GUEST STRIP – MIGHTY MITCH CLEM
April 18th, 2005 | by Tom- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(5 votes, average: 8.20 out of 10)
You’d have to be blind not to notice the distinct style of today’s guest comic author. It’s the one and only Mitch Clem of Nothing Nice to Say!
I love his strip today. Not only because it’s the first full-color strip he’s done since coming back to the web comics fold, but because it does a great job of capturing the playful, sometimes elitist bend to my characters.
Thanks muchly, kind sir. You comic doth rocketh my world.
Hopefully you guys are aware that today is the last day for you to bid on the Sin City-inspired original artwork I’m auction off on eBay. You should scroll down a little ways if you want to learn more about it.
I’ll actually be back from Texas at some point tonight. So if you’ve been sending me e-mails, or anything, I will try to get to a few of them this evening.
Guest strips will continue even though I’m back from vacation. I’m taking a little well-deserved time off to work on a site redesign and opening up the store again with new merchandise. I haven’t taken any time off since last July, so I feel it’s a little deserved.
Be sure to come back on Wednesday for another excellent guest strip!
United 93 comes out today and I desperately wanted to address it. Not so much in the comic because there’s really nothing funny about the subject matter. But I at least wanted to give it a passing mention so that it might open the door into some commentary for the blog.
I won’t lie. There’s part of me that doesn’t want to see United 93 at all. There’s part of me that finds the idea of a movie stitching together dramatized events from 9/11 and spitting them out for entertainment purposes repellant. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to touch this film with a ten-foot pole largely because I’m afraid of it. I don’t want to revisit the uncertainty of that day. "Too soon" has been the rallying cry of like-minded individuals.
But then I step back and think about it. All of the reasons I don’t want to see United 93 are exactly the reasons why I should.
So rarely are we offered art that challenges us in a mainstream environment. We cry and complain about the lack of good movies in the theater. Then when a director like Paul Greengrass takes an artistic leap, we all shy away and fail to catch him. Less and less movies like these are made and eventually all we’re left with is Deuce Bigaloo: European Gigolo. I think we owe it to ourselves not to approach United 93 with our hearts but with our minds. Some of that horror is good to revisit. It reminds us of how far we’ve come in 5 years and what needs to be changed.
Reviews for United 93 have been strong. Critics are not calling the film exploitive be almost a version of cinema verite in then sense that everything unspools from minute to minute. All of the actors are anonymous, so we’re not distracted. We literally become a passenger along side the others. The film doesn’t make judgements through hindsight. It doesn’t editorialize events with what we know today. The film literally does not know anything more than those people did as things transpired. I have to give credit to Greengrass. That was exactly the right way to handle it.
Maybe this is all a little much to dive into first thing in the morning. But I’m addressing it because I think it’s important. Even though it will be difficult to watch, I think United 93 is the kind of art that is good for the soul and I hope to see it soon.
That aside, I hope you enjoyed today’s comic. It was a real treat to draw. The whole "angel on one shoulder, devil on the other" thing has been done a million different ways. But I felt kind of proud of myself for drawing Pac-Man into the mix. I think his expression in the 3rd panel is one of the most favorite things I’ve drawn. I’d slap it on a shirt if Namco wouldn’t slap me with a lawsuit!
Regarding the pre-sale of "Theater Hopper: Year One," I want to give a quick word of thanks to everyone who responded so quickly to my personal appeal in Wednesday’s blog. Literally no sooner than 15 minutes after I posted it, a few more orders came across my inbox. That you guys understand how important this project is to me personal speaks volumes and I appreciate it.
I’ve gotten e-mails from people saying, "I don’t have the money right now, but I’m getting paid in two weeks and I’m totally there!" I think that’s amazing and I applaude those who are keeping the book in the back of their minds.
