Under The Bridge Downtown Pt. 1

HEY HEY! Check out my guest comic over at Dinosaur comics!
Special thanks to Rob D of Cyanide and Happiness [the guy I’m talking to in the comic].

There are certain intangible benefits to attending a twice-a-month computer sale that happens under an overpass in Downtown Dallas between the hours of midnight and 6am. First and foremost among them is observing the high octane batshit crazies that such an event draws. The “First Saturday Sale” as it is known among local nerds (though now it happens on the first and third Saturdays of each month) is something very near and dear to me. It was my first new ritual upon moving to Dallas. My friends would gather up in a vehicle around 11pm the final Friday of the month and head to to an incredibly shady area of Downtown Dallas in search of Pentium II processors, Soundblaster 16 bit sound cards, Ram that was still measured in MB’s and hard drive’s who’s GB’s barely tipped the double digits.

UPDATE: The print is in the store for a limited time! Get it while you can.

BUY THE PRINT HERE!

We used to go to First Saturday with specific missions. Someone’s machine need some sort of minor upgrade and it was up to all of us to dig through hundred of boxes strewn across 4 vacant parking lots (before they moved under the overpass) in order to find it. Eventually haggling over case fans and the like was no longer neccessary as that all computer components could be found cheaply online (and with a much better warranty than “might be broke… might not be”). But I still maintained the ritual for a good while. The thing I came to realize is that the only people weirder than those that would stand in a vacant lot for 24 hours with a rented U-Haul full of slightly damaged 15″ CRT’s is someone who would leave the comfort and safety of their home in the wee hours of the night in order to seek out those same CRT’s. The place was teeming with a magnificent abundance of weirdos.

The people watching became it’s own event. A type of sport. Who can spot the weirdest weirdo? One of my personal favorites was the middle aged married dork couple that spent the whole evening communicating back and forth via giant plastic (possibly toy) head-mounted walkie talkies. “There’s a really good deal on canned air over hear, hun. By the big stack of ATX cases and control top panty hose.”

I seem to remember First Saturday closing down for a few months and just that easily I forgot about it. That was almost 10 years ago. I went back (to the new location) a handful of times, but I hadn’t been in the last 4 or 5 years until last weekend. Rob D. and I had been tossing the idea around for a while. Neither of us needed any particular hardware. I just wanted to see if the general oddness of the whole thing had been properly maintained. Had they cleaned up their act or was it still desperate, ghoulish people selling broken, unwanted e-trash. I was actually worried that it would be super boring and normal and I would have dragged Rob down there for nothing. Let me assure that my fears were unfounded as that the First Saturday Sale was a fucking symphony of obsolescence and absurdity. There is little to no exaggeration in today’s comic. Ok, panel 3 actually contains quite of bit of exaggeration. The guy wasn’t ranting, but he did have an “Obam-ulance” on display. In addition to random computer parts he was also selling lube. I bought a case for my mom’s iPod nano from him for $1.

My plan is to stick with this “story line” for the rest of the week so I hope you enjoy it. Nut jobs and boxes of crap. What else could you ask for?

here are a few more Tweeted pics to put the whole thing into perspective: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Making An X-Ception

I realized recently that I never said anything about Marmaduke. So why not take a commentary about X-Men: First class needing some rewrites due to previously unknown similarities to Inception and just shoehorn that giant fucking dog right in there? It makes perfect (anti)sense. Ahh, but the reference doesn’t fit because the dog is just too darn big. And in that remarkable bigness lies the humour. You can’t see the humor, though.

Because the dog’s so big.

He blocks the joke.

With his bigness.

COMMENTERS: What other scenes is Matthew Vaughn going to have to remove from his X-men reboot for being too similar to another film?

I’ve been making more posts in The Vault recently [behind the scenes on two secret logo projects for big name comedians, a secret t-shirt that may never see the light of day, and the rough sketch of this particular comic (featuring deleted dialog)]. If you want access to all the Vaulty goodness, please consider making a donation. If you REALLY enjoy HE and want to see it continue, how about a monthly donation subscription of $5, $10 or $20? Your donations actually represent about 1/3 of my income from the comic and I rely on them like they were… well, 1/3 of my income. Please know that I appreciate your kindness and generosity immensely.

