You’re Killing Me, Buster

Hey, maybe go preorder that snazzy Wil Wheaton plushie if’n you’d like to get one before Xmas.

Blockbuster Video is a Dallas-based entity (I’m not sure that “business” is the right word), so if you are going to see one in operation, you are probably going to see it here. There is actually one not too far from my house. Every time I drive past it, I get this screwed up look on my face that puzzles and posits, “How? Why? And more importantly, WHO!?” Who is perpetuating this video rental life support with their patronage? I mean, we could go on and on debating “quality of life” and what is or is not a “vegetative state,” but surely we as a society must have enough collective mercy to pull the plug.

Considering I haven’t stepped foot in a Blockbuster for nearly a decade, I can only assume that they are but gutted out husks used for staging some sort of Mad Maxian societal apocalypse scenario. Maybe each Blockbuster is seeded with a few employees, a handful of customers and their children and once the doors are locked government officials watch on closed circuit cameras and time how long it takes for everything to go all Lord Of The Flies. My guess is it’s just after the 4th time the in-store tv’s play the trailers for Miss Congeniality.

I was inspired to make this comic upon remembering a photo that I had seen online of a “Blockbuster wasteland.” A little research showed that it was posted on Tumblr by none other than my friend Wil. Once I realized that, I changed the alt text, which had previously said: I was 30, going on 31 the first time I saw a dead former retail giant. Spooky.

COMMENTERS: When was the last time you remember regularly using a Blockbuster? Do you STILL?! What happened to you? Are you OK? Remember walking all around a store for sometimes an hour only to go home empty handed? That is how people used to live ! Any other particular stores or services that you used to use every day that have since been totally replaced by technology?

Feel free to add to the mythos of “what goes on inside a Blockbuster.”

The Harsh Light Of Day

The Lil’ Wil Wheaton Plushie Pre-Sale IS NOW HERE in the HE Store. The ONLY way to make sure you get one by the holidays is to order during the pre-sale. They’re $19.95 + shipping. Buy one for you, one for a friend and one to customize with a little fez or horrible spacesuit sweater!

Check out the Serenity/Star Wars themed art I did for the Edmonton, Alberta “Can’t Stop The Serenity” charity Auction. If you’re going to the event, it could be yours.

I don’t even know what to believe any more. No one seems the like Prometheus. The warmest review I’ve heard from a trusted geek source is “I enjoyed it well enough, but there were some MAJOR problems.” I’ve so been looking forward to this movie for months, and now I don’t even know if I want to see it in theaters or wait for home video. It seemed like it had everything the perfect ME movie should have. Spaceships, robots, space, creepy robots, a lady, aliens, space murder, convulsing, space suits, cryo-sleep, a thing trying to kill everyone, space accents… quite literally EVERYTHING I look for in a movie. Now I’m hearing about character problems and a story that doesn’t quite come together. I really hope this is another Avatar situation, where I LOVE it and all the haters can go suck on a plasma exhaust port.

COMMENTERS: Feel free to give you TOTALLY SPOILER FREE thoughts on Prometheus in the comments. Rest assured that, despite my warning, I will probably read none of them until after I see the movie. I’m still holding out hope.

The Final Countdown

The Lil’ Wil Wheaton Plushie Pre-Sale STARTS TODAY HERE in the HE Store. The ONLY way to make sure you get one by the holidays is to order during the pre-sale. They’re $19.95 + shipping. Buy one for you, one for a friend and one to customize with a little fez or horrible spacesuit sweater!

Responding to this tweet from @NicaRedHead gave me the idea for this comic. You see, my friend Wil has what science doers call “Hockey Brain.” It is a horribly debilitating condition that causes one to flail about uncontrollably, run around the house screaming and gesture incomprehensibly at the television. As of right now there is no cure and no one is currently working on a cure or doing any research on the subject. Luckily for sufferers and their families, symptoms seem to subside… oh, about right now. Science doers can not explain this sudden onset total remission, because they don’t know what channel the NHL is broadcast on and chances are they probably have it deprogrammed from their cable box anyway.

COMMENTERS: Do you or someone you love suffer from Hockey Brain? Can you explain it to me? How many downs are in an inning? Is the goal master allowed to throw his ice mallet like a javelin? Wouldn’t it be easier to play on grass or concrete? Ice seems like it would be quite slippery. I wonder if the Mayor of Sports Puck called to congratulate The Le’ Kings (must be a french team) on their victory against the Othertown Differentcolors.

