Gordon McAlpin

LJ syndicated feeds are broked!

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:26:41 GMT

It looks like LiveJournal is aware of the issue, but apprently LJ feeds have been broken few a while — and if you come here often, you probably aready know that.

But!

If that's the case, you have missed a few Multiplex updates —

Multiplex #394: http://www.multiplexcomic.com/archive.php?name=394

A terrific guest strip from Greg Erskine: http://www.multiplexcomic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1777

AND Multiplex #395: http://www.multiplexcomic.com/archive.php?name=395

You're also probably unaware that the Multiplex: Book 1 Club of Awesome (Kickstarter) project has amassed an impressive total of $1500 in pledges to date — and counting. That's awesome, and thank you to everyone who has pledged, but there's still a long way to go before I reach the $7500 goal needed to take time off work and pay for a print run. If you haven't pledged yet, go over to Kickstarter today! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gmcalpin/join-the-multiplex-book-1-club-of-awesome

There are AWESOME! REWARDS! Free eBooks, signed copies of the book (when it's published), exclusive stuff… and backers will get access to exclusive content over the next couple of months (during the pledge period) — and, if the funding goal is reached, for the next several months while I finish the new content for the print book, prep files for the printer (and select a printer), get it all printed up, etc. What kind of stuff?! I don't know yet! Give me some ideas of what you'd like to see!

Join the Multiplex: Book 1 Club of Awesome

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:14:45 GMT

The Multiplex: Book 1 Club of Awesome has launched at Kickstarter! What does this all mean?!

Well, to find out, you can just waltz over to the Kickstarter site and watch the pitch video, or you can keep reading:

As many of you know, I've been plugging away at the Multiplex print book for a long time, and it's been pretty slow going. The first of the five Chapter eBooks that will be collected into the Multiplex: Book 1 print book has long been available, but a second is pretty late, because of how much new material it has and how little time I have to work on it. Meeting the twice-weekly update schedule is tough enough, some weeks!

By joining the Multiplex: Book 1 Club of Awesome, you'll be helping me take some time off from the day job in order to complete the print book — and, more importantly, pay for the print run of the book itself.

These are not donations, though — absolutely not! In exchange for your pledges, you'll receive AWESOME! REWARDS! such as a thank you in the print book and free copies of the five eBooks as they're completed ($5 and up), signed copies of the book ($30 an up), hand-drawn character sketches ($100 and up), or even a cameo appearance in the prequel story exclusive to the print book ($200 and up) — and with any pledge amount, I'll keep you updated with exclusive updates at the Kickstarter page — with peeks at in-progress art, video updates, bonus strips, and the like. (Head on over to the Kickstarter Project page for a complete run-down of the various reward levels available to pledgers.)

The great thing about Kickstarter is that nobody gets charged — I don't get anything — unless the project meets its funding goal! See, if I only got $3000 in pledges, I may be able to take a couple of weeks off from work, but I wouldn't be able to afford a print run — so it wouldn't do any of us much good.

So if you've been dying to see the Multiplex print book, or just want to help an artist out, head on over to Kickstarter and pledge! And if you want to help but can't afford to pledge, help spread the word! Every little bit counts!

Multiplex gets animated (a little)

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:19:26 GMT

Spider-Mouse!

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:53:42 GMT

Spider-Mouse (inspired, obviously, by the Disney/Marvel news du jour):

Rub a Dub Dub

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:28:53 GMT

Quick doodle for a friend at work.…

Happy Kart: Kurtio

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:23:04 GMT

Just doodling, trying to nail down the style I'll be using in the current storyline. (The "in-game" racing sequence will be done in a black and white, hand-drawn style. Probably a bit less detailed than this, going for something vaguely reminiscent of the old Speed Racer manga.)

Inked with Copic markers, mostly the brush tip. <3

too many meetings

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:46:59 GMT

On Multiplex and cut-and-paste comics

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:02:30 GMT

Why I don't do a journal comic. #2

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:58:18 GMT

Another stupid thing I drew today because I had nothing to do for real work.

I can't draw the same thing the same way twice, so this is actually decent practice. Except that my hand got tired and I started getting super-sloppy. Sometimes that's good because it forces you to loosen up, but whatever.

Also, my Copic nib started going wonky on me again. I seem to burn through those...

Why I don't do a journal comic.

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:06:19 GMT

Or, what I do all day besides play Scrabulous.

Two things I find hilarious about Expelled...

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:38:58 GMT

(a.k.a. the obviously religiously motivated "Intelligent Design" documentary featuring Ben Stein.)

1) Thou shalt not steal: John Lennon's sons and widow, Yoko Ono, are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission.

2) Thou shalt not bear false witness: ...oh fuck it. Just read the links.

I'm going to subject myself to this movie this weekend, for the good of humanity.

It's funny, because it's true.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:22:19 GMT

I like "Sexopus" better than "Hexopus"

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:51:34 GMT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/03/nhexapus103.xml

Forget that "Quantum of Solace" title; they should call the next Bond film Sexopussy!

