I took a second glance at the blog post I made this morning and decided that it was a really sucky way to cap off the week. I wanted to come back and let everyone know things are all better at Camp Brazelton.
After thumbing through the forums at Triton Labs, the solution became immediately clear. When installing the Afterburner, there are four protective plastic strips that prevent contamination to the components before installation. While assembling the mod, I only removed three and that’s why the colors looked all assy.
I would have had time to make the repair last night, but I didn’t want to wake up our beagle puppy Truman. How ironic that the little bastard woke me up at 6 o’clock this morning – a full hour before I regularly get up. I decided to take the extra time to make the repairs to my Game Boy and everything turned out fine. Yay!
I have to say, in retrospect the installation was fairly uncomplicated. But I think when you crack open the shell of this rather expensive piece of equipment, you’re nerves get a little jittery and you don’t follow directions as well as you should. Just goes to show I would make a horrible bomb squad technician…
Something else I wanted to cover in this blog is another Wynnsong story. I figured it was the least I could do since I gave everyone the shaft this morning. I wanted to use it as a plot for one of today’s strip, but it had to deal with concession workers in a different aspect, and I was looking to follow the thread of continuity a little further down the line. Hence, the “lunging through the projectionist booth window” gag we get today.
Anyway, the story. And I swear on the grave of Jack Lemmon it’s the truth.
I went to see Gangs of New York about a week ago. I was having a particularly crappy day and wasn’t much in the mood for any crap. I had hoped going to a movie would take my mind off things. No such luck.
We get to the theater and there is only one guy selling tickets. It’s a Monday night, but it’s understandable, but it’s also right before Christmas when a lot of people have time off. Bad management strikes again.
After purchasing tickets and going inside, there are about 16 people working behind the concession counters and there is NO ONE in line. In fact, there are kids standing behind the counter while the line for tickets is trailing outside. You can’t pull a couple of kids out from behind the candy counter to help thin out the ticket line? Morons!
Realizing that Gangs of New York is like, 12 hours long, I decided to get some popcorn and a soda (BUT NOT A COMBO!) I hadn’t eaten yet and I didn’t want hunger getting in the way of my grasping the movie in all it’s Scorsese glory.
I ask the kid behind the counter, “Can I have a large popcorn and a medium Coke?”
To which he replies, “Sure you can. It’s a free country.”
To which I wanted to reply “ARE YOU GOING TO GET ME MY DAMN COKE, OR NOT?!” But Miss Manners wouldn’t approve.
The kid then starts scooping up the corn and looks over his shoulder with a cock-sure grin and asks “Do you want oil on your popcorn?” And his tone inferred that this was not his cute name for butter, but meant to be taken sarcastically.
“Nooooo… I don’t want OIL on my popcorn,” I scoffed.
Once he was finished putting everything together he rang up the total and I paid with a twenty. “Ooo! Big spender!” he cooed.
So close I was to gripping his skull and slamming it into the register.
I get my change back and he says to me “Enjoy your movie, people!”
I WAS THE ONLY ONE AT THE COUNTER! THERE WERE NO OTHER “PEOPLE”
I met up with Cami who was looking at preview posters and I was nearly shaking with anger. “I think they must be giving these kids lessons on how to be a jackass, or something,” I muttered. We went to watch our film.
Now look, before this erupts into some kind of class warfare thing or whatever, know that I used to work for a movie theater just like this kid. So I KNOW what’s it’s like to be bombarded by idiots all day long. But I was nothing but cool to this kid and he’s firing back with both barrels.
I may have never liked any of the people I served when, but I never went out of my way to make anyone feel like crap. I swear to God if I ever see that kid again, I’m gonna punch him in the back of the head.
Oh, look. Now I’m all angry again! Dammit!
I’VE FOUND ANOTHER MOVIE THEATER TO HATE
September 29th, 2003 | by Tom









(6 votes, average: 8.33 out of 10)
The events in today’s strip are 100% true. Cami and I did go to see Lost in Translation on Friday night and the picture was out of frame for nearly 3/4ths of the movie.
