The Comic Critic Reviews Star Wars

I kid you not, the first time I heard the words “Star Wars” was when a classmate was looking over my shoulder while I was drawing. He was incredulous that I was drawing a fantasy sci-fi scene without the movie as an inspiration. I was immediately intrigued—and without any forethought tried to see it that night. I had no idea what a huge phenomenon it already was. That first attempt to see Star Wars was thwarted: a sold-out theater. I was stuck listening to odd, muffled noises that wormed their way through the exit doors. When I finally got to see the movie later that year, it was after my entire family, including our live-in foreign exchange student Yuki Okada, had spent the whole afternoon baking under the summer sun. Since everybody has seen Star Wars by now (or should have), I thought I’d tell my lesser-known personal story. Star Wars was so popular that theaters got away with charging extra to see it. Our tickets cost an outrageous $2.75, more than 50¢ higher than the regular price. I saw the success of Star Wars’ ticket prices as a precursor to even higher ones. When I went off to college, ticket prices were firmly entrenched at $3. It says something for the industry that even with the onslaught of video rentals, video games, and online streaming, ticket prices have still crept up. But in all honesty, they barely keep up with inflation. The equivalent of a 1977 dollar today is $3.88.

The Return of Stickman #1397

This is one of those things that you just know was the fault of a committee. Here is the new story that inspired the strip. And if your wondering why I changed it from Heroin to Cocaine it's because I thought it would be funnier if Dolphins, kind of hyper to begin with, were shown high on cocaine. Otherwise my strip would have read something like, "You can tell from the track marks it was Heroin."

The Return of Stickman #1396

This is the last of my "Heavy Metal Fatherhood" series. For the story that inspired this exercise in dead horse flogging click here.

The Comic Critic Reviews The Hunger Games

The Return of Stickman #1395

I meant to post this strip yesterday. Sorry about forgetting. I was a bit busy finishing off some deadlines to make room for an upcoming project. There is one more strip in this sequence coming. I'd wanted it to cap out the week. Maybe I'll post it over the weekend. Mu wa ha ha ha. Don't count on it though.

The Return of Stickman #1394

Yes, this is a continuation of a couple of strips I did last week. I meant to post them all last week, but I got wonderfully busy with immediate-turn-around paying projects.

The Comic Critic Reviews Forbidden Planet

If you’ve ever read my system for rating movies, you’d know that I give extra points for robots. Other sci-fi robots and I might have necked in the backseat at the drive-in, but I confess—I lost my geek cherry to Robby the Robot. Yes, he was in amazing color, but his charisma goes far beyond that. Far from looking like he was designed by socially awkward engineers in a garage (like so many robots before him), Robby looks like a Madison Avenue marketing group designed him. Visually, Robby set the bar a lot higher for what might be expected. (Vast improvements followed soon after.) And Robby was just one of the ingredients that made this movie great. What truly thrilled me as a young boy was the invisible monster. When his footprints appeared in the flattened earth, I held my breath. And I was riveted when he, caught in the energy beams, could be seen. With a little humor, a little romance, a lot of great visuals and action, Forbidden Planet captured my imagination then. It still grabs me now.