South Park: Imaginationland "Director's Cut" on DVD TOMORROW

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:21:07 GMT

The sequence where the government enlists three Hollywood directors (Michael Bay, M. Night Shyamalan, and... uh... someone else) is fucking brilliant. The original three-parter -- three of the strongest episodes from Season 11 -- has been cut together with added footage into a "feature length" movie (it's 67 minutes long). Hot damn.

Another liar...

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:24:07 GMT

Less than a week after the news broke that Misha Defonseca's story of growing up among wolves in the time of the Holocaust was a fake, another falsified memoir has come to light: Margaret Jones' "Love and Consequences"... here's the NY Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04fake.html

No, Ms. Jones is not -- as her memoir purports -- "half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods." Her name is Margaret Seltzer, and "all white and grew up in the well-to-do Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in the North Hollywood neighborhood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed."

She claims (although who can be sure?) that "many of the details in the book were based on the experiences of close friends she had met over the years while working to reduce gang violence in Los Angeles" — but the key bit — the last sentence in the article — is this quote from her editor: “There was a way to do this book honestly and have it be just as compelling.”

But instead, Seltzer chose to lie.

Rightly so, the publisher apparently thinks it's worthless now, because the publisher is "recalling all copies of the book and has canceled Ms. Seltzer’s book tour, which was scheduled to start on Monday.…"

And sue her for all of their money back, plus damages, I hope.

After I stated, about Misha, that “a ‘memoir’ built upon lies is inherently not a good story and therefore of no value whatsoever," some idiot commented over at Movie Make-out: "That has got to be the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read.… Any story that generates an emotional response in the reader or viewer has value. Sure, you may feel betrayed by the premise going in, but that’s baggage you’ve brought with you."

I was so appalled that I spent half an hour trying to compose a calm, sensible response when I should have just written him off as a fucking moron.

I hope that people who would defend Seltzer, Defonseca, or James Frey don't have such lenient views of history books or science texts. It just physically angers me when people have no real concept, no real understanding of the value of truth.

Movie News and Reviews from Movie Make-out

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:53:12 GMT

Hey, guys!

I've created an LJ syndication for Movie Make-out's RSS feed, so friend 'er up! (For some reason it looks a little out of order, despite the fact that the dates are all right, but that should fix itself in time.)

You ARE all reading Movie Make-out, right? If you don't know what it is, then it's a movie news and reviews blog that I started up a little while back, and it loves you.

Multiplex eBook #1 now available from WOWIO -- FREE

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:25:20 GMT

The first issue of the Multiplex eBook collection is now available at WOWIO. It's 36 pages long, and it collects Multiplex #s 1-24 plus a couple of guest strips (by me) and seven other strips not available in the Multiplex archives. Some of these have been seen as vote incentives at the Multiplex site -- but not all of them! The new strips fit snugly in-between the strips from the archives and, I think, help to flesh out the characters and their relationships in these early strips.

But in my opinion, the coolest little extra is that the inside front cover has an illustration that preserves the vector artwork I draw the strip with, meaning you can literally zoom in over 1000% and look at all the little mistakes I usually let slip because they're too small to see on the web.

The BEST part is, it's FREE!

Now, even so, I do make a bit of money from each download, so even if you're not terribly interested in reading a "director's cut" of these early Multiplex strips -- signing up and downloading the issue from WOWIO is a great (and did I mention FREE?) way to help support the strip.

I said it was free, right?

(Oh: due to WOWIO restrictions, it is only available in the US. Sorry, international readers; I can't do anything about that... All of the comics in the eBook collection will be available in the still-a-long-ways-away print collection, as well, however, so you won't be missing out too much.)

Multiplex Guest Strip by Shayna Marchese (Voids)

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:23:28 GMT

(It looks like RSS entries for guest strips don't get imported to LiveJournal, probably because they're unnumbered. I'll have to look into that.)

This week's guest strip is by Shayna Marchese, the writer and illustrator of Voids. It's a peek into what's going on in Devi's life since she left the Multiplex 10 (and Jason) last summer, and like all of Ms. Marchese's comics, it is beautiful and makes me sad. (Thank you, Shayna.)

Also, former Boxcar Comics cohort Brandon Carr (of The Kenmore) has been doing Platinum Comics' Weird Adventures in Unemployment for a while now. Chapter two starts up this week, so now's a great chance to jump in! The first chapter was some funny, crazy stuff. Don't miss out!

And, finally, as with last Monday, there's a new comic by me from the upcoming ebook, this time as a vote incentive at Buzzcomix. It features Kurt, Jason, Melissa and Becky watching a movie (shocker!) -- this time, the Ryan Reynolds comedy Just Friends, and it's entitled, "Just Friends Forever." It's set after #24 in the archives, meaning it's set in late November or early December, 2005. So yeah.

Help a brother out!

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:59:07 GMT

(Click on the picture to see the strip bigger, over at my Flickr page.)

I want help coming up with a title for this bonus strip. Any suggestions? If I use yours, you'll get a thanks in the ebook (as well as any print collection that may or may not come before hell freezes over).

It's from the upcoming ebook and is set shortly before #20 in the archives, so it takes place on Halloween, 2005. The customers are named "Bad Dad" and "Pumpkin," because I don't name any of the customers.