Why didn’t I go into the lobby and try to find an employee to fix it? The answer to that question, dear reader, will be revealed on Wednesday. In fact, the rest of the week will be devoted to this grand annoyance.
Maybe it’s a little cheap to take a real life event and stretch it across a full week of content – but frankly, I find this kind of lackluster presentation disgusting. Since I have a forum unto which I can air my grievances, I plan on doing just that.
I apologize if all the strips aren’t “piss-your-pants” funny. But perhaps you can appreciate them on a observational level.
It just that indie theaters are supposed to be the last refuge from this kind of laziness. Art houses are supposed to cater to the kind of people who actually CARE about movies – about content, presentation and quality! Now we’re getting the shaft in our last safe haven? Where else can we turn?
What I managed to watch of Lost in Translation, I immediately liked. I knew half way through that I would probably see the film again (if it ever comes to another theater) and would instantly own it on DVD once it becomes available.
Bill Murray’s performance was heartbreaking. I won’t give away any particular scenes, but in several of them, he does such great emoting with his eyes and his expressions, you know exactly how his character is feeling. If people cried foul when the Academy didn’t nominate him from Rushmore, they’ll riot in the streets if he doesn’t get a nod from Translation.
The movie does a great job of interpreting the experience of travel in a different country – how it can be both exhilarating and terrifying.
Tokyo was a city I’ve wanted to go to all my life. While I was watching the movie, I didn’t want to go there anymore. Through the characters eyes, it’s a very scary place. Very busy. Very loud.
But as things progressed, I grew comfortable in the surroundings just like the characters. Now I want to go there more than ever.
I’m going to cut the blog short for now because there are still things I want to talk about for Wednesday and Friday. Plus, I’m working on a great poster for FallCon in Minnesota this Saturday and Sunday. Did I mention I was going to that? I am.
I know that today’s sketch and accompanying blog doesn’t have much to do with movies, but I’ve convinced myself that’s okay because there really aren’t any movies this week that I care to talk about. I mean, seriously – The Invisible? Next? Get back to me next week when Spider-Man 3 is about to drop. I’ll talk your ears off about movies.
To whit, seeing as the site has recently taken a new direction and I am still kind of feeling my way around between what I’ve done for the last four and half years and what I’m comfortable doing with sketches, blog posts and so on, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk to you about the 24 Hour Comic Challenge I participated in last weekend. A few of you had been asking about it and I interpreted my participation therein as being more substantial than Nicholas Cage’s latest career suicide.
For those of you who don’t know, the 24 Hour Comic Challenge is an informal competition or art experiment (depending on who is hosting the event) that poses to any artist bold enough to pick up the gauntlet “Are you able to create a 24 page comic in 24 hours? Drawn, inked and lettered. Are you man enough?”
I’ve read the exploits of nearly a dozen of my web comic contemporaries over the years that have answered that challenge. I saw it as a rite of passage that I should participate this year. It’s only been in recent months that I’ve been comfortable identifying myself as a cartoonist rather than a hobbyist. Let’s see if I’ve got the chops.
If you’ve been reading the blogs, you know that I was mulling around a few different story ideas to take to the challenge. My first thought was to do a Theater Hopper “origin” story as told through the eyes of Truman. This is a story I’ve wanted to tell probably for the last 3 years. For that reason, my good friend Joe Dunn warned me not to attempt it. “That’s a really important story,” he said. “You’ll want it to look right. You’re not going to get the results you want if you try to cram it into the challenge.”
I took his advice, but had no idea how right he was.
Instead of the Theater Hopper origin story, I decided instead to tell the real-life Tom and Cami origin story. My comic was going to be about our year together in 2006 – all of the ups and downs we experienced before we brought Henry into the world. I would talk for a while about how Cami and I met, fell in love and married. Then I would talk playfully about our selfishness as we put off having children for 6 years. After that, I would talk about the pregnancy experience. The fact that it was a personal story was something I figured would score points with Cami and permit me to scamper off on this folly.
