Once You Get To Know Him…

Fighting Time Lords hoodies are at Sharksplode right now! Wibbly Wobbly Hoodie Warmy!

I guess Frank Miller views the Internet as one big, rickety porch he can sit on, balling his fists and shaking a rake at “those damn kids” while incomprehensibly ranting heavenward about “rapists” and “whores,” and “Islamicism,” and “lawns,” “getting off of said lawns” and “all the XBox’ing.” It’s a shame when you have to reevaluate your respect for art when you find out the artist is a bit of a deranged, racist prick. I suppose Frank Miller’s more d-bagged tendencies are well know throughout those that follow comics proper. I was well aware of his “influential comics dude” status, but more so with his name being attached to movies that I rather enjoyed. Maybe each of his adapted works should include an asterisk after his name.

Frank Miller’s* Sin City
*That guy is a cantankerous fuck

Frank Miller: Occupy Wall Street ‘Louts, Thieves & Rapists,’ Comic Writer Says

COMMENTERS: Feel free to post your general thoughts on Frank Miller’s OWS rant. Is it harder to enjoy art when you learn the creator is a rapist, thieving lout… I mean, an asshole?

The Hip Hop And The White Funk

HijiNKS ENSUE Holiday Cards are back!

AWESOME NEWS! My Desertbus auction to appear in a HijiNKS ENSUE comic raised $410 for Child’s Play. Thanks to all who bid and especially to Fancy Bastard Luke T. who won!

FANCY BASTARD ASSEMBLE Limited print update: The prints are at my house and will start shipping this week. Thank you for your patience.

Josh may be a bit off base, but Jesus, are those shows really 20 years old? I guess I’ll just crawl in bed and wait for my organs to fail. I came up for the idea for this comic while watching YouTube videos of the 80’s cartoon Kidd Video. Each animated episode would feature a live action music video from the show’s real titular fake band. I couldn’t help but thinking things might not have gone well for the four ethnically diverse, hair teased teens miming those instruments. That’s when I remembered that Nickelodeon offspring channel TeenNick recently started airing many of the early 90’s shows I used to watch as a kid.

All That (the preteen’s answer to SNL and the pedophile’s answer to Kids In The Hall), Hey Dude (another Nick show about 16 year olds that NEVER EVER EVER leave their summer jobs) and Doug (which broke new ground in racial discourse by featuring the only white kid in an all colored neighborhood) are all part of the “90’s Are All That” block. This sent me down a man eatin’ jack rabbit hole of Youtube videos and wiki articles. I emerged on the other side, feeling so much older and hardly any wiser, yet grasping on to this fundamental truth: Out Of Control and Weinerville were actually things, and not just chickenpox induced fever dreams.

Like it or not, these shows (along with Clarissa Explains It All, Welcome Freshman, Double Dare, The Adventures Of Pete And Pete, Salute Your Shorts, etc) really informed my sense of humor and popular culture at an impressionable age. Back in the early 90’s Nick was a sort of content generating machine geared specifically to my age group. You also never needed to change the channel. I also wasn’t really allowed to. At the time, we had basic cable and I was allowed to watched the 3 major networks, Disney (11) and Nick (31). I was NOT allowed to surf through the channels in between. I had to dial those particular stations in directly, lest my young mind be inappropriately influenced by C-SPAN or worse yet QVC. This limited selection is actually the main reason I am so well versed in 50’s black and white TV. I pretty much dialed in channel 31 and left it there from afternoon cartoons to Nick at Nite. Well, except for when I was watching The Mickey Mouse Club. I was only human.

COMMENTERS: Any special affinity for 90’s Nick TV? Remember those weird british Sci-Fi shows they used to import? Alien tweens in search of their parents or some such. Also did you, like me, breathe a big sigh of relief when you finally realized a lot of Nick’s shows were filmed in Canada and that accounted for why they seemed ever so slightly off? No? Just me? I’m going back to the organ failure thing.

From The Mouthes Of Booth Babes

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

[Since I was unable to make comics during Austin Comic Con, I am backdating a few lofi’s in the archive as not to interfere with the coming week’s comics. Please to enjoy.]

Most of the things HE Fancy Booth Babe James says in this comic are actual quotes. Somewhere along the way, he accidentally got pretty funny. I texted the thing about Kevin Sorbo to Wil, to which he replied “Lollerskates.” That’s about as high a seal of approval as a joke can ask for. I think James peed a little (a lot).

