Today’s guest strip comes from Ryan Estrada. If you’re not familiar with Ryan’s work, you need to make yourself familiar.
Because this guy is gooooood…
How good? He references a complete throw away detail (The Ha-Ha Hut from this comic) in the first line of his guest strip. Attention to detail like that is the kind of professionalism that intimidates me from ever doing a guest strip for anyone else ever again. I’ll just refer all inquiries to Ryan. Because, clearly, he has his bases covered.
I also gotta give it up to Ryan for the joke he came up with for his comic. The career arc he developed for comedians was right on the money and probably applies to more comedians than not. Eddie Murphy was the first one to spring to my mind. Maybe Adam Sandler or a touch of Mike Myers. Who else do you think Ryan’s formula applies to?
Mull that over for a while, leave some comments and then go check out Ryan’s web site. Thanks again to Ryan for providing an excellent guest strip. I loved it!
Switching gears… A quick Kickstarter update.
You guys have been doing great pledging to the Kickstarter fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three. We’re now 52% funded and roughly $1,500 away from goal.
But we have 20 days left to meet that goal – less than 3 weeks – so I’m still on pins and needles! When you think about the holidays coming up and the distraction that causes, we really have LESS than 3 weeks to meet our goal!
Please pledge to the fund raising campaign today. As of this posting, we’re $74 away from $2,000. I think if we could top $2,000 today, that would be excellent.
I am trying to push us toward “the tipping point” – that moment where people look at the campaign and say to themselves “Hey, this is really happening! I think I’m going to make a pledge myself” and the whole thing takes off.
I watched it happen with Gordon’s fund raising campaign for the first Multiplex book. He pushed and pushed for weeks. Then, one day, I think he was 70% to goal and I told him “That was the tipping point, man. You’re going to fund this thing no problem.” Within 3 days, the rest of the campaign was funded. It was pretty cool to watch.
Help us get to the tipping point. Pledge today.
Last bit of news… You’ve probably seen it already, but Iron Man 2 released another poster. This time featuring Mikey Rourke as the villain Whiplash.
Please keep in mind that this guy is 57 years-old. Looks pretty good for his age, if you ask me.
Well, you know, except the face that looks like hamburger.
By the way, does anyone else think that it’s AWESOME that we have a superhero movie where the lead actor is 44 years-old and going toe-to-toe with a 57 year-old?
I love Iron Man for several reasons. But I think the filmmakers rejection of youth culture is in my Top 10 “Reasons to love Iron Man” list. Just awesome.
That’s it for today! Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!
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Ha ha ha, that Ryan is a funny guy.
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If they added Ron Perlman to the cast, it would be the oldest cadre of heroes/villians ever.
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I promise to pledge at least $35 at some point… I just have to make it through the next week first. I love your comics and am sad on days I can’t read your comics (see Tues and Thurs).
also, points to Ryan. love that comedian career path. I think Jack Black has somehow gone toe to toe with that path yet somehow still manages to feel edgy and mainstream at the same time. Or at least still legitimate.
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Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby also fit the mold pretty well, IMhO anyway. But yeah, pretty spot on comic.
Glad to hear you and yours survived the snow storm as well.
and Hmmm, I hadn’t realized that Rourke was that old! man suddenly I feel old by association for not realizing… have to agree with Rabbitgod about Perlman too. Though I wonder, with recent revelations that the first movie was at least partly driven by chemistry and ad-libbing, I wonder if the sequel hope to keep up the same sort of momentum, though I definitely agree with the comments on avoiding throwing in young pretty faces into these roles, the “youth culture.”
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Other guys that career arc applies to: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and Ben Stiller.
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A couple more: The Chrisses (Tucker, Farley before he died, Rock). There are a couple that I remember by name/role only (like that duo that played a black blind guy following a white deaf guy in an 80s flick). Probably FAR more than that, tho…
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Doshi, you’re thinking of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, both of whom were outstanding and I can’t remember with of them doing a serious dramatic role in the middle. Also, I would like to think Owen Wilson’s career has amounted to more than this formula, thanks mostly to his writing ability, but he is also quite awesome in Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums… Though, I would say that I don’t really like Wilson unless he’s collaborating with Wes Anderson.
Which movie did Vince Vaughn have a dramatic role in? I’m interested to see what must be a piece of filth.
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Ben Still never did an edgy movie. He moved straight from TV shows that some people found funny to riding his father’s coattails and general pleasantness to There’s Something about Mary and then proceeded to poor comedyville early. But that’s my opinion of Ben Stiller, since I have hated him since he started making movies and There’s Something about Mary is the only movie I could tolerate him in…well that and Keeping the Faith…
But that arc applies to Eddie Murphy. I seriously cannot see Ryan writing that for any other comedian more specifically unless you want to count Jim Carrey in there but then you would need to rearrange some of those films like the tear jerker would be the majestic and much earlier in his career.
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Stiller played heroin addict Jerry Stahl in Permanent Midnight. It’s a pretty messed up movie. Stahl was a sitcom writer and worked on shows like ALF. The film’s depiction of Stahl tripping out in front of the ALF puppet is particularly disturbing.
This was in 1998 and around the time that indie filmmakers appeared to be out to top one another with the most disturbing junkie moment (Trainspotting, Requiem of a Dream)
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In regards to the arc: Robin Williams, Steve Martin and Bill Murrey
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This looks funny. What do the middle frames say?
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Most do deviate from the path, do more with one step than the other, or have an unsuccessful step (8 Crazy Nights couldn’t really be considered hugely popular) but it’s interesting to see what happens to their career because of it. For example, Chris Farley and Mike Myers were both following this thing to the tee, up until Chris died during preproduction for Shrek. Mike Myers replaced him, and continued the downward spiral. Now Farley is still looked upon fondly, and Mike Myers is considered a hack. (though since he never really mastered the attention-grabbing dramatic role, it was even worse)
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Myers has always been a hack, though. Albeit one that is very successful at inserting catchphrases into the cultural lexicon.
A lot of that has to do with repetition. He’s been mining the same character templates since he first appeared on Saturday Night Live.
Austin Powers was innovative. But, of course, he drove it into the ground.
Then, with The Love Guru… Ugh. I don’t even want to talk about The Love Guru.
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Adam. Sandler. Except his animated movie was “edgy”
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My votes. Robin Williams by far. Jim Carey. Will Farrell is getting there; I’m sure he’ll have a dramatic role soon.
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And oh, very good comic.