Since I found out about the contest with only one week’s notice, I scrambled to write up a story treatment. But due to the fact that I have a 2 month-old baby at home, it was hard to find time and I was only able to draft 14 pages. I should have taken this for a clue, but I figured because it was my life and it wasn’t that long ago, I wouldn’t have that much trouble coming up with talking points that I wanted to illustrate.
Soon I would see how wrong I was.
The challenge was being hosted by Mayhem Comics in Ames, a college town that is home to Iowa State University and about a hour away from where I live in West Des Moines. The great distances between locations meant that if I was committed to doing this, I was in it for the long haul. The option for me to go home and catch a few Z’s in the middle of the competition was off the table because I would be wasting two hours commuting. It was do or die.
We were supposed to start the challenge at 2:00 PM on Saturday, but things got off to a bad start. Our $20 entry fee was supposed to cover supplies – twenty-five sheets of 11 x 17″ Bristol board on which to draw. The only problem was that the boards hadn’t been shipped to the store. So the event organizer ran off at the 11th hour to a nearby art store to buy supplies and we ended up starting at 2:30 instead.
In another example of an organizational snafu, guest judge and artist of DC’s Green Arrow and Marvel’s Ant Man, Phil Hestor was in the house a day before he was supposed to. So instead of judging all the entries, he hung around for about 15 minutes and offered feedback to anyone who thought to bring a portfolio. Phil was more than gracious, but that was kind of lame.
Fortunately, I had copies of my books for him to look at and he told me I had some funny stuff. He said he could tell that I was creating something very personal to me and doing a good job at it. “People can see through that right away if it’s done wrong,” he said. It was encouraging. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to give him copies of my books maybe to share with his industry buddies. It was probably because I had my head down in the middle of the challenge at the time. But both he and I are going to be at the Iowa I-Con Comic Book Convention on Saturday, May 19. So maybe I can give him some then.
I felt like I was off to a pretty good start in the first few hours of the challenge. But that may have been due to the deliberately sparse opening page I started with and the giant splash panel I did on the second page. By the time we got to the third and four page, I was feeling less optimistic.
Something I neglected to mention, but when the event organizer came back from the art store with our drawing supplies, he brought back gigantic 14 x 17″ sheets of Bristol board. Granted, it’s not much bigger than the 11 x 17″ were originally going to draw on, but I’m not used to drawing my characters at that size. I’m used to drawing them at about 5 x 5″. So I had no idea what to do with proportions, line weight, composition or any of that. Complicate things by having to draw my own panels and do my own lettering (I’ve been letting Photoshop handle those chores for the last four years) and I found myself in over my head.
By the fifth hour, I started falling behind and I could see the writing on the wall. There was no way I was going to get this done in 24 hours.
Over the course of the night, I would work in bursts. The first stretch I went a good four hours. Then I would get tired and take a break. The break would last 10 minutes and then I’d work for a few more hours. Eventually, the breaks started getting longer than the working hours and by the time the guys minding the store busted out a copy of Guitar Hero II to pass the time, I was all washed up. In the end, I only finished 12 pages and started lettering the 13th.
I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy to have only worked out the first 14 pages. I thought for sure that I could make it up as I went, but I didn’t even have storyboards. So I was figuring out page layout on the fly. Eventually, it all became too exhausting. Never mind that I was competing against three high school kids who were used to keeping these hours.
The prize didn’t end up being all that great, either. $50 in store credit for first place, $25 in store credit for second place. Really only $30 and $5 if you consider our $20 entry fee. I suppose completing the challenge would have been it’s own reward, but who would want free comics?
Actually, I ended up even FURTHER in the hole than the $20 entry fee. The same weekend the challenge was going on was the same weekend Iowa State University was celebrating it’s VEISHA celebration. It’s basically like a big university sponsored Spring Break to keep kids on campus and there is no place to park. I was actually ticketed twice for $10 a pop, so I was out $40 all together.
Things kind of worked out. I managed to sell a couple of copies of my books to the stores for about that much. So it wasn’t a complete wash. Incidentally, an astute reader pointed out that I hadn’t included the Junkie t-shirt as part of the discounted bundle packages and I just corrected that recently. So if you were looking to pick up that shirt along with some other items on the cheap, now is a good time.
