The Comic Critic Reviews Siam Sunset

I was fortunate enough to vacation in Australia for three weeks. It was a wonderful, memorable experience filled with unexpected surprises, adventure, and enchanted evenings. Even before the trip, I enjoyed watching films from Down-Under. Australian films don’t try to copy Hollywood. (If anything, Hollywood tries to capture some of the magic that gets produced from the Land of Kangaroos. Too often Hollywood over-applies its well-known techniques in pursuit of a larger audience.) The reason I find Australian films so enjoyable is that they don’t worry about capturing a massive audience; they’re more concerned about the right audience finding them. Even though my wife and I stayed in Australia for nearly a month, it wasn’t long enough. We’re thankful when we can recapture some of our experiences through the movies they produce. And Siam Sunset is one of the best we’ve seen.

The Return of Stickman #1439

Fans. You might have noticed a slowdown on Stickman strips. A large project is currently on my desk and will be distracting me for a few days. Stickman strips will Thursday.

the Comic Critic Reviews The Ten Commandments

Given the royalty-free status of the story, you might wonder why The Ten Commandments hasn’t undergone a slew of remakes. I can tell you why nobody is going to do a reboot of the book Exodus anytime soon: Cecil B. DeMille got it right. This movie is huge! With its huge stars, it tells a huge story, has huge special effects with huge sets and a huge cast. It easily found its way into the heart of a society whose motto is Bigger is Better and stayed there. It remains fixed as an icon because it was made with grit and sweat on a scale of size, quality, and excellence that would be nearly impossible today. A huge achievement back in the day, it remains one now. If you haven’t seen it, you must. Be sure to get the full-length version to enjoy all 220 minutes. Huge!

Can you complete the Ten Commandment Challenge?
Without looking it up on the Internet, or asking another’s help, can you write down the Ten Commandments in ten minutes? I used to go to the Mall and make this bet with total strangers. If they could do it, they would win ten dollars. In all the times I asked only once did I lose.

The Return of Stickman #1438

If my work schedule allows me, I go down to Frost Park in Tacoma on Fridays and participate in a Chalk Off. The competitions will end at the end of the month as it will be too cold and wet. With today being sunny I wanted to get in as much sunshine as possible. Here's my contribution:
You can see all the other artist's work here.

The Return of Stickman #1346 &1347

I forgot to post my strip for two days. So here is yesterday's and today's. I guess you can tell I'm working on a theme.

The Comic Critic Reviews Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and the Tacoma Zombpocalpse

One summer my cousins went to Disneyland. I remember them telling my siblings and me about all the rides. I got very excited that there was a ride called “Pirates of the Caribbean.” My father was a huge Errol Flynn fan, and he introduced me to pirate movies via “Captain Blood.” Together, we spent countless hours watching sea battles and peg-legged pirates swinging cutlasses. So when Deborah, Diane, Dina, and Denise described this ride with animatronic (freakin’ robots) pirates, my overactive mind feasted on the imagery for months. In fact, I can’t remember any other details of their trip. I think their parents were there—maybe. Anyway, when I heard that Disney had turned the ride into a movie, that little part of my brain that got ridiculously hyper as a kid got all charged up again. I was one of the first to get a ticket to that ride, erm, movie, and I loved every minute of it.

And I know several of you are wondering how I did at the Tacoma Zombpocalypse. The answer: Fantastic. Not only was this great one day show, but it was their first show, and it has topped my sales for a one day show this year. Here is a link to a group page on flickr so you can see all the fun. Kudos to my friend, Joe Manfredini, for helping me out at my table.

The Return of Stickman #something-something

Sometimes I draw a buffer of strips so that I can take the morning off to do other things like go to the dentist and stuff. But then inspiration hits and I get a slew of ideas. Sometimes this slew of ideas follows a them and it only makes sense to put them all together in a week. This strip was in the hopper, but was delayed a week while I fixated on storage units. The is the real #1431, not #1435. But I don't think anybody cares. I don't even know why I'm typing this. Oh! Wait! Now I remember. I'm always curious to see how well one of my postings does when it has naughty words like porn and strippers in the labels.

 I'm also prepping for The Tacoma Zombpocalypse. Please invite your friends to it on Facebook via this event posting. Several of my friends are behind this show and I want it to be a success for them so that it will come back again next year. Tacoma needs more fun conventions like this. I'm not the only person excited about this show.