Not Cool Cool Cool Cool, NBC

Not cool cool cool cool at all.

TV actors live under the constant threat of their livelihoods being ripped away by some faceless executive. Which I suppose is better than having their faces ripped away by some lifeless executive. It has to be an unbelievable shock going from a professionally unemployed actor to making 10’s of thousands of dollars a week to wondering how you’re going to afford your pool boy’s Lexus payment when essentially not of the decisions that affect those major life changes are in your control. Hollywood is basically a glorified temp service broadcast to the world.

I’m a big Community fan, and it’s a shame to see NBC shelve their second best show (sorry Abed-heads, but 30 Rock is perfect) because not a wide enough swath of middle America can relate to its deep pop culture references, bizarre concept episodes and general geekiness. It’s one of the only shows actually pushing the boundries of what can be done with a comedy on network TV. I guess the problem is if you keep pushing boundaries, you eventually hit a wall. I hope the show rebounds and comes back stronger than ever, but it might just be too quirky, smart and genuinely funny to survive. At least we still have Whitney, right? What do you bring to your Whitney viewing parties? Chocolate? Red wine? A bullet?

COMMENTERS: Lament the seemingly inevitable demise of Community, or dare to proclaim why you won’t miss it once it’s gone (is it because you had your human heart replaced with a can of powdered turnips?). Feel free to post links to your Inspector Spacetime fanfic in the comments as well.

Occupy Jumpstreet

“Winter Is Coming” shirts are now IN THE STORE!!! [based on this comic]

Cops are tazing our grandmas with pepper spray, and the government is SOPA’ing the Internet into oblivion. Everything is terrible forever. I can’t think about it too much or it gets kind of terribly depressing.

Did you ever want to be in a HijiNKS ENSUE Comic? No? What about you? Oh, good! Desertbus is auctioning off just such an opportunity and the proceeds benefit The Child’s Play Charity. What could be better than that? The answer is nothing. It is the best thing.

COMMENTERS: I would ask what you think about OWS, but I’m scared things would escalate negatively and some of you might start fights with each other. Polotics tends to bring out the piss and vinegar in even the most reasonable geeks. So what about SOPA? Can we all at least agree that a “Great Firewall Of China” for America is probably a pretty terrible idea? [please don’t fight, please don’t fight, please don’t fight…]

The Desecrator

The HIJINKS ENSUE STORE Is where you can buy stuff that I made! It supports me and my family and keeps this little operation going.

LIMITED PRINT UPDATE: If you have ordered the limited, signed “Fancy Bastards Assemble” print, they are on the way from the printer now. I should have them in a few days and they will start shipping out just as quickly as I can sign and pack them.

Sometimes you just need a good poop joke. Don’t fight it. Just try to enjoy it. That’s also what my proctologist said at my last check up. BOOM! BANG! ZAM! More with the joke making! It’s even doubly funny since I don’t have medical insurance and couldn’t see a butt doctor even if I needed one! Ohhh, the hits just keep on coming.

COMMENTERS: Can you still laugh at juvenile humor, or did you find your self growing out of it at some point? Was there a specific instance that made your mind up either way? Are there certain bits of low brow comedy (movie scenes, tv shows, stand ups, etc) that still get you despite your best efforts to remain a bastion of adult sophistication?

The State Of The Universe

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this “Fighting Time Lords” shirt for you! No, really. Specifically FOR YOU.

[Sorry, non-Doctor Who fans. This one doesn’t make any sense to you.]

The Whitehouse’s official stance on aliens, UFO’s and the like is that we haven’t yet made contact, and no information regarding extraterrestrials has been concealed by the government from the public. But, isn’t that EXACTLY what they would say if they WERE covering something up? And if The Silence are involved, do they even know they are covering it up? If Fox Moulder voted for Obama, would it be “Change I WANT TO BELIEVE in?” Further more, do astronauts have sex in space? How does that even work? So many mysteries.

When I was a kid, I was both facinated and terrified by the idea of aliens visiting Earth. The early 90’s saw a strange surge in alien related media. Perhaps The X-Files started it, or perhaps the interest in UFO’s paved the way for the show. Either way, there were TV specials, movies and books coming out left and right that all seemed to say the same thing: We are not alone, and the truth is being kept from us. I soaked up every bit of info I could (which was hard pre-Internet) and felt that I had an above average working knowledge of “the truth.” I knew all about the inconsistencies of the reports surrounding Roswell, the military personell that had come forward only to be discredited, the similarities in abduction stories and the “greys.” I just accepted that this was the secret truth and eventually it would all come out. I could understand, even at 11 years old, why the government would lie about these events, but I never even questioned the “abductees” themselves. Why would anyone lie about such a thing? I also wanted us to get as close to a Star Trek reality as possible in my lifetime, and aliens jump starting our technology and society seemed like a good way to get the ball rolling.

I realize now how I let my youthful naivety and enthusiasm for sci-fi get out of hand. I firmly believe there are other lifeforms in the universe, those we would recognize as life and those we would not, but I doubt they are monitoring us or conducting experiments on us. A life-sustaining world might be such a rarity in the universe, and the distances between them so great, that even given millions of intelligent species two of them would just never cross paths. Life may also be abundant in the universe, but just not all at the same time. Perhaps species are born and die in the relative blink of an eye and hardly ever coexist. I hope that’s not the case. How lonely if it is.

COMMENTERS: Were you, as I, fascinated by aliens as a kid? Are you now? Any defining moments that lead you to believe one way or another? One thing that sticks out for me was the TV movie version of “Communion.” There was a scene where a little boy runs to a lake, a woman chases him, then sees a spaceship floating over the lake and when the boy turns around he has the face of a grey. THAT. SHIT. SCARED. ME. TO. DEATH. The images was burned into my brain and haunted me for years. It was especially horrifying because I believed it was 100% true and was probably going to happen to me eventually. So far it hasn’t… or has it? [No, probably not.]

Wheaton Comic Dare: Sterling Cooper Maverick Goose

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this “Fighting Time Lords” shirt for you! No, really. Specifically FOR YOU.

Occasionally Wil Wheaton dares me to turn random tweets into comics. This burden, this curse is mine alone to carry. One day I will find a way to break the chains that bind me to the will of Wheaton, but until then you can benefit from my suffering. That is assuming you have any idea at all what is happening in the above comic. Do you? Can you explain it to me? I blacked out about halfway through drawing it and when I awoke the house was on fire. [He makes me doooo thiiinnnngs… baaaaad thiiiinnngs]

This particular Wheaton comic dare originated from a tweetversation between me and Fancy Bastard @pipsipirate regarding “Top Men” and their relationship to both Top Gun and Mad Men. Highway to the danger zone, indeed. Apparantly Wil Wheaton has my twitterphones tapped or else I retweeted the exchange, because mere moments after the initial transmission he threw down the gauntlet.

Having completed the challenge and being hardly any worse for the wear [some of my skin has started to grow back], I am now hoping someone far more talented than me will remake the entire Mad Men intro using elements of Top Gun. There’s already all of that falling. The work practically does itself.

AUSTING COMIC CON IS THIS WEEKEND!!! [MORE INFO]
November 11-13 at the Austin Convention Center! Look for me in the artist alley.