By the time I got home Sunday, I was exhausted. I only ended up sleeping for about a half hour during the competition. You’d think I would have been able to get more done for having been up that long. But my brain had essentially turned to mush.
I can’t tell you how many times during the course of the evening I thought to myself “This is a mistake. I should be home right now. Why am I keeping myself away from my family to do this.” When I got home, that examination dug deeper. It would be a lie to say that my participation in the event didn’t contribute in some way to my decision to scale back the comics to once a week.
Life is short, folks and you only get one crack at it. Did I want to be the guy that was there for his family and watched his young son grow up, or did I want to be the guy hanging around with a bunch of teenagers in a comic book shop over a weekend?
In my own defense, I had no expectations of what the event would be like. But knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have participated.
Then again, maybe it was worth it if it lead me to this kind of important realization about my life and about my hobbies. I think it’s important to stay true to yourself after you have kids. You can’t give up everything about yourself or else what else will you have left to teach them? I think it’s extremely important for creative people to have an outlet to express themselves. In that context, that’s what I thought I was doing. But the big lesson I’ve learned is that sometimes you have to take a step back and ask yourself what you’re sacrificing to do this kind of stuff and have the foresight to ask if it’s worth it.
It’s been a long week for me and everyone’s words of encouragement have been great. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails and people have been leaving notes in the comments field telling me that I’m doing the right thing. I don’t doubt it. But you know how it is… you have a routine in your life for so long, it’s tough to shake. And me? Well, I’m pretty dense. It took me two months to come to that realization.
Things are good at home and can only get better. Even on your loneliest days, it’s amazing to know there are people out there who understand and support you, even if you’ve never met. What an awesome privilege.
So, to you, thanks. I’ll see you next week.
What the?!… Did I manage to sneak in a punchline into today’s emotional reunion between Charlie and Jimmy? I think I must have!
For me, the pleasure of drawing today’s strip was drawing Tom’s reaction panel-to-panel. I pictured him reacting to Jimmy and Charlie’s relationship drama as if it were happening on a movie screen in front of him. “This is so much better than a movie,” would be the subtext running through his brain.
Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I kind of like the turn of the phrase “Kiss each other on the mouth.” It’s kind of like when Liz Lemon says “I want to go to there” on 30 Rock. Eh, maybe not.
All things the same, if I could come up with a design for that slogan, would you be interested in that as a t-shirt? I’m asking because pre-orders for Theater Hopper – Year Three have pretty much stalled and I’m lacking the money I need to send the finished book to the printer.
I could wait for advertising revenue to make up the difference, but the economy has severely limited advertising budgets, so I’m not seeing much return there. I figured I could whip up a few new t-shirts and try to make money that way. Y’know, spend money to make money.
Truthfully, I’m overdue on trying to produce a new shirt. I don’t know if it was complacency, fear or maybe a little bit of both. But it seems that I can’t come up with an idea that sells as well as the Spoiler shirts. Other shirts sell okay, but not so great that I can reorder them and keep selling them. Usually, I do one run of a new design, sell out and then you never see it again.
I had someone write me earlier in the month asking about the Johnny Number 5 t-shirt I was selling on the site a few years ago. Y’know “Don’t trust robots?” It was never a big seller, but the people who bought it seemed to love it.
I’ll admit that I’m probably not setting the world on fire with some of my designs. I mean, the Spoiler shirts are just a block of text. But for some strange reason, they work. Design is always something I’ve felt I could improve on.
The other problem is coming up with a good concept. You can’t do something too “inside” or specific to the comic (although that appeals to the the hard core supporters) and you also can’t do something so general that you could buy it from some other site.
I think I have a concept that might work: You know those movie quotes randomly rotating at the bottom of the page? I had the idea of graphically representing them on t-shirts so that they look cool to people who aren’t in on the joke, but make the person wearing it feel a little more special because they know the reference.
The first one I was going to attempt was from Reservoir Dogs when Mr. Blonde asks Mr. White “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?”
It would probably take too much to explain the different elements I want to incorporate into the shirt, but there would be some photo-realism to it so you’re not walking around with a huge cartoon across your chest.
