First, I have to give a shout out to Jackson Ferrell over at This Week in Webcomics who gave me an idea too good to pass up for today’s comic.

Last night, over Twitter, I talked about how I needed to brainstorm ideas for Monday’s comic and was not really interested in doing a comic about New Moon (although I knew I kind of had to). Jackson suggested doing a comic specifically about my disinterest in the film and our conversation evolved into what you see today.

Twitter is great for batting around jokes or story ideas, especially when you’re stuck. In the past, I would have been very uptight about integrating anyone else’s ideas into the comic. But a good idea is a good idea and I’m not going to turn it down because I didn’t come up with it whole cloth.

If anything, my exchange with Jackson actually gave me a jumping off point to do a whole week of comics around New Moon. All it took was a little push in the right direction. So, thanks, Jackson!

So, as you know, New Moon comes out on Friday and I am as non-plussed about it as I was when Twilight came out a year ago. I’m just not in the target demo (as today’s comic plainly illustrates.)

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I had an epiphany about Twilight that I shared last year. My attitude is basically “good for them.” Girls SHOULD have a franchise like this that they can geek out over. I mean, Harry Potter was close to becoming that franchise. But it was really more for kids and had a wider appeal. Twilight is a film franchise that (to my knowledge) is pretty much exclusive to teenage girls.

I mean, I know older women who like the books and movies, too. But that’s a case of arrested development no dissimilar from my own fascination with all things Star Wars or Iron Man.

That’s why I’m happy something like Twilight exists for the ladies — because it makes me look less weird.

Ever since the dot com boom, people have said that the geeks have taken over. But let’s face it, we’re all geeks. Every jock that has the ritual of going to a sports bar each weekend to keep track of his favorite team and favorite players, knows all the clubhouse drama and can rattle down the stats of any team from any era? Total geek. Mr. Money Guy who is on top of the stock market, monitoring the ups and downs of business? Total geek. Top Chef watchin’ foodie that has 5 or 6 restaurants they have to go to before they die and can name 10 celebrity chefs? Total geek.

THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS! This is what living in a technological society has afforded us – free time to care about these trivial things. Only in the past was it consider odd to devote any attention to these peripheral interests because it mean you didn’t conform to societies expectations of school, marriage, work, breed, eat, sleep, die. People used to pursue their interests at the exclusion of acceptance in society.

Maybe we’re all becoming cut off from each other. Maybe we’re all standing in the center of our own little pockets of “ME.” But I don’t think so. If you love sports or money or food or robots or vampires, why SHOULDN’T you be allowed to pursue your interests and be excited about them? We should all be so lucky, right?

So, girls, go crazy for Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. You deserve it!

What about the rest of you? At what level is your interest / anticipation for New Moon? Is anyone here planning on camping out to get tickets? What about midnight showings? Share your New Moon love in the comments below!

I’m just gonna be over hear reading production reports from Iron Man 2 in the meantime…