Monday — January 5th, 2009
We’re back! And, much like the economy, we’ve downsized.
While we had a great deal of fun whomping up the larger strips — Adam had a lot more room to play and still fit in all the words I insisted had to be there, somewhere, in some sort of order — they were also incredibly time-consuming to create at the level of quality we both wanted. And other, paying projects crept in, and there was those non-paying family members who kept hanging around… we had to step back and rethink the strip. We both wanted to continue, no question about that, but it would have to change for that to happen.
Hence, the smaller, non-color strip. But, good news: the format change saves us enough time so that we can start publishing three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) instead of two, which is something we wanted to do from the beginning.
If you’re just joining us - and hey! Hi! — you can catch up with the older strips here, or you can download them as a cbr file (Use CDisplay or these other cbr programs to read it). And we look forward to obsessing with you for years to come!
(Seriously, how old is the new Doctor, like, twelve? Who’s going to be his Companion, Winnie the Pooh? But I digress.)
July 17th, 2008
Hey kids! Comics!
There’s lots of comicy goodness out this week, and the 800-lb Bat-gorilla is the new Batman movie “The Dark Knight,” which opens tonight and is already wowing audiences and building Oscar buzz for the late Heath “The Joker” Ledger. Some of that may be because he died tragically before the movie came out, but other actors have done that and not won and he did do a.. really, really scary job of it, so here’s hoping. Wouldn’t it be excellent if a comic book movie won an acting award for once?
And in front of “The Dark Knight” you might get to see the trailer for another of the most anticipated and most dreaded comic book movies, “The Watchmen.” Alan Moore’s brilliant graphic novel, painstakingly brought to life. I’m of two minds on this - sorry, Harvey Dent - because I LOVE the book, but the scenes I’ve seen so far look awfully good and every Alan-Moore-based movie gets closer and closer to his vision. (In my world, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” never happened, never never neverm la la la). You can check out the HD trailer here.]
And, OK, maybe I’m on my own here, but one of my favorite comic characters returns next week in “Ambush Bug: Year None” next week and Newsarama did a recap of why we should care. *POP!*
July 16th, 2008
Apparently Dr. Horrible’s evil plan to join the Evil League of Evil involved crashing the frickin’ Internet. The first of the three-act super villain musical by Joss Whedon and half his family was posted at drhorrible.com just after midnight on Tuesday morning and they were getting hit by over 200,000 visits per hour before their server caved. Not only did it take several hours to move Dr. Horrible to a new monster server, but people looking for more information also crashed Whedonesque.com with over 5 times the maximum traffic their host allows, so they’re migrating now as well. On the plus side, drhorrible.com is back up now and, if you’re the “pay the artists” type, you can buy the 1st act or the entire season at iTunes.
One of the guys here, C. A. Bridges, got to speak to Joss - lucky bastard - and he wrote an article about it here (audio included). Or you can read the transcript here.
In other news, an outrage is being committed. Producers of the reality series “The Mole” have started a save-our-show site, SavetheMole.com, with an open letter begging fans to help them out. Excuse me, isn’t that the fans’ job? This kind of corporate-led fan movement just co-opts our pure grass-roots process. Who’s going to take us seriously now? Seriously, if the fans didn’t care enough to do it themselves, well… maybe it’s time to let it go. Man up, Mole people.
July 11th, 2008
Just got confirmation of my signing times from the California Browncoats. I’ll be signing at their table Thursday from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and again on Saturday from 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The California Browncoats will be at tables A7/A8 in Hall A at the back of Aisle 300. This will also be your perfect opportunity to come by and get one of our sketchcards with the special contest codes!
So come by and say hi! I’ll be the one in the hat.
July 2nd, 2008
Lotta stuff going on out there, and most of it costs money. Here’s where mine’s going:
There’s a new James Bond graphic novel coming out.
Big TV-on-DVD sale at Amazon means cheap Buffy, Angel, Bones, Firefly, Simpsons, Arrested Development, Addams Family, and many more. How hilarious is it that Amazon’s scattershot “starring” section lists the Simpsons DVDs as starring Doris Grau?
Quantum Mechanix has announced several new Serenity-related things this week: a Big Haul contest where you can win a million dollars in replica Alliance credits (and more), the release of the first of the Little Damn Heroes series of Serenity character cartoon maquettes, designed by our own Adam Levermore-Rich, and a set of portrait lithos of the Big Damn Heroes by Steve Anderson.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog debuts on the web next week for free (and the free tie-in comic, “Captain Hammer: Be Like Me” should pop up on the Dark Horse Presents MySpace page sometime today), but we’re already getting hints at the incredible extras on the soon-to-come DVD, including musical commentary(!)
And a reminder: we’ll all be at the San Diego Comic-Con in a few weeks (I’ll be twittering from the floor!) and there’s tons of exclusive stuff to grab while you’re there, although you may not want to get between me and that BSG toaster.
June 28th, 2008
The Master Plan has been revealed!
