The Dragget attacks! These creatures are thought to be invincible, and possible immortal. However, we'll explore their origins more in a separate story down the road.

It's funny to me that Abraham thinks that he can defend Artimis with a wooden sword....

My Site and Drunk Duck

     Movie Night 94:  Johnny  Dangerously (1984)
     Director:  Amy Heckerling
     Cast:  Michael Keaton, Dom DeLuise, Joe Piscopo, Danny DeVito
     Plot:  A spoofy of the 1930s gangster movies, this comedy flick follows the criminal exploits of Joe Everyman Johnny Dangerously (Keaton) as he tries to find new ways to help pay for his mother's mounting medical bills.  The funny part is that, even though he's a gangster, everyone seems to love the guy - including the Pope (DeLouise)!  However, when a reival crime boss starts a mob war with Dangerously's "family," Johnny has to jump into action and finds himself in the middle of a crazy / zaney adventure.

Since Lauren was going away to study abroad in Japan (and has been asking to see this flick since Movie Night #50), we decided to fore-go the voting and just pop the flick in!  We had some new faces at Movie Night as well, which was fun and refreshing. 

###

There was no Movie Night last week, as we all celebrated Lauren's trip to Japan with a going-away party in South Lyon at her friend Nicole's place.  There was a bounce house, a slip-n-slide, and tons of food!  It was also the first time in 3 months that I've seen or heard from Laura (other than some sparse e-mails), which it was great to finally get to see her again.  Sadly, no one brought a camera to showcase any pictures of the fun that was had (or the sweet freakin' "garage" / bar that we had the party at), but it was a fun time and we'll all miss Lauren while she's off in the land of the rising sun!

She better take pictures, so I can live through her vicariously.  ;)

Movie Night #95 will be this week, Friday, as the count-down to Movie Night #100 continues!  Also, there's going to be a Halloween Party in October - in case you thought that I was going to skip out on my favorite holiday.  I understand that there may be some additional parties on that Friday (October 31), and since I've previously held Halloween Parties on Saturdays (mostly because the day was during the week sometime), I may try to avoid any "conflicts of interest" and keep with a Saturday celebration.  Rest assured, it'll be a fun time and everyone will be invited.  More announcements as we get closer.

Fitz, one of my friends from Drunk Duck who does a kick ass comic called A Bit Cheesy, decided to post some quick web camera shots of himself imitating my facial expressions in the latest strip of @$$hole!


Absolutely hilarious. 

If you would like to do the same (or imitate another page from this or another story arc), please do so!  Anyone who submits will have the pictures displayed, and I'll link to whatever site you'd like (within reason, obviously). 

Or if you'd like to make up your own guest strip (photo or otherwise) for @$$hole, please do and send it in to me via e-mail:  trevor a mueller AT gmail DOT com

(No spaces or dashes or anything in the actual e-mail address, just solid text).

Get crackin, and have fun with it!  :D

If you can't tell, this is where working on this project started to get really really fun. And really really strange. Although you probably can't tell, the shot of Erica and I in the last panel on the left is two different photos. I loved her face in the ear-grabbing shot, but not my own. So I did a little photo-manipulation, and BAM! Now you have a funnier panel. Hope I didn't spoil the magic for anyone.

The truth of the matter is that the ear-grab wasn't scripted, Erica just started to take the role and run with it - brilliantly, I might add. I'm just such a poor actor that I started laughing as soon as she touched my ear. It was a hilarious shoot. All 6+ hours of it.

Be sure to check out Erica's website: http://www.ericahampton.com

Just a reminder that some of my cast have asked to have psudo-names used instead of their real names, so if you know the real names of some of my actors, please don't repeat them in comments - please use their pesudo-names.

Trevor: Trevor
Megan: Receptionist
Troy Smith: Dr. DePantelones
Jane Smith: Sexy Nurse
Erica: Crazy Cat Lover Lady

My Site and Drunk Duck

For those of you who don't know, Platinum Studios holds an annual Comic Book Challenge every year, where regular people like you and I can enter comic pitches and potentially get published!  Well, my friends Joe Dunn and Phil Chan entered this year, and voting finishes this week - and they need your help!

Here's a message from Joe Dunn about the event:

"By the way, this weekend is the last weekend of voting.  I know you guys have been voting like crazy and I wanted to let you know how much we appreciate it.  But we're up against some stiff competition and from what I've been told, it's anyone's game at this point.  So if you know other people who would vote for us, feel free to forward them the link:
http://comicbookchallenge.com/pitch.php?id=286c"

You can vote as many times as you like (I vote 20 times for them), and be sure to check out their killer 3 completed pages and video pitch.  Please help them out by clicking the link and voting.  Thanks!

