UPDATE 05/18/12: Donation subscribers of any level will get access to an RSS feed with the full comic in it.
Read more about the new direction I am taking the comic in and how you can help HERE if you haven’t already.
Gigantic thanks to everyone that has donated last week, especially to the new donation subscribers. If you enjoy HE and would like to see it continue and even flourish, I have added $2, $3, and $4 monthly donation subscription options. If you can spare $2 a month for a bunch of comics, I would consider you to be a pretty awesome type of person.
And thus ends my first mini story arc. I hope you are enjoying the new format so far. It’s been a lot of fun to write, but there have also been several unexpected challenges. I found myself asking questions like, “Wait, should I show them going INTO the theater? Is the setting clear? Can you tell how much time has passed since the last comic?” Simple stuff, but stuff I’ve never had to deal with none the less. I am really enjoying the ability to expand on a joke or a premise from day to day instead of trying to cram it all into one comic or truncate everything I want to say. It feels like the room suddenly got bigger and I have more space to walk around. I am going to do one or two stand alone comics next, then pick up with a new short story line. I suspect that’s how things will go for the time being.
I am going to be at Dallas Comic Con this weekend with Randy Milholland of Something Positive. I will ONLY BE THERE SATURDAY. Randy will be there Saturday and Sunday. You can find us at table 132. I will have books, prints, stickers and sketch cards, but no shirts. Really testing the waters on this one. If you guys come out and make it a good show, I will probably be back next year in full force.
Friday (5/11/12) was the 5 year anniversary of HijiNKS ENSUE. Thanks to all the Fancy Bastards for the kind words and encouragement that have been pouring in via email, comments and twitter over the last week. I couldn’t do this weird, amazing job without you, nor would I want to.
I have and idea for an Avengers themed restaurant. I bet people would really enjoy the experience of dressing up in fancy costumes, getting the shit kicked out of them for a few hours, then being fed Middle Eastern food with questionable ingredients while they bled all over the floor. It’s like Medieval Times but awesome. I am looking for investors, and this is your opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Watch your step, the ground floor is covered in our patrons’ blood.
COMMENTERS: What famous movie scene do you think would make for a great (or terrible) theme restaurant? How about a Beetlejuice restaurant where your shrimp cocktail turns into a hand and tries to kill you? Or a Pulp Fiction restaurant where you get to eat classic American diner food while two hitmen in their underwear try to diffuse a robbery? Can you imagine how much fun it would be to eat under a table with your face on the floor while everyone is screaming and waiving guns around?
Josh and shawarma? Oh pullleeeze…. you know him better than that. I'm worried about finding him stuff to eat in Istanbul
One of the highlights of The Avengers for me is just seeing Black Widow chow down. It's one of the more authentic moments of the movie and I'm just glad she wasn't delicately eating a salad.
Hey, dunno if this his high on your priorities, but the image that shows up in RSS (specifically on gReader) is suddenly unreadably small. Would love to see the feed image restored to full-size (for purposes of not clicking through).
Thanks!
Read the last few blog posts. This was a decision based on reader feedback and an attempt to increase ad revenue to the site. All part of the new direction and new phase of the experiment. I am working on an option for a full feed for donors and subscribers, but right now there will be a thumbnail that you have to click on to see the comic.
Also, during the 2nd time my boyfriend and I watched the movie, we quietly mocked the people who left at the beginning of the credits. Then we opening mocked the people who left after the first surprise clip. SUCKERS.
I'm thinking a Primer-themed steakhouse is in order. I can't quite figure out the appropriate joke to go along with the "Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon," line though…
Gotta say Joel I really enjoy the way you've enbiggened the comic and embraced story arcs. Keep um coming this is the second comic after questionable content that I follow every day regardless, and I think you're about to embark on something great.
If you'll excuse me i need to go back to playing diablo 3
Mmm 28 days later – where you burn off all your calories by trying to dodge fast zombies. Nice thing is the restaurant can double charge – the zombies gotta pay to chase their food around.
Typo: cheap
A good movie-based restaurant… A Friday The Thirteenth themed diner! You eat stale tack and drink musty water while the lights flicker on and off. Then, if you survive the dinner, it's free! And, you get the severed head of the guy sitting next to you with a recipe for soup! Made from his brain!
I loved the first arc and I really like this new development.
…
Worst themed restaurant: Kevin Costner's Water World! On Wednesdays it's "bring your own urine" night…
My favorite themed restaurant idea would have to be Inception. They only serve foods inside other foods and you're never quite sure if you actually ate there or just dreamed about it. Mostly because of the tranquilizers and the staff whispering in your ear while you drift off. If any of the waiters knows where you live, you get moved to your own bed for extra conspiracy points.
