100 or Out
I’ve always had this magick number in my head for Arkham Polytech: 100 unique returning viewers a new strip day, for at least two consecutive weeks (without the aid/crutch of a Reddit link). If I can hit that magick number by the end of the year, I’ll consider Arkham Polytech a personal success (if not a particularly popular one) and continue doing it another year (with a new goal of 1000 uniques a day). If I can’t hit that number, then Arkham Polytech gets a final saying-goodbye strip the last week of 2010 and I move on to something else.
Why am I bringing this up now, when it’s only June? Because it’s half-way through the year — half-way through the first year of the strip — and traffic’s been growing nicely since the start (thanks mostly to a whole bunch of nice people on twitter spreading the word daily). In fact, I’ve been averaging about 40 unique returning viewers for the last two weeks. Which in my mind says a 100 isn’t an unrealistic goal. So, kinda happy about that.
So to those 40 or so regular readers, thanks! Now, go tell your friends.
Lost Finally Lives Up To Its Name
Lost finally lived up to its name with its finale, and lost me. (And if you haven’t seen the finale, spoilers ahead, so be warned.)
The finale has two essentially separate and unconnected storylines, so I’ll complain about both separately.
The “island” storyline turned out to be rather boring and low-key, and didn’t much hold my attention or reward me for all my years of watching. Except Jack died, which was cool. And Hugo and Ben teamed up to run the island… I can only assume they built a line of chicken joints. Which would have been cool, had they actually shown it.
But the “sideverse” storyline — that really just pissed me off. So, apparently, this entire season the sideverse we’ve been emotionally investing in turns out to be limbo. A big-ass shared dream where the Losties go to wait to be reunited after death. Okay, interesting concept, I’ll give ya that — but what exactly did it have to do with the island? It was the most generic ending ever, really just an excuse to get all the characters together and hug each other. You could have had the same ending for any other show — hey, look, all our characters died eventually and most had shitty lives, but it’s okay ’cause they reunited at death, here’s a happy ending for ya. (In fact, wasn’t that the end of Titanic?) Just seemed cheap and lazy and pandering — like the writers, pardon the pun, got lost on the way to a real ending and copped out.
So, color me disappointed.
Iron Man 2 and All the Other Crap
When last we blogged… I had not seen Iron Man 2. Saw it the weekend before last. It was decent — not as good as the first one, which had the benefit of being a breath of fresh air — but long. About 20 minutes too long. The climatic fight was also a bit of a letdown — again, the action happened at night, so it was hard to see what was going on. The race track fight earlier in the film looked sharp, and that was during the day, so don’t know why they decided every other fight in the movie had to be shot in the dark. Maybe too many cartoons running around in the daylight would have exposed them for what they were. Anyway, worth seeing for Downey junior’s performance, and Scarlett Johansson in a jumpsuit.
Also worth seeing — by a far larger margin: Kick Ass. Which, was, ahem, kick-ass.
Haven’t see Robin Hood, and probably won’t until it comes out on vid. It just hasn’t struck me as a need-to-see, even with Ridley Scott at the helm.
Arkham Polytech: Continues, three strips a week. Quite enjoying it, still working on improving the art.
Black Adder Obsession
I’ve been obsessed with Black Adder — especially series 2 — ever since Netflix added all four series to streaming a couple weeks back. I had been obsessed with it years ago when it was on BBC America — back when BBC America played stuff other than Gordan Ramsey cooking shows, Top Gear and Doctor Who (not that I’m complaining.) It’s just one of those shows that’s downright looney, but in a brilliant, extremely clever way. And of course its main character is a scheming bastard, so no surprise I like it. Been considering getting this Black Adder Remastered
In the Company of Idiots – Yep, back to this, after getting 27% into the first draft of Fear and Shopping on Planet Earth and realizing it sucked. I’ll probably return to it someday. Like I’m returning to In the Company of Idiots. Did 850 words this morning, so the 1st draft’s 1% done. Any bets on how far I get before switching to “The Confounding Exploits of Dr. Harvey Morbid, Esquire”?