Recently, I was invited to do a page for the Guest Strip Project, which is a web comic series that benefits the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  My update was page #52

Having a cousin that was helped by the Make A Wish Foundation when he was fighting cancer (the brave lad, and only at the age of  9), I've been donating money out of every paycheck to them for years!  The project not only has donation banners on the site, but also prints a collection of the strips, with proceeds going to the charity.  Here's a description of the project, and feel free to drop them a line and get involved!

###

"The idea of the Guest Strip Project began half way through the Kid's Book Project. The Kid's Book Project (KBP) was meerly artists trying to continue a story on without seeing all the pages which was quite hard and the results showed. So the idea of the artists seeing all the pages but instead of continuing a storyline they could make it their own somehow sprang about and the Guest Strip Project was born.

All in aid for the Make-A-Wish International Foundation, the Guest Strip Project will feature over 100 webcomic artists (as well as ordinary artists) creating just one strip per artist. Once they've completed their strip they will be not allowed back.

Webcomics are known for having guest weeks or guest months were artists that are fans or even new artists get a chance to submit their artwork, allowing both sites to pimp their own webcomics. In respect the same applies here but instead of a guest week or a guest month it will be a guest year - allowing different talent across the board.

Even though it's free and available online, the Guest Strip Project does have donation banners at the site, we also have a store which will include exclusive merchandise that will all donate the proceeds towards the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Anything that gains money from this site goes direct to the charity, so every little helps!

The characters and the strips concept was originally conceived by Christopher Baldwin (from Little Dee), the first strip's creator and therefore the creator of all the characters you see before you. Along time other artists have included more, and so the Guest Strip Project changes from week to week."

     Movie Review:  Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008)
     Director:  Guillermo Del Toro
     Cast:  Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, John Hurt
     Plot:  In 1942, The Unided States sent a squad of specialists to an island off the coast of Scottland to stop a Nazi plot to unleash armageddon upon the world.  Upon stopping them, the specialists discovered a demon child with a large stone hand - and decided to name him Hellboy (Perlman).  He likes TV and candy.

And right from there, Del Toro begins what I would call one of the most fun and imaginative movies I've seen in theaters in years!  Like something out of a classic Jim Henson flick, this movie has more creatures and laughs than anything else you've seen this summer - with a solid dose of KICK ASS!

The movie opens with a flashback sequence utilizing marionettes, telling the story of the war between the Goblin King and the humans.  The Goblin King was losing the war, and commissioned a troll to build him a Golden Army - one that would obey his every command, would be invincible, and would feel no remorse.  Upon the slaughter of the humans, the Goblin King felt sorry, and called a truce - one that humans have forgotten over time.  The King's son, Prince Nuada (Goss), was exiled from his own people - but returns in modern times to find the Golden Army, and seek his revenge upon the human race!

Enter the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD).

After the events of the first Hellboy flick, Hellboy and Liz Sherman (Blair) are living together at the base, but things aren't going as well, as you might have expected.  She can't stand the guy's mess and army of cats, and Hellboy is sick of hiding in the shadows and not ever having anyone know about the work that he does for the BPRD.  The higher-ups in Washington decide to bring in a specialist named Johann Krauss, who is actually made up of ectoplasm.  Under his leadership, he tries to keep Hellboy in line and command this team of demon hunters. 

But when the forces of darkness attack a gathering of humans, bearing the official seal (used only in a time of war), Hellboy and company must muster their strength, overcome their differences, and fight to save the world. 

If you didn't read it above, I'll repeat it again here:  this movie was FUN!  When I wasn't laughing, I was thrilled with the action and special effects of the movie.  There wasn't a moment that I felt bored, or that the movie dragged  - something the first movie suffers from a bit due to the amount of exposition required to get all of the character's origin stories out. 

While this movie will probably do better on DVD than in theaters (I've gone to see the movie twice now, and both times the theater was just about empty), I hope that they make another one.  The characters are fun, the world they live in is interesting and full of imagination, and their continuing tale would be fun to see diverge from the comics a bit.  See where these characters go after the events of the end of the movie (no spoilers here, folks). 

Go see this movie.  Rent it or buy it on DVD.  It's so much fun.  It's like being 7 again!  Only without all the awkward pimples and braces.... 

