Movie Night 91:  Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
    Director:  David Wain
    Stars:  Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon
    Plot:  Set in 1981, this movie recounts the wacky events of the last day of summer camp.  It's the last day before everyone goes back to the real world, but there's still a summer's worth of unfinished business to resolve. At the center of the action is camp director Beth (Janeane Garofalo), who struggles to keep order while she falls in love with the local astrophysics professor (David Hyde Pierce). He is busy trying to save the camp from a deadly piece of NASA's Skylab which is hurtling toward earth. All that, plus: a dangerous waterfall rescue, love triangles, misfits, cool kids, and talking vegetable cans. The questions will all be resolved, of course, at the big talent show at the end of the day.

This is why I don't like going to the bar.

...no, seriously.


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And Abraham jumps to Artimis rescue already. It's not really that Artimis is helpless, mind you, it's just that she's a pacifist. She doesn't like to hurt anyone or anything, and would rather be hurt before causing harm to another. I guess she's not very well explained in this story.

That said, she's not above someone else doing her hurting for her. Like a little 10 year old boy, perhaps. However, can Abraham overcome the attack of 3 very drunk men? Find out next week, same Temple time, same Temple channel!

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So, in case anyone was wondering, Scott is not in fact a cat expert.  However, I needed a person who's actually made an appearance (and one of those is a guest strip) in the comic before, so as to keep the cast roster down. 

Honestly, I could've used any number of my friends (as most of them own cats), but in the end I decided to go with my local web comic buddy and person who hosts my web comic - who's also a close, personal friend of mine. 

If you haven't guessed it by now, I'm kind of digging the photo comics.  It's a little refreshing to try something new, and they're tons of fun.  I just did a photo shoot over the weekend where we took 400+ pictures for the 12+ page story arc that this page below leads into (done over at my friend Erica's place.  She's a very talented photographer, so check her stuff out).  Should be tons of fun! 

The pictures turned out great, and they're hilarious!  It'll be interesting to pull off the amount of post production that I have to do, but it should be fine.  How are you guys and gals digging the photo comics?  Which do you prefer: photo or illustrated?  (And if illustrated, do you prefer the black and whites or the color pages?)

Anyway, have a great week everyone, and I'll see you Friday!

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PS:  You may have noticed that I haven't been posting DD links - it's not because the comic has been removed from there or anything, but because the order is just a little "out of" on there.  I plan to fix this within the next month or so.  DD is a few pages behind. 

I was very disappointed that this was not included in the reel for The Dark Knight, but I went home right after the flick and watched it on a friend's computer.  It's shaping up to be something that actually takes the source material seriously, as this trailer shows shots taken right out of the graphic novel by Alan Moore!

I'm excited for it.  Check it out!

http://www.empireonline.com/video/watchmen/

I'll never be able to watch Star Trek 2 again without laughing!

Alright, I've decided to try a little experiment and shake things up a little - by doing a story arc in the "real world" using photos! What do you think?

This will accomplish a few things:
1) It will give me the time I need to get my buffer built back up
2) It will allow me to have some fun working with my photographer friends, and getting my friends involved in my comics in general
3) It will allow me to, as mentioned above, shake things up a bit and try something new - which is always a good time
4) It'll let me tell some damn funny jokes - because people will be doing the things that typically happen in an @$$hole! comic illustration. Real people being jerks is just as fun as an illustration...right?
5) It helps get me familiar with the tools that I'll need to pull of a special project that I've been wanting to do ever since I started @$$hole! (no spoilers)

Anyway, I'll give you three guesses about what the topic of the photo story arc is going to be (and the first 2 don't count). ;)

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Amanda has been one of the people who has been reading the comic from the beginning (on Drunk Duck, anyway), and was kind enough to supply me with some guest strips during my plea the other week, as I was overwhemled emotionally (and am now just overwhelmed because I'm playing too many video games...and the whole emotional thing too, I suppose). She's also a huge fan of my other comic on here, The Temple of a Thousand Tears - having submitted several pieces of fan art and apparently having late-night conversations with her then-roommate Jess. ;)

Which is totally and completely awesome!

Even better, Amanda and Jess worth on a web comic together called Salt the Holly (which you should totally go check out, if you don't already). In any case, I'm totally heading out to Wizard World Chicago tomorrow with Scott to hang out with artists and writers and maybe meet some industry professionals...more on that, later.

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Also, in the event that you missed it, I made a guest comic for Irv's Fishtank Tango (based on a true story....sort of). He asked me to do this for him at Wizard World Chicago, and the conversation actually went a little something like this:


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Well, I know it's been long overdue, but I finally got some downtime to write about my life - specifically concerning the new job that I just started last week.

