The Comic Critic Reviews CUBE

Cube goes a little farther than your standard horror movie. Its grim setting takes on a science-fiction edge when you realize there is a larger puzzle at work. It also makes you ask questions. Who are these people? Why are they here? What’s the point of it all? These are very existential questions. Most people try not to think about them while they go about their daily lives. But with its combination of repetitive tasks and mental hoops to jump through, Cube forces you to ask these questions. You might start watching Cube because you heard that there was some slice-and-dice action, but you will find yourself engaging with the characters on a deeper level than you anticipated. When that engagement turns on you, that’s when things get scary. Is it considered a horror movie or a science-fiction movie when you’re challenged to remember that every moment you’re alive is a game of life and death?

It feels great to be drawing movie reviews again. The layout and cover for my next book is done. I've got an email to the printer trying to get it into production. I'm worried it won't be done by ECCC but I can say that it's on its way. I'm also working on another movie project that won't take as long. I think I will do a Kickstarter for it. I'll let you know.

The Return of Stickman #1564

You will be happy to know that the Harvard Profession who inspired this story has since issued an apology. I think my New Year's Resolution should be not to recognize my problems as first world problems before I get all bent out of shape.

The Return of Stickman #1563

This inspiration for this strip came from my wife. She told me how she carefully deletes any email with Malware attachments when they show up in her office email. She's amazed that other at her workplace click on these obviously destructive attachments. "You can't work on your computer the entire day while the I.T. guys are trying to fix it. You might as well go home." She says. Then we look at each other and go, "Ohhhhhh." She still deletes them. But I now understand why employees there still click on the attachments, even after I.T. has sent them an email saying that they should not click on any attachments. I feel the pain of the I.T. guy.

The Return of Stickman #1562

I try to put in as little effort into writing for this strip as possible. My wife saw the strip I did yesterday and commented, "Isn't today Yoga Appreciation Day?" I went online to find out and all Google kept throwing at me was Yoga pants appreciation sites. The search yielded unexpected results and a strip that wrote itself.

The Return of Stickman #1561

I like squirrels. Well, I like most squirrels. The squirrels I dislike are the big invasive-species grey ones that push out all of the cute and wonderful native squirrels. But since it's National Squirrel Appreciation Day, and National Hug Day, I thought I would share this can't-we-just-get-along cartoon.

The Return of Stickman #1559 and #1560

Did you ever have a friend who was constantly coming up with "What if?" questions. I was wondering if such a friend would be the death of me. When I started thinking of how they could be the death of me this idea popped into my head.


Monday was a holiday, which doesn't excuse my not having a strip archived and ready to go. I'm am movie buff. I'm also a bit nostalgic. I get a little sad when things get forgotten or left behind. In this case it's both good and bad movies that might never make the jump from an old format to a common one, and will most likely as a result never make it to an even newer format. If you live in Seattle there is a lone surviving video store that caters to the old, forgotten, limited and the lost, Scarecrow Video. They let their customers know when old title and new releases get converted to the latest format.

The Return of Stickman #1558

Once again I forgot to do a strip over the weekend. So I cranked this one out last night. If you think it's a little used you wouldn't be wrong. Winsor McCay did an ongoing series called "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" in which folks suffered weird dreams from having grilled cheese for dinner.