     Movie Review:  The Dark Knight (2008)
     Director:  Christopher Nolan
     Cast:  Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal
     Plot:  Following the events of Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne (Bale) must continue to done his cape and cowel as Batman, as the criminals that he's fought so hard to put away for good turn to a new villain: The Joker (Ledger).  Aided by his butler Alfred (Caine), the new police commissor Gordon (Oldman), and his father's mentor Lucias Fox (Freeman), Bruce begins to take the criminal underworld apart bit by bit, but the Joker has another plan.  One that involves the attempted assassination of the city's mayor!

Meanwhile, Bruce's life-long love interest, Rachel Dawes (Gyllenhaal) has entered into a relationship with hot young district attourney Harvey Dent (Eckhart) - both having sworn to also unravel the criminal underworld, but from a more legal standpoint.  Putting himself out there, Dent makes himself a target by the mob - and anyone who's read the comics knows that he doesn't come out on top for his actions. 

The Dark Knight was herald as the biggest blockbuster movie of the summer (after the disappointment that was Indiana Jones 4), and unfortunately I feel that the movie was over-hyped.  This isn't to imply that the movie's not good or worth seeing - because it certainly is - but it's just not as good as everyone wants you to think it is. 

The first piece of buzz that you've no doubt heard about is the performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker.  I've never been a fan of Ledger, and his performance in this flick was about on-par with what I thought it would be.  The guy doesn't break any new ground in the psycho-department, but he doesn't add any of the fun or "Crown Prince of Crime" persona that fans of the comics and animated series have come to expect from the character.  In fact, the character is so under-played in the movie, it doesn't surprise me that they didn't give him his own flick - which is what a more theatrical and menacing Joker would deserve.  The second issue that I had with this character was the execution of his "master plan."  The Joker, while a criminal mastermind, didn't really think in terms of strategy in this flick - everything he did was tactical, and therefore came off as random and not connected.  When he reveals his big plan - what he's been trying to do all along - at the end of the movie, it doesn't feel like a reveal.  It feels like a cheap attempt for the character to justify his actions to himself.  Or another blunt lie, which is not uncommon for him to tell in this movie. 

For me, the movie was stolen by the subtle acting brilliance of Aaron Eckhart - who masterfully displays the decent into madness that Harvey Dent faces during his transformation from Harvey Dent into Harvey Two-Face.  And the special effects for the character were top notch!  I was not expect that level of detail and gore - it really makes his character tragic, and his situation seem almost acceptable.  And also destroys any hope that you might have for the character to ever recover from his injuries - both physical and psychological.

The second hype is the story.  While the trailer makes it seem like an action flick (and it is), there's just so much going on in the movie that it starts to get a little silly.  Especially when they start trying to throw curve balls at the audience and move forward with the characters believing the events before the audience is truely ready to accept them.  It's difficult to go into specifics here without saying any spoilers, but let's just say that some "plot twist" is put in for shock value and I spent most of the movie asking the question, "Why did you do that?" instead of moving forward with the characters in this roller coaster of an imbroglio (look it up). 

While many Hollywood movies follow two trends currently (one being the trilogy, the other being that the center movie is the only one connected to the third flick), I'm hoping that the new Batman franchise will break this rule and go for four flicks.  However, that would be difficult to do, as they're swimming through Batman's rogue gallery at an olympic pace.  Since Nolan has said that he's trying to keep the series based in reality (which eliminates several villains, including Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and many more), I'm hoping that the third or fourth flick bring it back to the first one with the use of Talia - Ra's Al Ghul's daughter and love interest to Batman.  It would be awesome to show Batman going outside of his bubble of Gotham City to try and stop her from bringing back her father in the Lazaurus Pits. 

And if you have no idea what I'm referencing here, then you clearly need to read more comics or watch more cartoons.

Chances are, the next flick will feature some safe villains, like Catwoman or The Riddler.  Which wouldn't be a bad thing, but again - don't go through the rogues so quickly. 

Overall, The Dark Knight was a fun summer movie that had a great villain performance in it - just not the villain you thought it would be - and is totally worth seeing.  Just go in with a clear head, ignoring all the hype that you've no doubt heard from your friends and family about the flick, and you'll be just fine.  Of course, if you haven't already seen the movie by the time you read this review, then you're probably not much of a movie-goer anyway.  ;)

This update consists of a set up and teaser on this page, giving everyone an idea of what the landscape looks like in this area right now (we call this "foreshadowing"). You'll come back to this page eventually, upon re-reading this series, and see what I'm talking about.

I love what Olivia did on this page with the textures. Simply amazing stuff!