In the event that you're in the dark, I work as a strategic communications planner for an advertising agency, and was just offered a promotion at another agency for considerably more money. The trick: the new agency's a little further down the road. About 20 highway miles. So my commute's a good 40-60 minutes again. But the money more than makes up for the loss in gas.

And the new gig seems pretty cool. Although the agency has a different way of doing things (not bad different, just different), it appears that I'll have an account team that can actually read! So there's an improvement right there. ;)

Laura and I still have not had any verbal communications, either over phone or in person. I've kind of decided to drop the idea for the time being, for personal reasons that I won't share. It's not that I'm mad at her or still not encouraging people to support her right now (please keep being her friend and supporting her) - it's just that my depression has caused me to feel a bit discouraged. So it's time for a break, time to get my own life back in order...time to get back into a routine and do the things that I enjoy.

And continue to surround myself with good friends that support me during this trying time in my life. I've engaged in a few exchanges with mutual friends of ours, and they've told me some cute stories that cut me deep - but at least reinforce that what her and I had was very real. I guess she used to show pictures of me to her friends and say, "This is the man that I'm going to marry." And it certainly would have happened, too.

So it's good to know that she was happy too, and that what we had was real. Because sometimes when you're depressed, you start asking silly questions like, "Did she really ever love me?" and blah blah blah. Well, I know that she did - and these stories reinforce that knowledge. And that's a good feeling.

And I know that I'll be that happy again someday...in time.

For now, though, it's time to focus. On comics, on career, on my kitten.... on moving forward. On my new job! Which brings us full circle, and allows me to bring this blog post to a close.

Thanks for all the love and support so far, and be aware that more comics are coming! Until then, peace!

T

Alright, I apologize to everyone for being so distant and not being able to get the announcements about the updates out on time...life's been a little crazy lately (isn't that always the case?). The reason for the recent photo comics are 2 fold:

1) I'm REALLY behind in my drawing, because...
2) ...Waffles likes to attack me whenever I'm trying to draw in the living room, which slows me way the hell down.

Therefore, I'm going to do a short series of photo comics to help get the buffer back, and then everything should go back to normal...we hope. It will also lead into something that I've been wanting to do since I started this comic, but who's to say how far down the road that's going to be (you know me, I love to plan ahead...far ahead...VERY far ahead).

In the meantime, enjoy the photo comics and we'll hopefully be getting back to the funny art comics soon. Peace!

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Abraham's motivation for volunteering for this very dangerous quest are revealed: he's trying to find a cure for his ailing mother. A very noble gesture, to be sure. And let's be honest, if anyone would be able to do it, surely it would be the gods...yes? Anything's possible.

As for Veno, that guy sounds like a pretty mean bad ass. How would you like to have him for a sibling? Anyone have any fun stories to share about their brothers and sisters? Especially any stories about them being nasty and mean?

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True story. No seriously, before I left for Wizard World Chicago, I was going to do a web comics - but then I had a cat-urine situation to take care of instead. Sorry I suck.

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...and a little 9-10 year old boy steps forward, when no one else would. Perhaps it's ignorance of the dangers that he'll face, perhaps it's the determination in his heart (which we'll discover on the next page), perhaps he just has a righteous sense of right and wrong. Whatever the reason, this little kid is willing to do something that adults can't even bring themselves to do.

Truely moving.

This is the first real meeting between these characters, even though Artimis has been helping tend to Abraham's mother. I imagine that he's always out playing or out with his father whenever she comes to visit.

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My second romp at Wizard World Chicago was certainly no less memorable than the first - and I think much more exciting! While I didn't take many pictures, I did meet many people from the industry, many fans that I didn't even know I had, and a bunch of people who are in the web trenches like myself - and I have stories I can tell for the rest of my life.

Let's start off in the beginning, on Thursday.

Scott and I piled into his mini-cooper and started the 4+ hours drive from Ann Arbor to Chicago (avoiding the Dan Ryan like the black plague), stopping in good ol' Kalamazoo for some Campus Kitchen for lunch. Justin joined us for that lunch stop, and we continued on our way basically unhindered.

Upon arrival, we checked into the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and I went over to the con to pick up my badge (since they failed to send it to me in the mail). I was debating whether or not I should make a scene and demand my shipping back, but I was only in line for 7 minutes and didn't have any problems at the booth, so I decided to drop it and just get into the con.

Thursday was Preview Night, and only a select few people could make it in: namely, the people who were exhibiting, or the people who were advance ticket holders, like myself and Scott. We b-lined it for artist's alley to find our web comic friends: Joe, Phil, and Irv from the Digital Pimps, and Tom Brazelton from Theater Hopper.


Joe and Phil represent at the Digital Pimp Booth, while Irv gives a nasty stare to try to scare away the 12 year old girls.