I mean look at the shirts from comics like Octopus Pie or White Ninja (really any of the TopatoCo line of shirts). They’re not firmly aligned with the “branding” of the comic they’re associated with. I want to try and do something similar here.
What do you think? Do you think this is a good idea? What famous movie lines would you like to see represented in a graphic format? What about Jimmy and Charlie? Do you think they’re going to get back together? Do you think they’ll take Tom’s advice to “kiss each other on the mouth?” Leave your thoughts below!
If you’ve been following me at all on Twitter or Facebook the last couple of days, you’ll know that I was in an accident that required a trip to the emergency room and 11 stitches on the top of my left hand. My right hand is my drawing hand and I can still hold a pencil. But there will be no new comic today because I don’t want to push my luck. I want to take this time to heal.
Instead of a comic, I decided to tell the story of how I nearly lost a thumb. Please excuse any spelling errors you might come across. Since I’m down one hand, it’s taking me twice as long to write this blog post.
Since I’ve been off work, the need for little projects to keep me busy is at an all-time high. A few months ago, I bought a book about woodworking and building simple shelves. In it, there was a project detailing how one might build custom shelves for your garage or storage room. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give it a try.
Basically, the shelves were two sets of 2 x 4s facing each other with grooves cut into them. Inside the grooves, you insert a sheet of plywood cut to fit and use that as the shelf.
To cut the grooves into the 2 x 4s required the purchase of a hand-held router, which I did on Tuesday. Since there wasn’t room in my car, I didn’t buy the materials needed to build the shelves. I decided I would go back the next day to get them.
Before leaving on Wednesday to buy the materials, I decided to give the router a spin (so to speak) so I had an idea of how it worked before I started the project in full.
I took the tool out of the box and read the directions. I inserted the 3/4″ bit required for the grooves and plugged in the tool. I took a scrap 2 x 4 from another project and set it on a pair of saw horses to use as my test material.
Here is where I made two key mistakes. First, I didn’t secure the scrap material to the saw horses. I didn’t lock it down. It was loose. Second, I didn’t insert the 3/4″ bit far enough into the router.
Because the bit was not inserted far enough into the router, it wasn’t cutting the wood. The stem of the bit was rubbing up against the wood causing resistance.
I took my left hand off the router and placed it on the scrap 2 x 4. I pulled the router away from the wood with my right hand at the same time I was releasing the trigger to stop the bit from spinning. As the bit nearly cleared the wood, it caught the edge of it. *BIP-BIP-BIP!* It skipped down the length of the board pulling my right arm with it.
In the blink of an eye, the router went over the top of my left hand.
At first I thought I had nicked myself, it happened so fast. I put the tool down and looked over at my left hand. Blood. Oh, wait. Dripping blood. Oh, my! That’s a lot of blood!
I clamped my right hand over my left and ran into the house. My first thought was to rinse out the cut. I put my hand in the sink and turned on the water. I looked down at my hand as the water ran over it. Blood gushed out of it like a bathtub spilling over. I remember shrieking “OH, GOD!!” and immediately grabbing a dishrag to wrap up my hand.
What I thought was a simple cut was quite clearly a deep wound. The picture of my bandaged hand above does not communicate the severity of my injury. Instead, look at this illustration:

The wound was about 5 to 6″ long, about 1.5″ wide, very jagged and very deep. It scared me enough to call 911.
Within seconds I was on the phone with dispatch. They asked me to describe the wound, if it was deep, how much blood I lost and instructed me to put pressure on the wound. He put me on hold as he notified emergency responders.
Meanwhile, Truman, oblivious to the trauma I had caused myself, goes to the back door. *TAP, TAP* He wants to be let out. In my mind I’m thinking “How am I going to get him back into the house?” I tell him “No, Truman.”
*TAP, TAP* Insistently, he scratches at the back door again. “I can’t deal with this,” I think and let him out anyway.
Dispatch came back on and immediately I thought that I should call Cami. I expressed as much to the dispatch operator, but he insisted that he stay on the line with me until help arrived because he didn’t know how much blood I had lost.