Also, thanks to everyone and anyone who nominated @$$hole! and The Temple of a Thousand Tears into the Annual 2008 Drunk Duck Awards. @$$hole! has pulled in 2 nominations: 1 for best experimental comic, and another for best photo / stock image comic (which is funny, since it's just this story arc so far). Temple pulled in a nomination for "Most Profound Comic," which I find to be very flattering. Thanks again to all who voted, and please continue to support my comics!

My Site and Drunk Duck

Here are some sketches by Olivia of Sophia, from the next comic project we're working on - The Temple of a Thousand Tears: Genocide!

The more I wrote the crazy cat lover lady, the more I wanted to put her into the comic.  How awkward would it be to meet someone like this - someone so socially depraved that they feel compelled to talk to you and creep you out?  I've actually met people like this before - although, certainly not to this extreme.  Although photos, I assure you that this is quite fictional. 

Has anyone sent Erica some love and checked out her other work?  I highly recommend that you do that.  Although you can't tell the quality of the work (because of my poor Photoshop job) or the amount of professionalism that she displayed through this entire process, she was an absolute dream to work with on this project.  And I want to work with her again, real soon! 

My Site

     Movie Night #93:  Unbreakable (2000)
     Director:  M. Night Shyamalan
     Cast:  Bruce Willis, Samuel L Jackson, Robin Wright Penn
     Plot:  David Dunn (Willis) is separated from his wife (Penn), looking for a security job in New York City, when his train derails.  He is the only survivor of the crash, and he doesn't even have a scratch on him.  David starts to question his life up to this point: Has he ever even been sick?  Has he ever been hurt? Can he even be hurt?

Upon hearing this miracluous survival story, Elijah Price (Jackson) invites Dunn to his art studio where he reveals his life long quest to find someone the opposite of himself.  While David Dunn possibly cannot be hurt, Elijah Price can be hurt very easily - in fact, he's always carried the nick name Mr. Glass.  Elijah believes that people like himself and Dunn have existed throughout history, and have had their stories told through exaggerated forms - mostly through comic books.  So the question becomes, are there really super heroes in the world...and if so, could there not also be super villains?



Despite the fans of Sixth Sense panning this movie up the wazoo, I think it's one of Night's best flicks to date.  Granted, it's only the first 2 acts of what would typically be a 3-act story, I like that the movie focuses more on character and the mystery than it does on any twists, gimmicks, or revelations.  And the characters are interesting, and the movie does have a great build up for what would have been a fantastic third act - which is what probably left movie goers a little disappointed.  The movie's just so good that they wanted more. 

Probably the best superhero movie made, in my opinion.  See it!

Thanks to everyone and anyone who nominated @$$hole! and The Temple of a Thousand Tears into the Annual 2008 Drunk Duck Awards. 

@$$hole! has pulled in 2 nominations:  1 for best experimental comic, and another for best photo / stock image comic (which is funny, since it's just this story arc so far that has featured photos). 

Temple pulled in a nomination for "Most Profound Comic," which I find to be very flattering.  Who would have thought that a story I penned to deal with my own inner struggles to deal with life's little curve balls would have made it so far.

 Results will be known on September 1.  Thanks again to all who voted, and please continue to support my comics!

On Drunk Duck, my two comics (each only updating once every week) have been pulling in mad traffic, consistently appearing in the overall top 200 comics (out of over 7,000) - and this is without any advertising or banners to promote them!  @$$hole! is consistently in the top 100 comic strips, and Temple is consistently in the top 200 comic book story comics! 

There's a special guest appearance by me in the 100 page milestone for Amy's amazing Antcomics (hint, I'm the strapping young bald man in the lower right corner).

Check it out!

This is one of my favorite pages that Olivia's done for this story, as it shows the relationship between Veno and Artimis pretty well. And how dark and evil that guy really is.

And in case you can't tell, Veno's melting into the shadows in that last panel. He is, after all, a god.

My Site and Drunk Duck

My web comic series, @$$hole!, was reviewed on the website mpd57.

Specifically, the author was looking around Drunk Duck and stumbled upon my comic series on there - thus proving that yes, even though the comic is certainly not the funniest thing on the internet, the title does attract readers all the time. 