And The Bartender Says, “Why The Long Face?”

The Lil’ Wil Wheaton plushie is going to go on presale this coming Monday (6/11) at midnight (Tuesday morning 6/12) HERE in the HE Store. The ONLY way to make sure you get one by the holidays is to order during the presale which I believe is going to be one week, maybe two. They’ll be $20 + shipping.

So as I got ready to abandon the recent comic continuity and write a gag NOT involving the E.F.E. and his transition into a new phase of evil, I naturally found myself following up with the characters right where the last plot(ish) point(let) left off. I still got the gooey, nougaty Bladerunner gag in that I wanted, but I sort of accidentally wrapped it in a hard candy shell of continuing canon. It’s like continuity has infected my brain like a brain disease! I’m not saying it’s always going to be like this, but I felt like voicing my mini-revelation as I experiment more with the new format.

All that aside, if Harrison Ford IS in Bladerunner 2, it better be because someone is saying, “Hey, old man! You look just like this robot I used to know who died like 30 years ago. You know, if he had lived to be old like you, which he didn’t because he was a robot and robots aren’t allowed to live that long. Anyway, give you all your money before I shoot you with a gun.”

COMMENTERS: If Harrison ford is in the sequel, how can they do it without betraying the fact that Deckard WAS a replicant? HE WAS! SHUT UP! WHO SAYS HE WASN’T!? TELL THEM TO SHUT UP FOREVER! Maybe he could have a cameo has the “old guy who Deckard’s face was based on.” Otherwise they’d have to CGI de-age him like Jeff Bridges or Snape, which we all know has SUPER creep-tastic results. Why are there glowing patches of smoothness where your eye bags are supposed to be? WHY!?

Am I Evil? Yes I Am.

All of the discount shirts in the HE store have been FURTHER DISCOUNTED to $12.95! That is IN-SANE. You can get your “And My Axe!” shirts, your “Unicorn Poop” shirts, your “Sci-Fi Tv Movie Title Generator” shirts and more for less than something that costs exactly $14. GO GO GO!

IT’S OVER! This comic completes the first mini story arc since I started toying with the notion of light continuity in the comics. I’m pretty pleased with the results and I feel like I learned a great deal about how to integrate longer stories into HE in the future (mostly due to mistakes I made during this part of the experiment). Now I just have to figure out if I remember how to do gag comics. Is Doctor Who still a thing? He has a hat, right?

I hope you enjoyed this new beginning for HE. I came up with a LOT more ideas for the E.F.E. than I could fit in these first 6 comics, so I expect we’ll see him again sooner rather than later. My goal is that within a couple of months a new reader will be able to read the recent comics and really get a sense for who the characters are without feeling like they are hindered by years of complex continuity and backstory. I guess we’ll see how that pans out. I have missed getting to comment on things that are happening in geek pop culture AS they are happening. I’m sure, as time goes on, I’ll find a way to strike a happy balance. Either that, or I’ll lose all my readers and have to take a job shucking pigs at the ham works (or whatever they do to pigs at where ever pigs are converted into delicious hams).

I’ve asked for some help with naming the new HijiNKS ENSUE eBook comic collections over in the new Fancy Bastard Facebook Group? The first comic collection will be done very shortly and be sent to all current donation subscribers. Everyone else will be able to buy it for a “pay what you like” donation. You can start a donation subscription for as little as $2 a month and REALLY help support HijiNKS ENSUE.

J.J. Abrams really is sort of unassailable in terms of successes vs. failures these days. At any given time he has 4-5 TV projects in the works and another 2 or 3 movies in various stages of production. He usually gets a TV project off the ground then turns it over to a capable team so he can move on to something else. In a way I like his “sharks can’t sleep” approach to television and in another I am fatigued by his “I started 12 shows in the last 4 years and only 2 of them were good, oh well whatever MORE LENSE FLAIR!!!” mentality. I applaud him for seeming NOT to treat his projects as his babies, which seems to shield him from the heartbreak and stink of the ones that fail, yet give him total credit for the ones that succeed even if he doesn’t take an active role in their production.

COMMENTERS: So I guess my question is, better to be a Whedon or an Abrams? Whedon seem to ONLY do passion projects. He loves his shows so much that they need to go stay with their sister for a while and think about stuff. Abrams squirts his DNA all over our TV’s then immediately swims off to new spawning grounds, leaving his shows to fend for themselves. Does one of these methods produce better art, more heartbreak, both or neither?