Arkham Polytech – Just wrote the script for the 50th strip. 50 frickin’ strips. Didn’t think I’d keep up with it this long, frankly, but still having fun. Thanks to all for the feedback and comments and just plain reading it.
You Must See Black Dynamite
So, Black Dynamite (official web site) has kung-fu chopped its way onto my top 100 movies of all time list.
It’s dead on parody/spoof of ’70s blaxploitation… down to boom mikes in the shot, stunt doubles being swapped mid-fight, stock footage car chases and explosions, and every cliche you can think of. But it’s what they do with the cliches that makes it hilarious. Intentionally hilarious — these guys know what they’re doing. The script’s inherently funny, the acting’s spot on, and it’s just a fun ride.
To spill the beans on any of the gags would just ruin the fun. All I’ll say is this: Just when you think it couldn’t get better… they go to Kung-Fu Island. Literally. It’s an island. They go to it. And that’s NOT the film’s climax. The climax… that gets even, impossibly, better than that. I know, better than Kung-Fu Island — impossible! But it is possible. It is!
So, Netflix it. Or just buy it (Amazon DVD
Dynomite! Dynomite!
It Ain't Clash of the Titans Without Stop-Motion Action
Still debating whether to bother seeing Clash of the Titans on the big screen. Heard from multiple sources to avoid the 3D version. But the 2D version is being bandied about as a decent mind-numbing popcorn movie.
To watch or not to watch… The original (Amazon DVD
Oh, what to do, what to do… Probably should just see How to Train Your Dragon, or better yet, rewatch Black Dynamite (Amazon DVD
At the Mountains of Random
We’ve been trying to eat more organic lately, to lesson the amount of chemicals consumed and to maybe lose some weight. Pasture-raised meats and byproducts, specifically, without the growth hormones. And we’re pretty much stopped heating up anything in plastic and using some kinds of plastics entirely. Does this mean I’m turning into a hippy?
Arkham Polytech – The strips for the week after next are inked… here’s a preview.
In addition to the strips, I’m also putting together a page detailing how I make the comic. That’ll be posted sometime in the next week.
Fear and Shopping on Planet Earth – Hit the 20% mark yesterday. 17 thou words of the first draft. Did another 800 words this morning. So, on pace, and am happy about that.
Rant Like You Mean It
So, watched Pandorum over the weekend. Not bad. Saw the ending coming half-way through though. But it was well done enough, and the ship design was pretty cool. The plot holes were forgivable. Reminded me of Pitch Black — has that same kind of low-budget earnestness about it. And bonus, no Vin Diesel.
Last night’s Chuck — not bad. Wish they’d just move past the whole Chuck/Sarah thing. No good can come of them hooking up. Shows only go down hill when that happens.
Looking forward to tonight’s Lost. Will they actually reveal the secrets of Richard, or just raise more questions? Probably both.
Looking forward to Clash of the Titans. Not expecting a good movie. And it kinda annoys me it’s all CGI. The original was Harryhausen at his peak. But still, hoping the 3-d will be decent enough for me to forget Avatar ever happened.
Archer’s over already? Damn. Good show. Last couple episodes were kinda weak, but still, overall, looking forward to season 2. And now I want to catch Frisky and Dingo, the show they did between Archer and Sealab 2021.
Arkham Polytech – Updates keep coming, three days a week.
Fear and Shopping on Planet Earth – Been getting 800 words a day in. Up to chapter 11, mostly done with it. So far, fairly happy with it.
Twitter Me This
So, testing a plugin that tweets posts to Slackpocalypse.com to my twitter account automatically. Please bare with me during testing. Thanks.
Fever!
The weekend sucked. Had a fever. 100 on Saturday. 99 on Sunday. Down to about 98.something today. But to compensate, I’ve got the runs. But since I haven’t eaten all that much in two days, there’s not much left to run.
And now you know.
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INFODUMP
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- - RotW: TtAM!
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- - Psyche
- READING:
- - Crap Star Wars Novels
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