In the distance, I could hear ambulance sirens. “I can hear them,” I said. “They’re close.” I went to the front door to check.
As I approached the door, there was a pounding behind me. *BAM! BAM! BAM!* “POLICE!” A police officer entered the house through our garage. He was on patrol in the neighborhood when he got the call. It had been about a minute since I first called 911.
He started asking me a dozen questions. Mostly he wanted me to gather up my ID, my keys and my phone. He wanted to know what he could do to help me lock up the house.
At this point, I was kind of in denial. “Lock up the house,” I thought. “I’m not going anywhere!”
But I obliged the officer as he helped bring Truman back into the house and led him into his crate. By the time I retrieved my wallet, keys and phone, the ambulance was outside. I walked into the driveway to meet them.
They had me climb into the back of the ambulance to take a look. They removed the blood-soaked rag around my hand. Again, the gaping wound stared back at me. The put a gauze pad on top of it, wrapped up my hand and we were off to the hospital.
At this point I was glad to be in the hands of professionals, but I was still kind of in denial over the severity of my injury. I thought I would sit on one of the little benches in the back on our way to the hospital. I was fine! No need to strap me to a gurney!
They strapped me to a gurney.
Good thing, too. Because as they started driving, I became very light-headed. I started sweating and felt like I was going to throw up. They put me on oxygen and took my blood pressure repeatedly. My hands went numb. I was getting very sleepy. I was probably *this* close to passing out.
Fortunately, before all of this drama took place, I managed to call Cami at work to let her know I was on my way to the hospital. She was in a meeting, so I left her a message. By the time we arrived in the ER, she had returned my call and was on her way.
As I waited, they unwrapped my hand to take a look. It was at this point that I really started to fear that I had done permanent damage to myself. As we waited for the attending physician to come by with her opinion, they kept my hand sterile by submerging it into a pan of soapy water. It felt like someone lit my hand on fire.
Eventually the attending physician came by to offer her diagnosis. She asked me to move my fingers. She asked me to bring my thumb closer to my palm. Cheerfully, she said that the wound was superficial, that I hadn’t done any permanent damage to myself, but that I would probably need stitches. Now all I had to do was wait for someone to come in and stitch me up.
By this time, Cami was in the ER room with me and there was nothing I could do but sit there and look stupid. I felt so embarrassed. I had become another at-home accident statistic. I felt bad for dragging Cami out of work, for wasting her time, for being stuck with such an idiot husband. But at the same time, I was so glad she was there to see me through it. I would have been very scared without her.
Here’s my thing: I hate needles. I can’t stress that enough. I *HATE* needles. I freak out whenever I have to get blood drawn. I’m not even very good about getting a flu shot. So the idea of someone sticking needles in my hand to numb it up, then stabbing my hand repeatedly to run stitches through it filled me with great anxiety.
I’ve managed to live 31 years without ever having a trip to the ER to get stitches, mend a broken arm or anything of the kind. You can imagine that all of this was a little overwhelming for me.
Finally a resident came in to stitch me up. He numbed my hand and went to work snipping away some of the jagged pieces of flesh that would have prevented the stitches from being flush. I refused to look as he sewed up my hand, but I could feel him tugging at my arm. I could hear the sound of the stitch as it was being pulled though my hand, like someone lacing a shoe. It took everything I had not to jerk my arm away and run home in horror.
As the resident worked, Cami looked on. She’s much better about this kind of thing than I am. She’ll channel surf past Discovery Heath and watch someone having kneecap survey no problem. Meanwhile, I have to leave the house, drive to the woods and cry.
Later, Cami told me that my hand “looked like hamburger,” that the wound bled considerably and that the resident used “a lot of gauze” to soak it all up. Thanks, honey.
Half-way through the procedure, the resident asked me if I’d like to take a look. I told him if there was more work to be done, I didn’t want to see it. For me, it’s all psychological. I can’t know what you’re doing. I prefer to think it’s not even my hand that you’re working on.
As the resident continued to work, nurses and doctors came in and out to observe. “That looks really good,” they said. “Great job!” A man in a white overcoat joked “Not bad for his first stitch job, huh, sir?”
