Typically comic-Tom is so much more creative. I don’t know why he didn’t go a little bit further when picking his mutant power.
Even though yesterday’s comic was about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s baby, I took most of the blog to discuss the recently released X-Men 3 teaser trailer. Now I’m in the position of having nothing more to say about it when I actually get around to making a comic that references it directly! I have to plan these things out a little more in advance.
Not much to share, I supposed. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe comes out today. Or, as I like to call it The Chronicles of Narnia: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Embrace The Unfathomably Long Movie Title. Still no plans to see it. The Lion is a metaphor for Jesus Christ, that’s all I need to know. Not to sound ignorant, but I guess I’m already too late.
Brokeback Mountain and Syriana come out today as well. I’ve been kind of pacing back on forth on whether to see either. As the boys from South Park might put it, Brokeback Mountain looks like nothing more than an independent movie about gay cowboys eating pudding. But the more reviews I read, the more it becomes clear that homosexuality has less to do with it than it being a truly heart-wrenching love story. Wanting what we can’t have due to forces beyond our control.
The homosexual theme isn’t what made me wary of the movie, mind you. I think if more movies like this can creep into the mainstream, then that’s a good thing. But the trailer just made it seem so overbearing, it bordered on being gimmicky. "I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU!" I mean, c’mon. I know it’s a love story. I know it’s about tortured passion. But that’s a ham-fisted line in the vein of "You had me at ‘Hello’." A real eye-roller.
Syriana seemed to be a liitle "too political" for it’s own good. I’m a news-junkie as-is, so I’m exposed to a lot of the subject matter it covers on a daily basis anyway. I don’t know at what point the tide started turning for me. I guess reading more reviews! Critics seem to think this is a pretty important film in the sense that it puts serious issues front and center and we don’t see a lot of films like that anymore. I never thought about it that way before, but it’s true. It’s made me curious enough to check it out soon.
Of course both of these movies are awards-contenders. And as the sun sets sooner and the temperature dips below freezing, I am more inclinded to watch "serious" movies in hopes that the mental stimulation inside a toasty warm theater will stave off the winter doldrums for another year.
Got a little poetic on you there, didn’t I?
Anyway, in non-movie news, there will probably be a new front page layout for you guys when you come back to the site on Monday. I’m not doing a site-overhaul, or anything. Just kind of reorganizing elements and trying new things with advertisers. Yup, advertisers. I bet you love to hear that, huh? But it’s actually a serious attempt to parse some of that action back. Or at least integrate it into the site a little less clumsily.
Aren’t you excited to see the results?! I know I am.
Have a great weekend. I’ll see you back here Monday.
Oh, in case you weren’t familiar with the X-Men 3 clip that’s being referenced in the punchline in today’s comic, click here. It’ll help to make a little more sense out of things.
Of course, if you were a huge comic book nerd like I am, you would then see exactly what’s wrong with the clip and it would make EVEN MORE sense!
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Jun 23, 2006 | A QUICK POST |
First off, let me say that this strip took FOREVER to figure out how to stage and draw. You think drawing a car is hard? Try drawing a roller coaster! Coloring and shading was no walk in the park, either. Especially that third panel! It was like doing everything backwards!
But I’m happy with the result.
I need to talk about something serious for a moment. It’s about the book pre-sale.
Here’s the thing: Sales are good, but there is information about this pre-sale that I haven’t shared with you. There are deadlines to consider and now it’s time to let those be known.
THE BOOK PRE-ORDER WILL END SUNDAY, JUNE 11.
Y’see, I’ll be attending Wizard World Chicago this year on August 4- 6 and I want to be sure and have copies of the book with me. In order to have the books printed up and delivered by August 1, the printer needs the artwork by June 11.
The reason for this pre-sale is to raise the money needed to pay the printer. In order to do that, a certain number of books need to be sold. As I said before, sales have been good but they’re not moving as fast as I need them to. Which brings me to my second point:
I NEED 240 MORE PRE-ORDERS BEFORE SUNDAY, JUNE 11.
The reason I didn’t mention the pre-sale deadline or the number of pre-orders I needed was because I didn’t want you guys to look at those figures and become complacent. I didn’t want you to look at those numbers and say "Oh, he’ll get what he needs before then. I’ll just wait until the book is published."
Don’t think like that. I need your help. Not to get over-dramatic, but the success of this book could seriously impact the future of Theater Hopper.
The goal with the first book was to raise enough money through pre-orders to pay for the cost of the total run. The profits of every book sold after that would go toward the production of the second book and so on. Thus shortening the length of the pre-order or eliminating it altogether for subsequent books. A snowball effect.
If I can’t get the first book off the ground, there is a strong likelihood that there won’t be a second book. I don’t want that to happen. Because if I’m incapable of getting a single book off the ground, then I need to re-examine how much time I’m dedicating to Theater Hopper. Say that out loud scares the crap out of me.
I don’t want to guilt you guys into buying the book. I realize that it’s tough to come up with the money for these things. I know most of you are in high school or college and you don’t have a lot of spare cash.
But it only takes a few of you to make a difference. Between 6,000 and 7,000 of you visit this site daily. All I need is for four percent of you to pre-order the book to make this a success. FOUR PERCENT! That’s nothing! I know you have it in you to help me.
Remember what you’re getting. 200 pages, full-color. 156 comics with brand new commentary. 11 guest strips. A 6-part crossover. An original signed and numbered sketch from me. A $20 Fandango.com gift certificate if you get 5 of your friends to pre-order along with you. Can you see that I’m serious about this? I need to make this happen. I need your help to do it.
PLEASE PLACE YOUR BOOK PRE-ORDER TODAY!
Cami and I will be gone from May 18 – 31. It would really help to ease my mind to know that before we left, the pre-orders would be complete and we can move forward. After nearly 4 years of continuous on-time and FREE content, this is the most important thing I can ask you to do for me in return.
Thank you.