The Sentinel (featuring Nigel Billingsley)

This week's strip requires serious props.

The idea for Nigel Billingsley came to me from the skies, in the form of an angel named Faith (which, now I think about it, is a damned good name for an angel). She created him, for the most part. Blurted out the idea and POP -- there he was in my head. Oh, I designed him, fleshed him out, made him British, figured out his lot in life . . .

. . . but he wouldn't exist without Faith. So check her out. Then open a new browser window and buy her book and make her famous so she can stop working in a pink cubicle. What kind of a company has pink cubicles?!

Look who's talking, huh? I need to call her and thank her personally. I've been meaning to call! Sorry, Faith. I've had stuff on my mind, and've been too busy to even start getting to almost thinking about it.

Seriously, though. Let's talk again?

:C

Box Office? POX Office!

Okay, how scary is this:



Maybe it isn't immediately apparent what I mean by "scary," but if you take another look at my screenshot, and zero in on Rotten Tomatoes' top five box office stats, all five are seriously ROTTEN! Thus I decree: the movie companies are no longer allowed to complain about dropoff in attendance, not until at least TWO of the top five box office draws are considered "fresh" by Rotten Tomatoes!

Hell, how about ONE?

So, um, I'm sorry for my slackitude last week; I had a mess of freelance design work and the taxes that go with the job. The new strip -- a review of The Sentinel -- will be up at midnight tonight. You can see a little black and white tease of it in the screenshot above, including my latest new character, Nigel Billingsley! When you see him in color, please welcome him aboard.

:C

Basic Instinct 2

I feel the need to warn you: someone just read the new strip, my Basic Instinct 2 review, and told me it made her physically nauseous.

Warning aside, I couldn't ask for a better reaction. Except for vomit-laughing, the sole potential topper.

Astute readers may notice a slight difference today. Specifically, in Roger's appearance. "Who's Roger?" you ask? Well, now. People who've read my CAST page already know this, but Roger, despite appearances, is not E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. He's the actor who played E.T. Like Mariel Hemingway, who popped in breast implants for her Star 80 role as Dorothy Stratten (the Playboy Playmate killed by her suicidal ex-husband), Roger Johansson was so deeply dedicated to his craft that he had his appearance physically altered for his role in Steven Spielberg's smash hit . . . and has been horribly typecast ever since. Embittered by his irreversible choice, and terribly self-conscious about his appearance despite his fame, Roger is VERY comfortably rich, and shares his house with Marlon Brando, who's sorta/kinda in hiding. Y'know, since everyone thinks he's dead.

Marlon Brando, as we all know, can never REALLY die.

Despite Roger's bitter anger, he and Marlon are quite close, and they have, in many ways, the perfect friendship. Roger's life has forged him into the kind of guy who gets angry at the drop of a hat, while Marlon's the embodiment of water off a duck's back. He's also kind of weird and crass, which Roger could do without, but they're close enough by now that Roger's willing to let his guard down when Marlon's the only one around.

Which is the impetus of the difference in today's strip.

Anyone? Anyone?

:Chris

Inside Man

In a recent issue, The New Yorker's Anthony Lane wrote the following about Spike Lee's Inside Man:

"The screenplay, a first-time effort by Russell Gewirtz, displays a double gift: it is clever enough to clutch our attention, but also dumb enough, with large logical holes punched through it at regular intervals, to make the audience feel equally clever for having spotted the mistakes."

Pretty much a dead-on accurate way of saying it was fun and enjoyable, but not great. Oh, and c'mon, Spike. It's really time to drop the whole characters-floating-like-unmoving-zombies shot style. I know it's your signature, and sure, it worked well a few times. But recent attempts haven't really added anything.

- IN OTHER POPCORN PICNIC NEWS -

Popcorn Picnic was recently mentioned on the Joss Whedon fansite, Whedonesque, and traffic at PP went through the roof. Cool! Now it's died away completely. Lame! Even stranger is the apparent unintentional denial by all the Buffytes who read my linked review of Whedon's Serenity that I've reviewed anything but that movie.

Check it out: I know this doesn't mean much in terms of the WEB, but at its highest point of traffic, PP was getting 4,500 unique visitors a day and over 250,000 hits. Since then, a bunch of those folks have reposted links to my Serenity strip on their own blogs, and bunches more have dropped comments around the ether. Strangely enough, though, none have done so here, and I haven't received a peep of email from a single one of those 4,500 visitors.

One blogger seemed to think I'd probably been flooded by hate mail as a result of the Serenity strip. Pardon me? Um, hate mail? Heck, I'd KILL for some hate mail!

Okay, I don't really want hate mail. Point is, PP's still purty new, so for those of you who think I'm super popular, and that I won't notice individual emails amongst the flood, rest assured that it's not even a trickle at this point. So if you've got a sec, feel free to drop me a note -- poppity(AT)gmail(DOT)com -- and let me know what you think. Much more important, though? LINK to me. I'll really, really, REALLY appreciate it.

Next week, "Basic Instinct 2."

:C

Popcorn Saving Time

I'm guessing that anyone who's reading this already knows, but, um, there wasn't a new strip last week. I, ah, see . . . the dog ate it. The Internet shut down. I got caught in a freak hailstorm.

Actually, I was just sick. I started getting sick last Sunday night, which is when I usually start my push to finish the upcoming week's strip. Then I spend the first couple of days during the week staying up until 2:00 a.m., which, when I'm healthy, is already a little later than I'd like. That sort of behavior has been catching up with me, hence the cold.

So I gave in. I went to bed early all week. And I mean EARLY. Most nights, I was in bed by 9:00. The last time I went to bed at 9:00 for a week straight, I was 12.

I hope you'll consider this lapse my version of Daylight Saving Time. You lose a week's entertainment; I gain a week's cushion and rest. 'Cause, see, I was going to bed early, yes . . . but I was working on strips, too.

Just not 'til 2:00 a.m. Dat s'it is CRAZY. I gots to stop dat.

Anyway, I'm well ahead of schedule now, and I'm gonna keep it that way. So thanks for understanding.

-C.