“Doooon’t… do that to me,” I said, desperately trying to cling to my sense of humor.
When it was all said and done, they put 11 stitches in my hand. Again, the resident asked me to look at his work and I sensed a need for approval. “It looks very straight,” I said. And it did, which was amazing considering how jagged the wound was.
The resident patted my leg, said “Take care” and exited the room. I told him “Thank you! I appreciate it! as he walked out, but was left with the impression that he was annoyed that I did not give him more praise for his effort. I felt bad.
Cami and I left the hospital to pick up Henry from day care. He was very good natured about the whole thing and, of course, asked lots of questions. We explained to him that Daddy had an accident and took a ride in an ambulance. “Wee-ooo-wee-ooo,” he questioned, as he mimicked the sound of ambulance sirens.
“Do you feel better, Daddy” he asked. “I feel better,” I said. “You feel better and the owie goes away from you,” he said. This kid gets it.
We cleaned the blood out off the kitchen floor and out of the kitchen sink. But where I cut my hand in the garage still looks like a murder scene. There was a lot more blood in there than I thought there was. Drops all over the floor. A light splatter draped across my work bench – enough blood to drip and pool below.
I pretty much spent the rest of Wednesday night and all day Thursday with my hand on ice and elevated above my head. I didn’t do much of anything else. I ended up watching The Boondock Saints and part of Man On Fire before I fell asleep. I spent the rest of my time feeling the pulse of my heartbeat in the palm of my hand.
I changed the dressing on my hand for the first time last night. I almost barfed. I get my stitches out next week. I’m not looking forward to it.
When it’s all said and done, it could have been much worse. I could have mangled my thumb. I could have twisted up the tendons in my hand like spaghetti noodles around a fork. I could have ended up with a dead hand.
People suffer worse injuries all the time and some don’t see it through the other side. But like I said before, this was all a first for me, so it felt like a big deal.
2009 has been a tough year so far. I’ve watch friends lose jobs, go through divorce, suffer miscarriages and some lose their lives. I lost my job and nearly lost my hand. Sometimes I wonder how much bad stuff has to happen before something good comes along.
But I realize that I have a lot of good in my life that I experience every day. I have a wonderful family, good friends and people who care about me. The hand thing is a minor setback, but this too shall pass. And you’d better believe that no matter how bad you think you have it, someone always has it much, much worse.
If nothing else, this accident could be the universe telling me to slow down a little and appreciate what I have more – something I think all of us are guilty of from time to time.
Meanwhile, the best thing for me now is to take a little time, rest and recover. I want to say thanks to the people that have shown support and hopefully I will be back up to speed making comics again soon!
Best wishes and take care!
To me this comic is funny not because Jared doubts Tom’s story about being assaulted by an anthropomorphic piece of audio/visual equipment. Instead he finds the story questionable because Tom’s injuries are not consistent with the length of his beating.
Hate to spell it out for you, but it makes me smile.
I’m coming to a close on this little story line, so I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Not much for me to talk about except that Cami and I saw neither Moon OR Food, Inc. Saturday night as my parents had Henry stay over at their place. Neither of us could muster up the enthusiasm for Food, Inc. and we missed the only showing of Moon that evening before we left my parents house.
Instead we watched my review copy of I Love You, Man on Blu-ray. I’ll be reviewing it for the site and you can expect to find it here tomorrow. I’ll be sure to remind you on Twitter in case you forget.
I’m sure my lack of commitment to new movies will get me in trouble with Joe and Gordon tonight during our recording of The Triple Feature at 9:00 PM CST, but we’re probably going to talk about 500 Days of Summer, which isn’t even in wide release here until Friday. So what can you do?
I’m kind of annoyed because both 500 Days of Summer AND Funny People come out here on Friday and I can’t see either of them because Cami will be out of town with her Mom and Sister celebrating my Mother-in-Law’s birthday. I guess I’ll have to get caught up in the week before the Chicago Comic Con.
If you’re looking for something to do between now and The Triple Feature at 9:00 PM CST, I encourage you to swing over to my good friend Zach Miller’s web comic which you might remember is called Joe and Monkey.
