Comics posted Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 (that's right - comics)

Posted: 9:02 am, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004

Double-bonus comic Wednesday of craziness, whooo! I was pretty productive over the weekend while watching that brtual Pitt-Nebraska game, and I want to move this all along a bit so that I can get to newer stuff I've been drawing. Also, the first strip is some weird, mushy, totally punchline-less affair, and you guys deserve more than that. The second one's not gold, either, but, I dunno, still just establishing shit. It gets better on Friday and during all of next week, I promise.

Note that Jen is totally kicking Ron's ass at darts. Also, that there are people in the background - this was done while 2.0 was looking over my shoulder and asking me why there were never any people in the background. I thought that situations such as them sitting in a booth at a bar and the girls in their apartment didn't exactly call for people in the background, so here are some different camera angles to force the issue.

I saw Green Day last night with Eric. I'll have a review of the show prepared for tomorrow. And, yes, everyone, Green Day is still together.

I think it was yesterday, but her celebration at a bar is tonight - my friend Cheryl is 26 today. Many of my friends know Cheryl as being My Harry Potter Friend. Cheryl is an editor at Scholastic and actually knows JK Rowling and gets to call her Jo. Cheryl's the closest thing to a rock star I know (although I think Carrie's friend knows the chick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and 2.0's friend Helen dates Ricky Rocket, and I talked to Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones while wasted off my ass about the Red Sox one time). Also, Cheryl is from Peculiar, Missouri. You can't make this stuff up. Happy birthday, buddy! (Lots of birthdays in the week and a half I've been doing this strip.)

Is anyone having trouble with the e-mail link? Sweaty and 2.0 have both reported problems, but whenever I try it, it works, and Crownover got it to work the time she tried it, too. If you all don't mind, just give it a click and lemme know if it works. If it doesn't, I guess try this one and let me know that the stamp ain't cutting it.

Oh, I know E missed the game, anyone else interested, here's a highlight montage from Saturday's Irish game. It's a weird little movie with plenty of page-turning wipes (it would've been better if they were star fades), and a horrid cover of Rock and Roll All Night that's been stuck in my head all day (at least, I think it was a cover), but it shows Tommy Z snatching that guy's purse, and Ty coming from the toilet while MSU returned a punt or a kick or something for a touchdown. Good stuff. I'll keep an eye out, I guess this guy does this for every Irish game. If I find them in time, I'll put them in Monday's posts for the rest of the season (except for after the Southern Cal game - doubt I'm gonna wanna see that twice).

MNP sent me this yesterday, and I hope this link works. You can evidently request a greeting from the esteemed George W. Bush and his wife Laura for weddings, anniversaries and births. US citizens only need apply. (If that link didn't work - it's got all sorts of random letters in there that always make me wonder - navigate there by going to whitehouse.gov, contact, White House Web Mail, and then I think continue (the link's being a pain right now).

Along the same lines, and I've been sending this around to people for a while, but the George W. Bush store is incredible. I wish the concerts I went to had this many t-shirt options. You've got your John Deere knockoff hat and your amazing belt buckle from the Farm Ranch store, your t-shirt for the NASCAR crowd from the bizarre roadtrip-themed area of the store, your predictable flag-covered shit, your football jersey (it took me forever to figure out why the number on the jersey was 43), and then there's the incredible W Collection. Wwhat the metropolitan fascist will be wearing this season. The W Collection also has a belt buckle. I'll say one thing for the Republicans, they have a very good design team working for them. And they sure like war. And oil. And tax cuts for the rich. I guess I'll say several things for the Republicans.

bullfrog

Posted: 8:53 am, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004

Big day on the site, the Museum section is finally being used for what I originally intended it to be. I've posted a few greeting cards and one big illustration by my friend, the loverly and talented Jan Descartes.

Eric wanted to know how I could talk about Saturday morning cartoons and not mention Muchas Luchas. We used to watch it whenever he'd crash at my place after a night out. I dunno - not hungover, the show is kind of irritating. Plus, it's on every day now, and therefore is DQed from the Saturday morning discussion.

Today's update is primarily a rant. I have no idea why I felt the need to write this. Feel free to skip it, you won't be missing anything.

The original three Star Wars films come out on DVD today. You can actually get it for about $42 on Amazon, evidently, which is surprisingly cheap for three movies. I was about to launch into an invective against George Lucas, but $42 for three movies is actually a sweet deal, especially since they're rocking good movies.

Eh, fuck it, I'll rail against Lucas anyway. OK, there's no denying that the last two Star Wars movies were horrible. I actually hated Attack of the Clones more than I did the Phantom Menace, but, if this makes sense, it was probably the better movie. Phantom Menace was just an onslaught of shit that took me a few viewings to fully appreciate its awfulness. Attack of the Clones was so pointless and extravangant that I can't bear the idea of watching it again. I will never see the third movie, whatever the hell it's called (Revenge of the Sith, I think?). The aforementioned Mike plans on seeing the movie and then promptly blowing his head off with a shotgun. I suppose that's one way to go. I've discussed this with many people, and, by and large, the core of the problem with these movies can be traced to A) no one's said 'no' to George Lucas in over 20 years, and B) these movies aren't telling a story that needs to be told. We're not getting anything out of knowing how Vader came to be. What, his mother gets killed, Schindler and Renton yell at him a few times, so he needs to turn into Darth Vader? Bleh.

So, the new movies don't exist, and George Lucas is thoroughly apparently now incapable of creating anything that will ever interest me. Meaning that the only thing he had left to do was give me my Goddamn memories from my youth on DVD, and I'll be happy.

What do we get? The 1997 do-overs of the original trilogy, with even *more* extra crap thrown in there. I have no idea what this extra crap is. I don't care if it's awesome. I don't care if it makes it prettier to look at. Messing with the first three Star Wars movies for their DVD release and not giving me the option to watch the movie as they were originally released in the theaters is like if the deluxe edition of Casablanca's DVD had come with a hardcore sex scene between Bogey and Bergman in place of the airport scene.

In conclusion, George Lucas, you need to die and your heir needs to realize that the fans just want things the way they remember them. Go ahead and ruin the franchise with this meaningless second triology - seriously, do whatever you want with the third movie. If you feel the need to make Chewbacca a hyperthyroid Ewok instead of a Wookiee, that's fine. If you want to have Mickey Rooney paint his face green and play Yoda, that's cool. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that you had Natalie Portman's character actually have triplets, so that you can film *another* triology, where Luke and Leia have to fight their brother Larry, who emerges to threaten the galaxy in the wake of the battle of Endor. Just know that you had one last chance to not piss off the people who liked the original movies, and it's gone. I will happily keep my THX-remastered tapes from '95 and consider them the ultimate home edition of the original films. Hell, I will consider my tape from sometime in the late 1980s that somehow has the whole trilogy on one tape - complete with the WRGB Channel 6 logo popping into the bottom right corner at key points in the films - as more authoritative than this DVD set.

Unless somebody gets me the DVD set for Christmas. 'Cause, you know, it can't be *that* bad.

bullfrog