Dean Witter. The trailers make the movie look like the most inspirational tale ever told. There’s no doubt what Gardner accomplished was amazing and a true testament to maintaining the beliefe in The American Dream. But if you already know the story – as most people do – the conclusion is vastly underwhelming.
If I had used The Pursuit of Happyness on one of my Spoiler t-shirts, the line would have been something like "Chris gets the job." Because at the end of the movie, that’s pretty much all that happens. Then it ends. Abruptly. My complaint is how lop-sidded the movie is. You get five minutes of happy versus one hour and fifty-five minutes of dissapointment and heartbreak. You’re pulling for Chris. You want him to succeed. But the film (and life) keeps dealing him bad hand after bad hand and after a while, it becomes too much.
I know this is how life will treat you some times. Life will almost never cut you a break and there are far less happy endings than sad ones. But if I’m being lead into the theater under the pretense that a movie is going to give me a two-hour reprieve from those harsh realities, I would hope that it could deliver. Instead, I left the theater almost feeling worse than when I went in. After getting the job, would it have been so bad to see Chris move into a nice appartment or maybe take his son out for dinner? Something more than him clapping his hands on a busy street in slow-mo "I did it!" glory? It’s not enough. That’s what I’m saying.
I wouldn’t go so far as to tell you to avoid the movie. It’s not constructed poorly nor are the performances sub par. Every does a good job. But… I don’t know. For me, it just didn’t click.
Maybe it’s all the running Will Smith seems to be doing in the movie. Every third scene, he’s doing a full sprint either chasing after someone or running away from someone else. This guy does just about as much running per film as Tom Cruise!