Dave: (dave-deleteme[at]-deleteme-squishycomics [dot] com) 2010-02-12 09:09:24

Like Big Damned Heroes

Arturo and Dee show up at the last minute to save the day like Big Damned Heroes. Yay!

I suck at drawing mechanical stuff, but this strip was fun to draw nonetheless. Also, Dee's a big Jets fan. Poor guy. Nothing against the Jets, just feeling for the guy as the team took Dee, and other fans, for an emotional roller coaster ride this season.

Paul Yim: (paulyim-deleteme[at]-deleteme-direman [dot] com) 2010-02-12 10:19:15

Pave Low

Does anybody remember a Decepticon named Blackout? He was originally a duo with a Decepticon named Spaceshot but was bastardized by Michael Bay and Co. for the movie back in '07. As much as I love big choppers with lots of guns attached to them, I can't stand this sort of perversion of my childhood. In fact, I look at movie versions of my childhood (G.I. Joe, Inspector Gadget, Speed Racer, etc.) as a double-edged sword. On the one hand they allow for more licensing to make way for such things as comic book movies (Spider-man, Iron Man, Batman Begins, etc.), but on the other hand they also help to green-light video game movies (Doom, Resident Evil, etc.). There are always exceptions to the rule (Spider-man 3 was terrible, for example) but the point is that the movie industry has changed dramatically in the past decade.

The mid-nineties gave rise to the independent film as a viable revenue stream for Hollywood moneybags. That lasted for about 5 years. Then came Brian Singer's X-Men in 2000. His faithfulness to Marvel canon as well as its commercial success (made for $75 M, it made nearly $300 M) resurrected the comic book movie as a franchise. Let's also not forget the success of Blade a couple of years prior. But it's clear that X-Men changed the way Hollywood looks at licensed product. So much so that pre-existing licenses are the ONLY things Hollywood is looking for right now. So if you're like me and you're trying to get your name in lights in Hollywood, buy the rights to Strawberry Shortcake. It's the surest way. I also find it ironic that three of Hollywood's biggest comic book movie directors made their names on niche movies that nobody has seen (Raimi - Evil Dead series, Nolan - Memento, Singer - The Usual Suspects).

There is one caveat to all this ranting: the eternal fanboy in me would love to see a live-action version of, say...a Robotech! Can you imagine how awesome a Thundercats movie could be? What about a Fallout movie or a Mass Effect movie?!?!? And then I remember that some idiot sitting in a plush office overlooking Sunset Boulevard, smoking his imported Cubans, whose only artistic endeavor was writing his name in the snow with his own urine will hire Michael Bay to direct the movie. Makes you want to line up and fork over your $10 already doesn't it? My hope is in the knowledge that history is cyclical. Another generation will come by and give rise to another era of important AND commercially successful independent movies.

Dave: (dave-deleteme[at]-deleteme-squishycomics [dot] com) 2010-02-17 08:21:44

Technical Difficulties

Site was down for a few days, as I'm sure you noticed. We just came back online. New strip will be up this Friday. We apologize for the inconvenience.