I do believe the next update will be a rather short Austin Comic Con fancy photo comic featuring my favorite cosplayer of the weekend. Feel free to guess the costume in the comments. Hints: I have never seen this costume done before (in 30 or so cons), it was executed perfectly and part of it glowed.

COMMENTERS: If you are a frequent con-goer, what costumes, activities, merchants, exhibitors, nachos, etc are you sick of seeing at every single show? What would you like to see more of? Personally, I am done with ill-fitting Starfleet uniforms, “free hugs” signs and artists that sit at their tables drawing, never looking up or making eye contact with anyone. I would like to see more well tailored Starfleet uniforms, alternative materials costumes (duck tape Bat Girl, paint swatch medieval knight, etc) and a Predator whose mandibles are mechanically articulated.

Sedentariat

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

[Since I was unable to make comics during Austin Comic Con, I am backdating a few lofi’s in the archive as not to interfere with the coming week’s comics. Please to enjoy.]

The spritely youth, full of vim, vigor and wide-eyed optimism is former HijiNKS ENSUE summer intern and current Austin Comic Con booth babe James. The above exchange happened nearly word for word as we arrived at the Austin Convention Center for setup and day one of the con. It is safe to say that I don’t get much exercise. Thus, when presented with the occasional physical exertion (which apparently includes walking a few blocks from the parking lot while pulling a hand cart), my body responds with cardiac arrest, renal failure, sudden onset juvenile diabetes and spontaneous human oldness disorder. These maladies were exacerbated by the fact that my back pain is at a sort of all-time high right now, which has also prompted me to use a cane while walking to and through the convention. I am merely 60 Vicodin and a few misdiagnosed cases of Lupus away from House territory.

It’s very strange realizing that your body is slowly but steadily betraying you. I don’t plan to use the cane permanently, or even that often, but it seems to help relieve some of the strain typically caused during a convention (typically brought on by bad chairs, lots of sitting, lots of lifting, lots of carrying, etc). I am extremely aware of the fact that I am using it. I am not able to just take a leisurely stroll without being constantly aware of trying to line up my new “magic leg” with the other two shitty ones. It’s like dancing with a one-legged robot.

More convention shenaniganery with James tomorrow!

COMMENTERS: Assuming you are not 14 or a mandroid, when did you first realize you were aging/getting older? Basically, tell us what you used to be able to do that you can’t do any more, preferably with some embarrassing story of personal injury or dismemberment.

Taking A Stab In The Dark

HijiNKS ENSUE Holiday Cards are back!

Alternate Horribly Long Horrible Title: Highlander IIb: The Treat Or Trickening: There Can Be Only One Funsize Kit-Kat Per Costumed Child

Over the course of the Halloween week (All Hallows Week or Halloweek), I watched John Carptenter’s original Halloween at least thrice (if not fource). I realized I had never seen the first one all the way through, and decided to correct that error several times over in a very short time span apparently. Whatever channel I was watching skipped Halloween 2 and went straight for Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch. After seeing that this movie A) Did not feature Michael Myers, B) DID feature evil rubber masks that murder children with Celtic magic, and C) Shared most of its name with a Nic Cage film from the tail end of his “I owe millions in back taxes tour,” I decided to do a little research.

Dozens of minutes of Wiki’ing later and I learned that the Halloween franchise suffered greatly from its initial success (to this day Halloween is possibly the highest grossing independent film of all time), and never quite replicated the original’s universally positive reception or cultural impact. Also there was that killer rubber mask thing. Jamie Lee Curtis’s character was killed off, then brought back, but no one bothered to tie up all the loose ends surrounding her resurrection so Halloween’s 3-6 are now regarded as “mostly out of canon.” During those “lost years” Michael is given a backstory that involves an ancient Celtic cult and a blood sacrifice which is what leads Michael to turn evil, invincible and homicidal, yet never able to accelerate past a modest amble.

When I was nine years old, we watched Halloween 4 at a friend’s slumber party. It was my first foray into the series and I was incredibly confused as to why the killer shared a name with the star of Wayne’s World. Considering The Love Guru, I’m not sure which Michael Myers was the greater threat. I’d like to see Mike Myers as Michael Myers in Halloween IX: Some Folks Call It A Shwing Blade.

COMMENTERS: Was it a mistake to actually try and make sense of a horror franchise’s plot continuity? Should I just enjoy the splatter, boobs and splattered boobs? Which long running horror franchise took the weirdest turn plot-wise? What were your favorite horror/slasher films as a kid, and do they hold up to scrutiny now?