He brings up some interesting points in his review that have been said to me more than once - and I'll reference speficially the lack of personality in the main character (who is obviously loosely based on myself).  It has always been a fear of mine that people would start to associate comic Trevor with real Trevor, and for this reason I've tried to keep his attitude and rants in check.  Because I've been doing the same, really.  However, comic me and real me are very different people right now:  Comic me is dating a beautiful girl, while real me was dumped by a beautiful girl.  The demonic roommate is another very obvious example, as I currently just live with an over-active cat.  The Charlie thing is totally real, though.  ;)

There are other reasons why I've toned the character down  a bit, but I'm starting to question whether or not I should just start going ape-shit and let that character loose.  I already kind of have an off-the-wall character in Susie, however, and I would hate for the two to compete with each other for attention.  Plus, I need to further develop Trevor and Laura as characters.  But we shall see. 

Your thoughts?

Here's Erica's stunning debute in this story.  She was so much fun to work with (and I'm talking like I was in charge - it was all her equipment, and she was taking the pictures AND posing), and had a ton of props to play with.  She does a variety of professional photo shoots, from family portraits to weddings, and everything in between. 

She asked me what she should wear for this character, and I was like, "You're a crazy cat lady, so maybe wear something cute and mess up your hair."  Her face instantly lit up and she was like, "I know exactly what I'm doing!" and ran off into her bed room.  A few seconds later, she came out in the outfit that you see here. 

Throughout the course of the photo shoot, she got more and more into this character - which made for some hilarious moments (sadly, many of which will not be a part of this story arc, because they only really make sense in context).  I don't want to spoil what's to come, but she did an amazing job, and I can't wait to work with her again soon.

Check out her other work at her official website:  www.ericahampton.com

My Site

     Movie Night #92:  Back to the Future (1985)
     Director:  Robert Zemeckis
     Cast:  Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F Wilson
     Plot:  Marty McFly (Fox) is a high school slacker in 1985, and an aspiring guitarist that wants to take his girlfriend out to the lake this weekend.  His father's (Glover) a looser who never got out of being picked on by the school bully (Wilson), and his mother's a conservative bore.  However, when Marty's friend Doc Brown (Lloyd) calls him one day and tells him to be in a parking lot at 1am, his life is in for a change.  Because Doc Brown has invented a time machine out of a car that, when it gets up to 88 MPH, will take you through time. 

During the initial test, however, the two are attacked by Libian terrorists.  Doc Brown is shot and Marty tries to escape in the time machine - and gets sent back to the year 1955!  Now Marty must undo any damage that he's done to the time stream, figure out a way to power the time machine, and get back to the future!

This movie series is just plain fun.  I don't typically enjoy time-travel movies, but this flick is an adventure first and a time-travel movie second.  Full of thrills, twists and turns, and a lot of comedy, Back to the Future is a series worthy of any DVD rack.  Plus, the Trilogy box set came jam-packed with special features up the wazoo (and I'm a sucker for special features).  Plus, you can't beat that classic 80s soundtrack, featuring music from Huey Lewis. 

Good for all ages, and enjoyable any time! 

The countdown to Movie Night #100 continues!  Although we've had some friends move away recently, this just means that there's plenty of room to expand the group (and there's currently ample room for sitting, assuming no one lounges on the couch).  Feel free to bring friends (just let me know in advance so I can make sure that we have enough room), and BYOB.  Movie Night #93 will go on this coming Friday as per usual!  Followed by helping Scott move into his new apartment on Saturday (9:30am, if you want to car pool, be at my place before 9am). 

See ya then!

And Abraham does what he's set out to do - protects the goddess from the drunken morons. One hurdle overcome, but many more dangers lurk around every corner.

My Site and Drunk Duck

The first page of the new arc, which will be done with photos, has finally started!  Taking Waffles to the vet for the first time today should give me an idea of how off-the-wall my writing truely is.

We did the photoshoot last weekend for this 13 page story, in about 6+ hours.  It was a ton of fun.  Erica Hampton was the person who took most of the pictures, as she's a very talented photographer. I enjoyed working with her on this project so much, that I'm totally going to be engaging her services again on some future projects that I want.  She's very easy to work with, has some great ideas and a unique visual style, and she's very accomodating. 

Please don't blame her for my crappy photoshop editing job, dropping in the background.  That was all me - not her.  Her stuff is amazing, and you should totally check it out!

I had some friends help me out by volunteering their time (and resources, like props and outfits) to this project.  Some of the people have opted for psudo-names, so I will list the cast below.  This page features my friend Megan as the underage receptionist / secretary.  Here's the full cast:

Trevor:  Trevor
Megan:  Receptionist
Troy Smith:  Dr. DePantelones
Jane Smith:  Sexy Nurse
Erica:  Crazy Cat Lover Lady


My Site