I know what it’s like – the whole money thing (or lack thereof). I’m living it right alongside you. So I understand not having the cash to buy my book. But for me it’s the launching point for 3 and a half years of catalogued work (and growing). I want to keep producing books and it’s vital that this one makes a strong showing out of the gate. Otherwise, the whole thing is in danger of disintegrating.
That sounds a little dramatic, I know. But I take it seriously and appreciate anyone else willing to support Theater Hopper who sees things the same way. You guys are aces in my book!
Best wishes to all of you this weekend. I’ll catch up with you soon.
GUEST STRIP – WILSON PARKER
August 8th, 2012 | by Tom- Comics »
- Comics »
- Guest Strip
(6 votes, average: 8.17 out of 10)
I gotta hand it to Wilson Parker. His guest comic today felts totally in-sync with the kind of bizarre rants that I would not only produce for the comic, but like debate in real life with friends.
I also think Wilson hit on a universal truth about the three-breasted prostitute scene from the original Total Recall. If you’re not going to at least try to improve on the original, what’s the point?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but that scene left an indelible mark on my childhood. When I was growing up, we didn’t go to the movies very often, but we would rent stuff on occasion. Christmas was a big at-home movie watching holiday for us. My Dad would rent four or five movies and after we’d open presents, we’d watch them.
One year, he rented Total Recall. Now, let’s see… Total Recall came out in 1990, so I would have been 13 or 14 years-old at the time. Kind of an important time in a young man’s development.
Lo and behold, it’s the three-breasted hooker scene and I’m watching this movie ON CHRISTMAS with my Dad… AND my Mom.
You know when you’re younger and you watch a movie with your parents with embarrassing content? You want to crawl under a rock and die. That scene was my first exposure to that. Heck, I can remember a few year’s later when Cami and I were dating. We watched the original Austin Powers with my folks and I remember being mortified during the scene at the end where Austin and Agent Kensington hook up.
Maybe I’m just sensitive.
Incidentally, Wilson has a comic of his own called Unwinder’s Tall Comics. I highly encourage you to check him out and say thanks for this fantastic guest strip. Thanks, Wilson!
Switching gears, I was actually kind of interested in seeing the remake of Total Recall. The cast looked interesting and I’m really starting to appreciate Colin Ferrell as a genre actor. But the reviews haven’t been encouraging. For the most part they say the movie just kind of sits there. Not good – especially for an action movie.
But then director Len Wiseman is no Paul Verhoeven. That’s like comparing Dear Abby to Hunter S. Thompson. It’s simply impossible to out-weird that gonzo Dutch bastard.
Switching gears again, I wanted to address something that should have happened this week… but didn’t.
Sunday was Theater Hopper’s 10th anniversary. The milestone felt pretty underwhelming to me. Frankly, I didn’t realize it was the 10th anniversary until a day later.
It’s funny, because an anniversary is something I used to make a pretty big deal about on the site. I remember the 7th anniversary coming and going with more fanfare.
Perhaps I didn’t make a big deal about it because Monday was the day the comic was supposed to end. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
I’ve outlined the reasons why in earlier blog posts. I basically miscalculated how many comics I would need to finish the story – even though I had been producing double-sized comics for several weeks. But, yeah. I blew the deadline.
I kind of wonder if it’s self-sabotage. But it’s not. It’s just poor planning. So you guys are the benefactors of my poor planning. Revel in it.
I’d say I have maybe 5 or 6 more comics until I wrap things up. When I do, I hope you guys will be there to send Theater Hopper out with a bang. I’ll be sure to keep you updated as doomsday draws closer through Facebook and Twitter.
As for this week’s comic, I’m working on it. It’s a single-panel strip. But there’s a lot of action and detail I need to build into it, so it’s taking longer.
I’ll be glad when it’s done, though. Because it means I can stop adding fire and smoke effects to everything. That stuff takes a long time!
Thanks again to Wilson for the great guest comic and tiding everyone over with teh funniez. I appreciate it!
See you all soon!