Tom Brazelton is always excited to be at a con, but then Joe promptly bashes him over the head with a chair to remind him of his place.

Satisfied that Tom wasn't going to need medical attention, I continued to wander around the floor to find faces both familiar and new. I ran into my friend Taki Soma (You'll Never Die), who announced to me that her and Mike Omeng (Powers, The Mice Templar) had finally gotten engaged! I chatted with Mike for a bit about their drinking plans for later in the evening, and then continued on my trek around artist's alley.

I ran into Katie Cook (KatieCanDraw.com) and her husband, Paul Sizer (Moped Army, BMP) and his wife Jane Irwin (Vogelein), as well as several other tallented artists and writers. My friend Josh Elder (The Batman Strikes!, Mail Order Ninja) was a no-show, but his booth buddy (and my new friend from ACEN 2008) Russell Lissau (The Batman Strikes!) was there and we made dinner plans for the next night.

Steve (The Devil and Ted) finally arrived to complete the trinity that was our hotel room, and we went out to get pizza and booze, and then went back to the Pimps room for some GTA4 action. Then we went to sleep.

Friday was a late morning, and we ate some breakfast and went straight out for the con floor. Hung out with the Pimps and Tom a bit, and then went over to another booth hosted by some friends of mine from Drunk Duck:


Alan Evans (Rival Angels) flashes gang symbols at his booth in Artist's Alley.


The Dreamer creator Lora Innes and husband Mike show off their issues at their booth in Artist's Alley.

Alan and Lora from Drunk Duck were there displaying their various works, and I even went out to buy a print of my favorite character from Alan's Rival Angels, Brooke!



I networked around the con after that, talking more with Mike and Taki, and making some new friends at the vendor booths (Cyanide and Happiness among them, who I had met previously at NYC Comic Con).

After the con, Russell, Josh, Steve, Scott, and myself went to a Vietnamese noodle place and then went back to the hotel for drinks. The guys from Cyanide and Happiness called me to try to get my group to go see Wall-E with them, but we wanted to head down to the Hyatt bar to mingle and network with the industry people.

While there, I waved to Taki who was sitting next to Brian Michael Bendis (Powers, just about everything Marvel). He waved back, and I went over and shook his hand. "I'm sorry for the confusion, but I was actually waving at Taki," I said. "Oh, I'm sorry," he replied. "I figured because you were bald and I'm bald, that we were bonding." "Oh, we can bond," I said. "Bald brothers from other mothers, perhaps? In any case, I don't want to bother you while you're hanging out with your friends. I love your work, by the by - keep it up!" He told me to swing back by later (and when it was later, Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) was sitting next to him), but he was crowded by that time.

I continued to walk around and mingle, meeting several fans of my comics on Drunk Duck, hanging out with Alan Evans a bit, and watching Dan Didio running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Marc Silvestri even raised his glass to me when I waved.

We kept going back to the room for refills (I've had my fill of $15 drinks, thanks), and ended up closing out the bar around 2:30am.

Saturday was a sobering day for the industry, because we lost a great comic creator at a young age. I walked down to the show floor and someone told me that Michael Turner (Witchblade, Fathom, SoulFire, co-founded of ASPEN comics) had passed away. I thought it was a sick joke, but when I looked to see the ASPEN panel, I knew it had to be true. After an 8+ year battle with cancer that was an inspiration to everyone, Mike finally moved on.

I only had a single interaction with Mike, which was at the 2007 Wizard World Chicago ASPEN booth. I knew Frank from his earlier days at Top Cow, and had interviewed him for a show he did in Detroit. I was talking to him while Mike was signing in the background, and I told him, "Tell Mike to hang on, and that our thoughts and prayers are with him." At the mention of his name, Mike looked up, waved and smiled, and then went back to what he was doing.

I like to think that most other people might not have even bothered to see who was talking about them, but the guy took the 2-3 seconds to stop, smile and wave - and that means a lot.

Although he will be missed, his legacy of creativity and professional integrity will forever leave a mark for generations of comic creators to come. Although I only had that one interaction with him, it will forever be with me.

Thoughts and prayers to his friends and family, and a genuine thank you to him for everything that he's done.

I went to a few panels that day, including Josh and Russell's "Comics are for Kids too," which turned into "The Peter David Show." I met Russell's wife and kid, and then went to have some lunch.

My friend Rose was also at the con this day, and wanted to go swimming in my hotel's pool (instead of going to a con? Clearly, she's not a nerd). We took a break from the con and went swimming, and then we all piled into a car and went out to dinner at The Ram. Russell brought a few friends he met through comics, including Wonder Woman artist Tom Nguyen - who told some interesting and very personal stories. We bonded instantly. He's a great guy.