I’ve been talking to Zach lately and he’s been drawing panels like a fiend preparing for JaM’s return. If I’m not mistaken, he’s already several weeks ahead and plans on updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the foreseeable future.
It brings me great joy to make this announcement because I am constantly being approached by Zach’s fans about when he is going to bring Joe and Monkey back. Zach and I are friends and speak on a semi-regular basis, but I’m usually as much in the dark about this subject as the rest of you. So I always feel like I’m disappointing the person asking the question when I can’t give them a definitive answer.
But Zach is back on the horse and updating again. So be sure to swing by Joe and Monkey to see what he’s up to.
Incidentally, Zach and I will be sharing a table on Artist’s Alley at Chicago Comic Con August 6 – 9. You can find us at table #3414. If you plan on attending the show, it would mean a great deal to both of us if you came by and said “hello.” We are both very friendly and will likely chat your ear off.
Cheers!
I knew at some point I wanted Tom’s fantastic story to be uncovered as a lie. In terms of bringing David “back,” it was really the best of both worlds. I got to dust off an old character without actually keeping him in continuity.
It was also a great way to cover any gaps in logic there might be. People asked pretty early on how Shia could possibly mistake Tom for Jared when they’ve never even met. Frankly, I never thought that was something that would come up. I should have my characters lie more often! It’s the perfect catch-all solution!
I realize that the punchline to today’s comic is kind of “hur-hur,” but the great thing about it is that it was something literally said by real-life Jared after I posted to my Facebook page about my adventures in the ER. At the time, I kind of groaned at the pun. But now I appreciate it for what it is. Thanks, good buddy!
Not much else for me to talk about today except if you’re trying to find Monday’s recording of The Triple Feature, we had to scrap the show. Joe had to back out for personal reasons and that left us at a disadvantage. Joe and Gordon were going to talk about 500 Days of Summer but I haven’t seen it yet because it doesn’t come out in theaters here until Friday. No offense to Gordon, but it would be kind of a boring show if he was the only one talking about the movie (and I think he’d be the first to agree with me on that point.)
The other thing I’ll mention is that my good friend Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey found the floor map for Chicago Comic Con so now you’ll know where to find us on Artist Alley. Zach and I will be sharing table #3414 and we’ll be standing right next to our friend Joe Dunn and the rest of the Digital Pimp Crew at table #3416.
If you’d like to view the map, you can do so here.
Chicago Comic Con is being held at the Rosemont Convention Center in Rosemont, IL August 6 – 9. If you’re in the area, please stop by our booth. It would be a thrill to meet you and I’m giving out free buttons!
Until then, stay frosty!
I kind of got more than I bargained for with this little arc about my hand injury, Tom’s grand lie and whatnot. I really didn’t expect it to last two weeks, but I’m very satisfied with the conclusion. I hope you are, too.
Incidentally, if the last panel of today’s comic looks a little familiar, that was intentional. I parodied my own work – Jared’s first encounter with Shia LaBeouf – which you can find here. Ah, memories… Memories and poorly drawn caricatures of Harrison Ford.
Not much else to mention today. Cami is going out of town this weekend with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law so I’m on full-time Henry duty starting today. I’m trying to think of things we can do that will keep him away from television. He’s become very demanding as of late. His hunger for Wow Wow Wubzy and Go, Diego Go know no bounds.
Depending on the weather we might hit up a local wading pool or maybe the zoo. But if it’s not warm enough or if it rains, we’ll be trapped in the house. I don’t know if I have enough Play-Doh to last us the entire weekend.
From a movie standpoint, it’s kind of bad timing that Cami is leaving town. 500 Days of Summer, The Hurt Locker and Funny People all open here today. I don’t know if we’ll have any time to see them together before I leave for Chicago Comic Con on Thursday.
G.I. Joe opens August 7 and will probably be the movie Zach, Gordon, the Digital Pimp crew and I end up seeing (as is our annual tradition). So I don’t know when I’m going to get caught up on the others.
Oh, well. More important things to worry about at the moment. Now where did I leave that Play-Doh?…
Have a great weekend, everyone!