‘Cause I’m Leaving On A Red Train

Yeah… soooo, I’m probably going to move to the Harry Potter Amusement Park at Universal Studios when it’s finished. I don’t want to work there, I just want to BE there, to exist in the “wizarding world” surrounded by magic and childlike wonder. This seems like it’s about as close as I’m going to get without some sort of extended hyper-sleep VR simulation situation. I’ll keep updating the comic until the park is ready, but once it is I’m taking the nearest portkey out of here. SUCK IT MUGGLES!

[More HE Harry Potter Comics]

ANOTHER THING: If you want to keep up to date on what I’m, doing, where I am or when the comics will be posted, you should probably FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER. I’m updating it all day as opposed to making long, rambling blog posts.

STILL MORE: It is imperitive to the continued survival of HE that we grow the audience. If you think about it, send your favorite HE comic via, email, facebook, twitter or whatever to a few friends. Remember, you are totally allowed to post HE comics on your blog for non-commercial use. Just please don’t hotlink the images. Thanks! ~Joel

COMMENTERS: What do you hope they include in the HP theme park? What would be your ultimate real life HP experience (within the realm of possibility)?

Slightly Not Canceled

“Hello, my name is Elivorio Montoya. Somebody killed my father. You guys wanna’ get some beers?”

[Before you point out the “typo” in panel 3, you must remember that in the HEniverse, people usually have 4 fingers per hand… except for when they don’t.]

I’ve never seen ABC’s Defying Gravity, so I can’t really comment on it’s potential uncancelation-non-demise. I’ve heard of it described as “LOST… in space” [thanks to @teacher_geek and @timbond for inspiring Josh’s words in panel 1], and “Grey’s Anatomy in Space.” I don’t know about you, but those comparisons are on very opposite ends of the geek spectrum as far as I’m concerned. While one is a delicious geeky worm dangling precariously on the end of a gleaming sci-fi hook, and the other is just the hook. Possibly with a piece of poo on it.

I have, however, seen The Princess Bride at least 150 times. 6 times or so in the last couple of months thanks to TNT-HD, which explains my recent preoccupation with it. It’s my wife’s favorite film and certainly holds a spot in my top 10. It is also one of my many “stop everything and watch this when it comes on TV especially if it’s in HD” movies, along with Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and any movie with “Back To the Future” in the title.

BOOK UPDATE: The print proof arrived today. The colors look great and there are only a few things that need to be changed before all 1000 units are built, or hewn or whatever they do with books.

BACK UPDATE: Many of you have emailed, commented and Twittered with concern for my back pain issues. I’m happy to report that 3 weeks of rest, stretches and time spent on the Infernal Machine have brought me back to roughly 85% or so of normal operating spinal capacity. I don’t feel great, but I can get up and around with relatively little pain. Thank you all for the kind words and advice.

Black As Pitch Meeting

In all fairness to Fox, their proposed space western sounds more like a Jonah Hex ripoff than a Firefly/Serenity wannabe. Credit where credit is due, I suppose.

I love writing for the Evil Fox Exec. Despite appearing only a handful of times, I have his entire back story fleshed out in my head. He’s a troubled man that wrestles with the moral implications of his many unfathomable sins, while simultaneously reveling in his god-like powers. He wasn’t born this way. He was made into a monster. He’s a walking study in nature vs. nurture. He started at Fox in a lowly, but creative position. The highers ups noticed his go-getter attitude and began molding him to their sinister will. With each promotion came more money, more power and more dubious job duties. At first he was only asked to cancel shows that had already had several seasons, good promotion and still suffered from low ratings. He thought of it as mercy killing. Then he was told to create shows that would garner a small but devoted fanbase JUST so they could be canceled and replaced with reality-dance contests. Fox’s hate-engine is fueled by sadness and he was loading it’s doom-furnace one shovel full at a time.

OK, he’s basically Lindsey McDonald to Fox‘s Wolfram and Hart, but I still enjoy the tiny, evil space in my head the EFE occupies. Expect to see more of him in the future.

Fox Brings Back Space Western… That Isn’t Firefly

The Glee Agenda

Echoing the real Josh’s Twitter sentiments: I am totally gay for Glee.

In fact, I’ve been quite gay for it since Fox premiered the pilot on Hulu almost 4 months ago. The musical element of the show gives it its voice, but thankfully it’s used sparingly. There’s typically a featured performance per episode and 1 more incidental song. It’s enough to keep the music present but not overpowering. The main female lead (sorry, haven’t learned names yet, and apparently I don’t know how to use Google) is infectious and owns every scene she’s in. One thing I especially like about Glee is the pacing. It moves quickly from plot point to song to plot point, etc. My only complaint (granted I’ve only seen 2 eps) is that all the dialog written for the only female black character sounds like it was specifically engineered to sound like it was written by a corny white guy FOR an “urban’ black girl. So far she’s a constant string of “sho-nuff’s” and “nah ahhh white boy’s.” She actually said “you’re pretty fly for a white guy” in episode 2. No black person has every uttered those words in the history of mankind.

Your thoughts on Glee? Are you A Gleek? Commentward, Ho!

The Plastic (guitar) Ono Band

[reddit-me]9/9/09 may be a a banner day for plastic guitar enthusiasts and Beatles fans alike, but when it comes to sacred gaming days involving a succession of 9’s nothing beats 9/9/99. Pour one out and break a GD-Rom in half for our fallen homey.

Comment-wise: What do you think about The Beatles Rock Band? Is it worth the custom vintage style instruments or would you rather just have the game? Also, what do you think Apple is going to announce today (if you care about such things)? Will they use the dual significance of this date to lauch the Beatles on iTunes? Will you buy “The White Album” for the 7th time?