Numerology

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

[posted 10/7/11] I had this comic written and half drawn when I got the hospital to visit my friend Mikey on Wednesday night. It was about 7:30pm and I had been away from a computer or Twitter for 2 hours or so. I get into Mikey’s room we start talking about his treatment, and his projects at work. “Yeah, and now that Steve Jobs is dead…” comes out of his mouth in the middle of our conversation. That’s a weird way to get the news. Anyway, I decided to hold the comic until after I posted a tribute strip [HERE] and people had a few days to process the his passing. So here’s my snarky commentary about the hypnotic powers of numbers being added to the names of things. Enjoy.

COMMENTERS: Are you upgrading to the iPhone 4s? Are you disappointed it isn’t a completely redesigned iPhone 5? Do you think any key features are missing or that people should just be grateful for their magical future phones? Also, WTF is going on with cellular, txt and data pricing? Txt msg’ing is a completely obsolete technology that just keeps getting MORE AND MORE EXPENSIVE for LESS AND LESS service. My first phone came with 3000 minutes, unlimited nights and weekends and something like 500 txts included for $35. Now plans with under 500 minutes, no txting and a few GB of capped data run over $100. WTFFFF?

Far Beyond Driven

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

On our rare kidless night off, I took my wife to see Drive. I was completely ready to write it off as as substituted-Statham drive/murder/fuck movie [hell, one of those words IS the title of the film], but the reviews I was seeing were surprisingly positive. Given the lack of other options in the cinema we gave took Drive for a test [PUN REDACTED]. I was quite surprised. A) Because they movie we saw and the movie that had been advertised had essentially NOTHING to do with each other. They seriously took the entire trailer from the first 15 minutes of the film which contains the only “anonymous crime driver for hire” sequence in the entire movie. And B) It was actually quite good.

Drive is a very slow, very thoughtful art house film. Not at all the ACTION-SPEED-MURDER-SEXcapade I had been lead to believe. Ryan Gosling has maybe six lines in the entire thing. I imagine 110 pages of his script just said “Ok, now look at her slyly, kinda bashfully, but also a little intimidating like you got something to hide.” The other 10 pages said “STAB THAT GUY IN THE NECK AND GET BATHED IN A FOUNTAIN OF HIS ARTERIAL BLOOD!!!” You see, that’s the other thing about Drive that made it… unique? You come in expecting bullets and blood in every scene, but instead you get a beautifully shot love story, sparse dialog, all at a relaxed pace. This serves to lull you into a false sense of calm, then SKLEEEESH! It’s knife time.

The violence in Drive is so unexpected, so infrequent and so brutal that you remember each and every act for a lot longer than you want to. The killings stick with you and keep you uncomfortable for at least as long as it takes to get to the next one. Only 5 or 6 people die in this movie and all of them do so in a spectacularly unsettling fashion. One death in particular still skeeves me out.

All of that said, I highly recommend it. Just know what you’re getting into.

STORE NEWS: The “Winter Is Coming” shirt should be in the store tonight or tomorrow. I’m excited.

ANOTHER THING: After a power surge last week, my file server (the one that holds all of my HE-related files) died (despite being plugged into a heavy duty surge supressor). The drives were OK but I have to buy a new enclosure ($150) to access them over my network. The same day I found out a miscalibration of our sprinkler system made our water bill for this month $200 more than we were expecting. So $350 I don’t really have just flew out the window. If you were considering donating to support HijiNKS ENSUE, doing so now would be SUPER APPRECIATED. Donors get access to all of the desktops, audio and other goodies in The Vault. Just make a donation of any amount, or sign up for a recurring donation subscription and you’ll get access.

Thanks!
~Joel

Of No Account

Buy my book. Buy my book. BUY MY BOOK!

You know what they say about death and taxes. There’s nothing shittier in the world than those two things. Yep, that’s how the old saying goes. I actually made this comic about not having finished my 2010 taxes INSTEAD of working on finishing my 2010 taxes. Is there some kind of meta-sadness most ironic procrastination write off? I have to have them done this week, so my CPA can finalize my return before I leave for New York ComicCon. Being a full time cartoonist is very much exactly the same as running a small business. There are 100’s of forms and thousands of numbers and hundreds of thousands of Advil and millions upon millions of things you just forgot to do because you are only one person and someone has to actually make some comics some times instead of just filling out forms about making comics, so now the government wants to take your house away. They don’t tell you all of that at orientation. Also there is no orientation.

Thanks!
~Joel

Warp Factor 1080p. Engage.

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this Three Wheaton Moon shirt. You can buy it! Then you can wear it! Only two steps to total geeky happiness? Sign me up!

I was super excited to hear that Star Trek: TNG was finally coming to Blu-Ray in HD. They are going back and scanning the original film stock and re-editing each episode to match the original. The thing I am having trouble with is that they are supposedly replacing all of the special effects with CG. Does that mean they are going to trash the beautiful starship models in favor of a CG Enterprise? I know they did that with TOS a few years back, but that wasn’t MY Star Trek, so I didn’t really care. Now I’m wondering of replacing the amazing model work in TNG is a distrespectful Lucas-izing of the series. I know the HD scenes mixed with blurry model shots, poorly blue screened onto backgrounds wouldn’t make for a cohesive viewing experience, but it still seems a bit wrong to me. Oh, hey! That was me turning old. I am old now. Where are my turnips?

Video: ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ is Coming to Blu–ray in 2012

UPDATE: It looks like they are going back to the original model shots and recompositing them. So no CG Enterprise as far as I can tell. It actually looks pretty fantastic.

A THING: After a power surge last week, my file server (the one that holds all of my HE-related files) died (despite being plugged into a heavy duty surge supressor). The drives were OK but I have to buy a new enclosure ($150) to access them over my network. The same day I found out a miscalibration of our sprinkler system made our water bill for this month $200 more than we were expecting. So $350 I don’t really have just flew out the window. If you were considering donating to support HijiNKS ENSUE, doing so now would be SUPER APPRECIATED. Donors get access to all of the desktops, audio and other goodies in The Vault. Just make a donation of any amount, or sign up for a recurring donation subscription and you’ll get access.

Thanks!
~Joel

A Slave To My Addiction

DO YOU SEE, INTERNET? MAKING COMICS FOR YOU IS KILLING ME!!!

At least that’s what a couple of trained medical professional types told me this week. I always find it odd that a chiropractor can run their fingers down your spine and go, “Oh, that’s the one. Need to pop that sucker back into place.” Seems like voodoo. I’ve had issues with a compressed disc in my lower back for a while, but now it seems I’ve hunched myself all the way over to full blown sciatica. If my posture were any worse I would be upside down.

As for my stupid eyes (or “look balls,” as they are never referred to), I assumed the constant pain, fatigue and twitching meant it was time for a new prescription. Following my standard plan, I waited 3 or 4 months after the symptoms started just to make sure. I like to be thorough. And negligent. Shockingly my scrip was the same as last year, so Dr. Eyeball (with a name like that, what other profession could he chose?) suggested I get reading glasses for making comics. I am officially falling apart bit by bit just to keep making stupid Internet butt-comics. At least I’ll die like I lived. Making stupid Internet butt-comics.

Here Lies Joel Watson
1981 – 2012
Beloved Husband, Father and Purveyor of Illustrated Dick Jokes
“OMG WTF LOL”

COMMENTERS: Please write your own tombstone eulogy, assuming you will die doing what you love (or at least what you spend most of your time doing ).

ANOTHER THING! Check out this fancy baby wearing a one of a kind HijiNKS ENSUE custom onesie. I drew this for a reader live during the last Dragon’s Lair Austin Webcomic Rampage panel.