After dinner, many of us went to the bar for more drinking. Less industry people were about, some because of the influx of fan boys and some because of the loss of Mike Turner earlier that day. We closed out the bar again, though, and then some people thought it would be wise idea to go swimming again.

I started to herd my very drunk friends back to the hotel through hampster tunnel, leading the pack and looking over my shoulder to make sure I hadn't lost anyone. After a period of time, I realized that we were being followed by none other than Marc Silvestri (who was escorting a girl back to her car). He called out, "Anyone know where the con parking lot is?" At the sound of his voice, my drunken friends realized who was behind us and started embarassing me - something that's very difficult to do.

Petting the man's arm, trying to shake his hand, asking for locks of his hair - you could've pantsed me at that moment and I would've been less embarassed. I kept dragging people away from him and saying, "I'm so sorry," as I did so. I lead him back to the Sofitel / Embassy parking lot, and continued walking to the room thinking about the opportunity that had just passed me by. Perhaps for the best. Friends come first, to be sure - so I don't regret not being able to talk to the man. But it would've been nice to have been able to shake his hand.

The pool was closed, so we went into the sauna instead. I don't know if you are aware, but a belly full of alcohol and hot temperatures usually don't equal a good time. That said, no one got sick - but we called it a night after that. I escorted people back to their rooms before returning to mine - it was 4am, and I was going to meet Russell and friends for breakfast at 8:30am....

I woke up to a phone call from my friends Adam and Morgan, who live in Chicago, and got ready to meet them downstairs for breakfast. We went to a little diner attached to the convention center that has $5 omlets in the morning. Tom ended up strolling in eventually as well. We chatted a bit, and then took off to show them around the con and say goodbye to friends, both new and old.


Trevor gives a man hug to Alan on the last day of con, and then is compelled to dish out the manly kisses!


While her husband was walking around, Trevor decided to lay the smoochies down on the very talented Lora Innes! The DD group then posed together, trying to make their other DD friends jealous.

Scott and I then got into the car and headed home for a very long drive. The weekend was exhausting, but a ton of fun! I'm totally going to be attending again next year, and hopefully have a booth of my own (shared with Steve and Scott, is the plan).

You may have noticed that an @$$hole! comic didn't post on my site last week, and there's a good reason for that:
Wizard World Chicago. Now, while I was totally ready to have a comic or something to post on Friday while I was at this very awesome con (details and stories coming soon), life just seemed to get in the way. And life comes in two packages:

1) The job situation: I just got offered a promotion at Campbell-Ewald in Southfield, which is a little further down the highway from my current job. Taking this job was a difficult decision, and I've been stressing out about it ever since (you know me and stress / change). While this shouldn't be a huge time consumer, it has been weighing on my thoughts a lot and I've been second guessing myself ever since. Stay with what's familiar and comfortable, or try something new? Well, fortune favors the bold, so here I go.

2) The kitten: My buddy Danny just moved to Florida to live with his very cat-allergic parents, and I took his 11 week old kitten named Waffles. While I have some animal allergies (and I'm still trying to figure out how bad they are), I'm also trying to acclimate the cat to my apartment and my lifestyle (ie: I'm a neat freak). Now, while this also shouldn't be a big problem (as Friday's comic was going to be of her), she decided that my apartment had too much cushy furniture in it...and proceeded to pee on my couch while I was at work. I had to deal with getting the smell out and cleaning the mess, and then had to lock her in the bathroom while I was out. Thankfully, my friend Erin was able to cat-sit for me, making sure that she had food / water, and was able to get out every day to play.
Now, I'm a little nervous about letting her out again while I'm away (for obvious reasons), but I did so last night while I was sleeping and we didn't have a problem that I can tell. Therefore, I'm trying the trust thing again and have left her out while I'm at work. Here's hoping I come home to a urine-free furniture apartment.

In any case, there you go. I'm going to try to get an update ready for this week, Friday, but we shall see what happens. Guest strips and fan art would be appreciated.

So there's the life update, and the reason that @$$hole! didn't update on Friday. I appreciate everyone's patience and support during this trying time of change in my life, and I'm hoping that once I'm through it, everything will be better. Peace!

The first glance at Artimis, the Goddess of the village that Abraham lives in. If you recall from Chapter 2, she made a plea to the townsfolk to protect her on her journey to make the vote about whether to stay or to leave. And none were brave enough to stand up. Well, here's the scene from that brief story, for your reading pleasure.

Olivia did a great job diversifying the characters in the background here, as they are minor characters that will probably never show up again. Yet she made them look distinct and unique - which is inspiring to me, because I rpobably would've made them all look the same. But then again I'm lazy, and she does this sort of thing for a living. I have nothing but praise for the pages that she's turning in.

Now my text balloons, on the other hand, are an experiment in Illustrator...and a work in progress, to be sure. :P

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