Joss Whedon’s minisode musical for the Internet, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion, will be broadcast for free starting July 15. There will be three episodes, and then downloads will be offered for a charge, with a massively-packed DVD coming along later. This is Joss’ plan for taking his skills straight to the people! The “people” meaning us. And, in his announcement, he has marching orders for us:
3) Joss, you are so kind, and generous, and your forehead is like, huge, like SCARY, like I think I can see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint hanging off it… what can WE do to help this musical extravanganza?
What you always do, peeps! What you’re already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.
Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.
Get ready! Brace yourselves! Take whatever mental and spiritual precautions you feel are necessary! Also, spread the word. Head to the Dr. Horrible website and watch the teaser, join the MySpace and Facebook and Twitter pages, grab banners to spread around. Digg it! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your enemies’ friends!
It’s coming…
June 27th, 2008
Just a quick post to let you all know that I just talked to the California Browncoats, and it looks like I’ll be doing a couple of signings at their booth at San Diego Comic-Con this year. No details on the times yet, but it will probably be early afternoon on Thursday and late afternoon on Saturday. I’ll keep you posted with more specifics as I get them.
We’ve got a bunch of really exciting things in the works for Comic-Con. Some of them will be things you can only get if you’re at the con itself, but there’s special stuff in store for the rest of you too! Stay tuned!
California Browncoats Special Events and Guests
June 26th, 2008
Great news for all you people out there with the same interests as me! (Me being Twitch, which is me)
First, the complete 41-DVD set of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” — 105 episodes, plus all kinds of extras — is coming out October 21. This is the same set that was previously available only through Time-Life, with the attache case and everything, but now it’ll be in the stores and 50 bucks cheaper.
And I was torn on this one, but finally gave in. Tim Minear’s unproduced screenplay of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” has been released online. I wasn’t sure if, technically, this was a copyright violation since Mr. Minear didn’t put it there and I don’t download things I’m not supposed to, but apparently he approves of it being spread around and read. nd Walker downloaded it for me anyway because I couldn’t click the link with my eyes closed, so U.S. Copyright Office enforcers should talk to him and totally not me. That’s “Walker M. Gerhardt,” you probably know him already. Anyway, the script is great. There’s more than a few changes to fit a massive and detailed book into a two-hour movie, but the tone feels right and it’s way better than “Starship Troopers” even if it did have Neil Patrick Harris.
June 25th, 2008
Hi folks, Tess here. We’re going whedony with our links today, with good news and bad news.
First, the bad news. The Serenity laser-etched lucite ornament coming from Dark Horse is no longer coming from Dark Horse. Cancelled, they say, for lackluster sales.
Also cancelled: the Buffy Tarot Deck. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, Dark Horse will not be producing the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Tarot Deck. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but no existing orders will be filled. We appreciate your support of this program, and again apologize to those who placed advance orders and to fans alike.” Boo, hiss. How will I know my hard-to-interpret future now?
Joss’ last “Runaways” comic, the end of his Dead End Kids arc, comes out today (here’s a preview). Yay, new comic! Boo, last one, although incoming writer Terry (”Strangers in Paradise”) Moore is an excellent choice.
So, bummers. But in good, good, good news, the teaser for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon’s Internet minisode musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion, is out on the Web! Let the squeeing commence!
June 24th, 2008
This isn’t really Hiatus-related, but I had to share it. I just discovered the artwork of Eric Tan, who does some absolutely stunning retro artwork for Pixar. He recently finished some ridiculously cool WALL-E posters, which make me giddy both because of the art and because I’m so excited to see WALL-E.
Here are just a couple examples (there are more on his blog):
His art represents the kind of work I only dream of being able to do, but I’ve suddenly become very inspired to do some more poster work. Hopefully I can keep that inspiration long enough to actually make something tangible out of it.
The Art of Eric Tan [via SlashFilm.com]
June 18th, 2008
Plenty happening around the world, but the part you need to know about right now is that the first big run of “Can’t Stop the Serenity” screenings begin this week. Big-screen showings of Joss Whedon’s immortal “Serenity” are happening in 52 cities on three continents, with all proceeds going to Equality Now. Over $160,000 has been raised in previous years, and this year we aim to set a record. Some of the screenings have raffles and giveaways, some have special guests (Dark Horse’s Scott Allie and Sierra Hahn and Amanda Sullivan Director of Equality Now’s Women’s Action Network in Portland, Tim Minear in Dallas/Fort Worth, Cedric from the Bedlam Bards in Dallas and Houston, Buffy artist Jo Chen in Arlington, and a video greeting from Jewel Staite in Vancouver, so far) and all of them have a blast. Here’s the site for more info: Can’t Stop the Serenity.
Please note that not all showings of “Serenity” are for charity; some theaters are apparently taking advantage of the event to get a little business. Check the list at the official site to make sure you’re going to a charity event.
“Serenity” isn’t the only cult-favorite to be getting some love. “Hiatus” got a shout-out over at Ominous Knife, and we appreciate it. Get the word out, everyone! It ain’t over yet.