MY BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH TOPATOCO!
This is excellent news since you can now purchase one of my more popular shirt designs and a book at the same time and save on shipping/hassle.

I’ll be removing personalized artist editions from the store later today (maybe tomorrow) so if you want one ORDER NOW.

Die, Wheaton. Die!

Ok, so Wil Wheaton basically dared me to draw this. Actually he dared me to draw him getting crushed by an avalanche of fan-donated dice, but Fancy Bastard DoctorAvenue had a suggestion that seemed to fit the “Spirit of Wheaton” a little better. A more positive spin on the whole “now what do I do with 100,000 polyhedral dice?” dilemma, if you will.

NOTE: Anyone confused by the ASCII representation on the side of the “Dice Bin,” just think about Wil Wheaton’s motto.

If you are going to GenCon in Indiana this weekend, please go say hi to Wil, give him a die, pick up his con-exclusive chapbook and ~~offer him a hearty Sci-Five. He will know what’s up and reciprocate (unless you are holding a knife or a carcass of some sort in the other hand)~~ [forgot Wheaton is trying to avoid the CONfluenza]. There is a chance Wil will have prints of this comic available at his signing table. Also go say Hi to Alina “Weregeek” Pete. She makes a great comic about tabletop gaming and also makes jewelry out of gaming dice. Here’s an insider secret: she will give you some of the magical dice jewelry if you give her money in exchange for it.

Since the books I shipped to Topatoco haven’t arrived yet, you have precious few days remaining to order a personalized Artist Edition of HE Book 1. Once the books are in my Topatoco store, personalized sketches will be reserved for conventions and exclusive, infrequent online sales.

Let Your Geek Gavel Fly

Judge rules Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are derivative characters

Read the article above concerning the ongoing lawsuit between Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman regarding the ownership of Medieval Spawn and other derivative characters and pay close attention to how specific the judge got with her comic book nerding.

“Much as defendant [McFarlane] tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century,” Crabb writes. “Not only does this break the Hellspawn ‘rule’ that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns [sic] to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue no. 9. […]

I would have sold my soul to the Devil for a chance to be in the court room and hear those words come from the mouth of an elected appointed official. Also to be granted nearly limitless power in order to have a chance to exact vengeance on all who had wronged me in life. Standard Devil-soul-selling stuff.

Feel free to post other landmark decisions in the comments that Nerd Judge may have tackled. I would also be super happy pants if one of you came up with lyrics for a Macgruber style theme song for Nerd Judge.

A Visceral Reaction

You only have a couple of days left to get HE Book 1 as a personalized artist edition. After that they will move to my Topatoco store and personalized AE’s won’t be available again until the holidays.

If this comic doesn’t make any sense you should probably go see Inception. It’s worth your time.

MOSTLY SPOILER FREE COMMENTARY BELOW:
I do not understand why I am hearing the phrase “mind fuck” tossed around with regards to this movie. Inception actually makes a clear, concerted effort to explain exactly what’s going on during the film. At no point are you questioning what is reality and what is a dream (well, sort of…). My point is that while there ARE dreams within dreams within dreams, the plot spells each “level” and it’s purpose out very clearly. There really isn’t a Fight Club or Sixth Sense moment where you think “this movie has been PLAYING ME ALL ALONG!” Again, that is only my reaction to some of the chatter I am reading about Inception from my perch high atop the Twitmosphere. It is not a judgement on the film, nor am I suggesting the story would have been better served by some sort of twist ending. Far from it, in fact.

Inception is an original story, expertly acted and beautifully shot. If we still only had 5 best film Oscar slots, it would certainly take one of them. Christopher Nolan is a fantastic story teller, though he has almost exclusively been telling other people’s stories. Inception was his baby and it shows. The fact that it took him 8 years to write also shows. The plot is complex without being hard to follow. There is a balance that leaves you thinking long and hard about what you’ve just seen but not questioning it. I will suggest that you take a bathroom break during the previews because Inception is two and a half hours long and there really isn’t a good time to leave the theater.

Share your thoughts (without revealing specific plot points) in the comments.