Weapon-Mex

Through the miracle of “Internet Magic(tm)” Josh and our friend Mikey saw “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and agreed that the experience was worse than “X-Men 3: The Last Stand” and only slightly better than having a scorpion lay eggs in your eye. Based on the trailers, I thought the movie could go either way. It seemed equally likely of providing stupid-fun or stupid-stupid with no fun at all (as illustrated by the scorpion metaphor).

I’m sure we’ll talk more about the effect “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” had on Josh’s sensitive eye places on the Podcast (Episode 50 Live Tonight!).If you want to weigh in early, get-a-commentin’ and let us know what you thought (if you’ve seen it) or if you plan to see it at all.

MERCH UPDATE: No one bought the “Eh-Team” shirt, so it’s out of the Topatoco Store. I will make them available again, for those that missed the chance. I’ll be relaunching the HE store with Topatoco HE Shirts, my own shirts, and Comic prints (+books SOON!) some time next week. Until then, if you want to support The Experiment, picking up one of the other shirts from Topatoco would be a great idea. The better those designs do, the more likely I will be to add new designs in the future.

Here are relevant links for you to eat:

Cmd-Opt-Z

I hope you guys dig the new art style and the bold direction I’m taking with the story line. I felt like this comic worked really well without dialog, but if you want to… oh, I don’t know, ADD YOUR OWN, and POST YOUR EFFORTS ONLINE and maybe PUT A LINK TO IT IN THE COMMENTS I guess that would be ok.

[RSS Readers and anyone else that didn’t come in on the main page might want to click HERE]

[NOTE: I don’t actually read CAD, nor do I have any sort of grudge or hatred toward it’s creator. The original comic in question turned into a meme almost instantly and became one of the most parodied things on the internet. This is just a “me too.” If this joke does not make you laugh, please come back Friday and there will be a new comic.]

Ghost Tweeting The Whip

Twitter is my favorite social-interblog thing and typically the only one I actually use. There’s an undeniable simplicity to constraining your posts to 140 characters. Twitter’s limitations are actually features as far as I’m concerned. When I used to rely heavily on LiveJournal and Pownce for my social netsploring I got bogged down trying to keep up with everyone’s page long updates and found myself not wanting to read any of it. Twitter forces you to self-edit and drill your update down to the most important details. It might be a sign of my diminishing attention span, but this is how I like to communicate. I hate small talk, and unnecessary details. Give me the gist, the meat, the car chase and the explosions.

I use Twitter to keep in touch with my friends far and wide, and to give my readers (you Fanciest of Bastards) a direct communication conduit to me. I find it cuts down on emails, and works better than AIM for short burst conversations. The other main appeal of Twitter for some is the opportunity to peak in on the lives of your favorite internet celebrities. I’ve mentioned before the odd voyeuristic quality of such actions, but as long as the Tweeter is genuine, I think it serves to strengthen the bond with their audience.

I guess it isn’t shocking that some celebs are paying others to “feaux-tweet” for them. I think they are missing the point, though. I know Twitter and other social media outlets are powerful marketing tools, but I would much rather follow @LevarBurton and read about his morning bagel than follow @britneyspears and read… well anything she (or her assistant) posts. As a matter of fact, if Britney Spears and Geordi LaForge’s half eaten bagel were both dangling off a cliff I would be more inclined the save the one with poppy seeds, a golden brown exterior and a garlic and herb schmear.

Oh, and @alliysonhannigan is on Twitter now (geeksplode).

Do you use twitter? What for? What REAL celebritweets are you following? [I know I’ve asked this before but it’s been a while]

Twitter takes Hollywood [from AC360]

The Dark Mac

Buh. The “I wish Hollywood would stop forcibly penetrating my childhood” argument is just moot at this point. “This has all happened before and it will all happen again” is the film industry’s mantra. Macgyer was one of the TV cornerstones of my young geek development. Much like TNG, Mac taught me improvisational problem solving and brains over brawn. I don’t know if they meant the show to be educational/developmental, but that’s what I took from it. Mac was like Mr. Rogers with an airplane made of bamboo and duct tape. Also a mullet. Never forget the mullet.

Also, remember when Mac went back to medieval times? That was awesome.

So, FB’s, how about we cast this movie? If any of you say “Shia Thebeaf” I’m going to murder you with a quickly improvised weapon involving a tube sock, silly putty and an 8-track tape. Share your ideas for the premise, how it might tie into the original and what “inventions to get out of sticky situations” he might build using more modern items.

A Period Of Recovery

NOTE: COMICS WILL BE TUESDAY/THURSDAY THIS WEEK WHILE I “DECOMPRESS” FROM WEBCOMICS WEEKEND

I know I won’t be able to properly communicate how incredible the first New England Webcomics Weekend was, so I’ll simply try to recount a some of the events and people that made the weekend so special.

I landed in Connecticut around 1pm on Friday and the power of twitter brought me together with Chris and Jorge for a ride into Easthampton. Both very cool guys. I enjoyed the ride and hanging out with them the rest of the weekend.

Friday Night was the Pub Crawl. I met up with Randy Milholland, Danielle Corsetto and Angela Melick at my hotel and we hit the town. Randy (who ended up being a fellow Dallasite, ended up giving me rides all weekend for which I can not thank him enough) met up with some friends so the girls and I hit up a sushi joint called “Moshi Moshi.” We spent most of the evening at a bar called “The Tunnel” which was literally a tunnel turned night spot. There we met up with Kris Straub (who it turns out can shatter a cocktail glass with his mind) and virtually every other cartoonist on the planet (Kurtz, Kellet, Guigar, Barnes, Abominable, Sohmer et al). Make sure you check out Angela’s comic “Wasted Talent.” I watched her draw this one for most of the weekend, while she and I hung out. She’s a fantastic artist and excellent con-company (don’t hold it against her, but she’s also Canadian).

Around 1am I met up with Paperklip and went to Jeff and Holly Wigu’s house for a proposed BSG finale party. The torrent never finished so people drank and we played “Encore” (a music game where you have to sing songs with certain words or themes). Cartoonists in attendance that night were Jon Goatsenberg, Randall XKCD, Joey Softer World, Chris Yates (so drunk he thought I was a chair), Ryansaurus Rex (I think he was there) and most of the rest of New England.Continue reading→