I can't believe nobody brought up Indy yet. C'mon people! 3 words: Chilled Monkey Brains.
I just wanted to say that I've been reading the comic for about two years now, and I have always enjoyed it, so I wasn't sure how I was going to like this change. But now that you've finished the first arc I have decided that I really like the idea and I definitely really liked the execution.
We're actually planning on doing this for Thanksgiving this year. Turducken, Cherpumple, cheese ball Turducken (yes, it's a thing), and some kind of ungodly stuffing/mashed potatoes/cranberry sauce combination that I have yet to devise. It will be GLORIOUS.
Not sure if this falls under best or worst movie themed restaurant: "When Harry Met Sally".
Gonna go on the record, here, Joel, and say that was pretty awesome. I liked it. It made me laugh, it made me laugh again. You have nothing to fear about story lines and story-arcs.
Pretty much anything from a Cohen Brothers or Tarantino movie would probably make an awful restaurant.
Breath = noun. Breathe = verb. Otherwise, great comic arc. Loved it.
I was going to point it out, but I guess you got it. Grammar daleks unite!
Joel, you've caused an epidemic.
Fallout or Mad Max based diner. You fight to the death for your beverage and you have to hunt for the food you ordered while being stalked by raiders.
"The Cabin in the Woods Barbecue"
"Serenity Chinese Fusion Cuisine"
as long as I'm Whedon-ing, might as go all the way: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Stakehouse"
an untouchables restaurant, every hour someone on the staff gets murdered by hundreds of tommy gun bullets
also the only things on the menu are scotch, bootleg whiskey, cigars, cigarets, and 3 piece suits with fedoras
I keep throwing my money at the screen, but nothing is happening!
Silly Dookie, he needs to start a kickstarter first. THEN you throw the money at the screen.
The Tim Burtonteria: There's one pretty good dish, but then every single other dish is made from the same ingredients. It's not a BAD dish, mind you. Just a bit boring after the 10th time you eat it.
Oh, and you always get the same waiter and hostess, an the muzak is always the same station.
Joel, I'm excited to hear you're coming to Dallas Comic Con this weekend. I've volunteered there for a couple years, and I've been hoping you'd have a table there again so I could thank you in person for the laughs. I picked up some of your promo materials the last time you were at the Irving Convention Center, and I've been reading HE ever since.
Cool! See you there.
I liked Soderbergher's until they were shut down by the health department – that contaminated bacon? Nobody got away clean.
The Matrix themed buffet. Where you take the blue pill to enjoy the Chinese buffet and the red pill to enjoy the "normal" buffet. Crushing them both up and snorting them like Xkcd #566 will result in being allowed into the bar.
Awesome. Xkcd has the best ideas. A flow chart drive in! Do you want fries? Yes/no…you know, a drive through that from the sky looks like a big flow chart! Go one way for fries, one way for extra mustard, and another way to get a milkshake!
That would be even more confusing the highway designs, I love it!
My ultimate theme restaurant would be Hyborian Times. Fewer knights jousting, more barbarians clubbing each other with the furniture.
Sophie's Choice: waiters as SS, loaded Lugers, Two menu options. Go.
The "Jurassic Park Buffet" would be awesome. It would take up ~1 square mile and have an all you can eat "Bacon 'n' Beer" buffet at the end of the restaurant but you you have to fight/Escape Utah-raptors/Velociraptors and Some T-Rex. It would have a stadium type ticket booth at the entrance that sells $20 tickets. About 10 feet into the restaurant would be protected by electric fences and concrete moats. The roof would be a giant skylight. There would be moderate to dense foliage. The buffet has a one way entrance and it is protected by thicker electric fences and deeper moats. It will have beds for your hangovers and to rest up, we will spare no expense. The way you leave is to crawl through ~50 different air ducts that hang over "The Run" at about 8-10 feet. The ducts will link and diverge at different places across "The Run". Once you make it you get in free for the rest of your life. We will be open at night at a 1/4th of the price starting at 8pm and ending at 6am. Feeding the animals would be no cost to us.
You forgot the nattering mathematician who follows you around during the first level. He is trying to blow your mind with concepts you read on the internet years ago. Either you save his life from the various dinosaurs, or you club him to death with a Neil Stephenson novel.
I've been consistently reading Hijinks ENSUE for over a year. I like the approach of having a running storyline. However, I'm glad to hear that you are still planning on doing some one-shots. Some of your one-shots have been some of the best online strips I've ever read (such as the "Doctor is in").
What we really need are competing themed restaurants. One Batman themed, one Joker themed. Batman start selling french fries, Joker sells curly fries, Batman buys an in house brewery, Joker pees in Batman's brewery, and Batman hires a groups of actors to entertain the customers, Joker hires a group of actors to burn down Batman's restaurant.