The Red And Blue Glasses Of Westmarch

Nothing says, “I bought you some stuff from the Internet,” like buying people stuff from the Internet.

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

The problem with 3D technology in modern cinema is that is it usually an unnecessary add-on designed to create false buzz and inflate ticket prices. Sure, occasionally a pick-axe or severed appendage will fly out of the screen and into your face, but it doesn’t really add anything to the overall experience. Say what you will about Avatar, but seeing that film in 3D was an experience unto itself. It truly was beautiful and it felt nothing like just “seeing” a movie. It felt like living through an event. I actually read that well-done 3D can trick your brain into storing movies in the place that it would normally store memories of real events. That said, most 3D movies trick your bain into spending money on them, sitting through them then storing the memories in the same place you lock away 4th grade wedgies, 5th grade accidental farts during book reports and 10th grade atomic wedgies.

Avatar showed us what 3D can be in the hands of someone that views it as a story telling medium unto itself, rather than just a gimmick. After watching Peter Jackson’s recent The Hobbit video diary, I feel like we might not be so quick to dismiss 3D as a flash in the pan studio money-grab. The tech he is developing and the techniques they are using to create The Hobbit are truly astounding. First of all they are shooting at 48 FPS (movies are 24FPS and we see around 60FPS) at 5K! That’s nearly 5 times more information than our best HD, being recorded at twice the frame rate. He says in the video that people equate viewing the footage to having the back of the theater cut out, and just watching real event happening on the other side. If that doesn’t get you excited, then your mind has surely been warped and twisted by Sauron. Also, by the last few Final Destination and Saw movies.

Perhaps we should start regulating what movies can and can’t be shot in 3D. Maybe there should be a test, or a review panel consisting of James Cameron, Peter Jackson and “Weird” Al Yankovic.

COMMENTERS: PLEASE WATCH THAT PRODUCTION DIARY! Ok, now are you feeling any sort of increased enthusiasm about 3D? If not, why? Where do you want to see this tech go? Obviously every movie doesn’t need to be in 3D. Where do we draw the line?

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?

The Black Shakes

HijiNKS ENSUE Holiday Cards are back!

Holy crap in a sack of butts, I had totally forgotten how terrible Johnny Mnemonic was. I mean, I remembered that it was bad, but having not seen it since I was 14, I did not specifically remember that nearly every line was was both written and delivered with equal parts inappropriate intensity and laughable incoherence . And William Gibson actually wrote the screenplay! Aren’t we supposed to like him? I actually find it quite fitting that the first time I saw Johnny… just Johnny, it was on laser disc. A movie about a future that looks like a past that never was on a format of future past that never caught on and totally sucked balls. To be fair, I’m pretty sure I loved it when I was 14 (loved the concept of laser disc too), but after years of reflection and re-evaluation I realized what a colossal cyber-turd it was.

The one thing I appreciate of Keanu Colonic is how accurately it portrayed what 90’s youth expected the future to be like, and just how inaccurate that prediction was. It’s a sort of beautiful symmetry of wrongness. We don’t use clunky V.R. goggles to surf a 3D cyberscape, and we aren’t so addicted to technology that it… [sorry, had to check Twitter] that it… something something. I also appreciate that Ice-T’s character’s name was J-Bone. I like to think that he had a clause in his contracts back then which stated he would only go by “hard sounding” single syllable word + letter of the alphabet combinations. He might have portrayed a car jacker named D-Rock, a crooked undercover cop named Cuff-P or a cellist pimp named F-Hole.

“So get your VCRs ready, ’cause we got what you need.”

COMMENTERS: Feel free to share your memories of Johhny Mnemonic or any other “Future that never was” type of 80’s or 90’s movie. What were you hoping WOULD come to pass from these movies and what are you glad NEVER caught on? Alternately, give me a premise and character name for another Ice-T role using the “word-letter” rules.

A Real Fixer-Upper

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

American Horror Story is only 5 episodes in and it’s already banana tits insane. Every single day 100 unspeakable horrors happen to the family in the murder house, any one of which would cause regular, sane people to curl up into the fetal position and scream until they were dead. It is impossible to watch this show without constantly wondering WHY ARE THEY STILL IN THE HOUSE!?!?!! At any given time there are at least 3 creepy murder neighbors (2 of which are probably ghosts) lurking uninvited in the house, 3 or 4 people are who supposed to be dead (and probably are) trying to break into the house and a host of demons, ghouls and haunting visions plaguing every waking moment of this family’s lives yet they never just GET THE FUCK OUT. Oh, the market is bad? You can’t sell the house without being upside down? FUCK IT! GET OUT! SAVE YOURSELVES! It’s super frustrating how unbelievable everyone’s actions and reactions are. It’s like asking us to believe a family gets a new dog and it turns out the dog farts bullets, so every single day someone is getting accidentally fart-shot and yet they NEVER get rid of the dog.

COMMENTERS: Are you watching American Horror Story? Post your thoughts, theories, etc. in the comments. I’m sure there will be some spoilers, so read at your own risk.

Something Strange And It Don’t Look Good

“George Hurt You” shirts are in the store!!!

“Seriously! Who is that young ghost dude with the Sith-eating grin on his face? I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

I know I typically dress up the HE characters for HE-ween, but since I already did that for the “Fancy Bastards Assemble” print just last week I thought I would go in a different direction. Honestly, I was trying to figure out how to do this comic as a “costumes” gag, but in the end it just seemed forced. Either way, just remember that if the light’s green, the droid’s clean.

COMMENTERS: What were you for Halloween (besides drunk)? Feel free to post links to pics of your costumes in the comments. Any particularly fantastic Halloween costume stories? Kiddo wanted to be a ghost, so the wife and I made a SPOOKtacle of a costume, though it doesn’t top our homemade “Boo” costume from a few years back.

Josh IRL went as a character from his company’s game Borderlands called Salvador.

[more pics here]

I have no idea how he cell shaded himself (which is different than blue-ing oneself). He’s come such a long way since Gaytos.

BONUS COMIC: Since he is still without power I decided to send Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content a guest comic. It features a character he, Randy and I created last year in Austin, TX named Sergei. All you need to know about Sergei is he is a man of means. Whatever you need, he can get it. Or something close to it.