UPDATE (1/12/08): We have a winner, courtesy Lone Cow over at the Flickr page. The title of the strip is now... "Boys Don't Make Passes At Girls Who Wear Glasses." Thank you, Lone Cow! And thank you, everyone else who offered suggestions.

Pretend to Be a Professional Cartoonist Day II

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:21:49 GMT

For the second day in a row, I'm staying home from work (I told my freelance client I was going to; I'm not playing hooking -- I've been sitting around doing jack shit at the office anyway, so I'm doing them a huge favor) so I can get some comicking done for the Multiplex ebook (due soon to WOWIO) and maybe a little headway on the comic for my application to the Center for Cartoon Studies' MFA program.

I went to Starbucks to get some brefax, got home and decided I wanted my latte over ice instead, so I iced it. It tasted a little watery, so I added Kahlua. Is that bad?

In other, slightly related news, I have decided that White Russians are awesome. They're like iced lattes but boozey.

"Routh out of Superman Returns sequels?" Shut the fuck up.

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:11:17 GMT

Have you seen the articles on the Superman Returns sequel at Dark Horizons, Latino Review, and ComingSoon.net? ("Batman Hot, Superman Not", "Brandon Routh won't be returning as The Man of Steel?", "Routh Out of Superman Sequel, Too?", respectively.)

Latino Review even says that "Variety has now confirmed [that] Brandon Routh will be replaced in the stand alone sequel by whomever is cast as Superman in the upcoming Justice League of America (sic) movie."

This refers to the origin of this whole rumor, based on three sentences of Anne Thompson's column at Variety: "Thompson on Hollywood: Dark Knight's Nolan and DC Comics Pics."

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/12/notes-chris-nol.html

"Speaking of DC Comics pics, it is highly unlikely that Bryan Singer will return to shoot the next Superman movie. (The director is finishing up Tom Cruise's Nazi film Valkyrie, and prepping The Mayor of Castro Street). The next Superman we will see on the big screen will not be Brandon Routh, but a younger Superman among a cast of youthful superheroes in The Justice League."

But Thompson's article does NOTHING to "confirm" Routh is out! The Latino Review article is just plain wrong.

Let's break down the facts.

"Speaking of DC Comics pics, it is highly unlikely that Bryan Singer will return to shoot the next Superman movie." Speculation. Bryan Singer is still signed onto the Superman Returns sequel, but there is no script and no attached screenwriters, and because of the strike, no writer is going to be starting on one, either.

"(The director is finishing up Tom Cruise's Nazi film Valkyrie, and prepping The Mayor of Castro Street.)" True, although only the bit about Castro Street is actually relevant. Castro Street has a script already and won't take very long to film (compared to a Superman movie), though; I doubt it will delay Singer working on a Superman sequel much longer than the strike.

"The next Superman we will see on the big screen will not be Brandon Routh, but a younger Superman among a cast of youthful superheroes in The Justice League." This is really where all this started. But if you notice, all it says is that "the next Superman we see on the big screen will (be) among [the] cast of... The Justice League."

It doesn't mention the Superman Returns sequel AT ALL; it only says that Superman's gonna be in JL, which will be in theaters before any Superman Returns sequel is. Justice League is a separate franchise from Superman or Batman. There will be a new Batman in JL, and a new Superman, but it doesn't mean Routh is "off" of the Superman Returns sequel any more than it means Christian Bale is"off" of any future Batman sequels.

This "news" the fanboys are running with is just extrapolated from a misreading of a rather plain sentence. It's not even speculation; it's just collective stupidity.

Sure, it may come to pass that the next Superman movie stars the kid from JL and is directed by the Strause Brothers (or whoever the fuck) -- but Singer and Routh are still the guys signed onto the film.

Here's where the internet comes in and fucks it all up. By now, some idiot is posting in the AICN Talkbacks about how Routh and Singer are off and AICN hasn't "reported" on it yet -- when the truth is there's no real news here at all. And so maybe, maybe not, but AICN and other news sites will be pressured to repeat this "news", citing each other for the appearance of credibility, most with question marks on the ends of their titles to cover their asses just the tiniest bit, but thereby adding to the illusion that this IS news. When it's not.

I want to murder the internet.

UPDATE (1/4) -- Latino Review updated is article to state: "The [Variety] article does not state that whomever is cast as Superman will also be the same actor to carry on the stand alone Superman sequel, but we've heard otherwise."

Suuuure you have. Other publications citing your own bullshit does not count as a source.

UPDATE (1/5 1:30 PM) -- Well, that was quicker than I expected: While not conclusive in any way, really, this new article at AICN supports my "Latino Review's source is my ass" theory. I have asked the Latino Review for comment and was referred to their CEO and General Manager for the identity of their source; he has not yet responded.

Bullshit poll references Lindsay Lohan, gets picked up by Reuters

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:36:25 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080102/film_nm/moviefone_dc;_ylt=Akpra71c.y42a2IqD1v6UGAwFxkF

"As if 2007 could get any worse for Lindsay Lohan, now this: Moviegoers tagged her with the year's worst performance by an actress..."

With 3.8 million votes, Lohan netted 58% of the vote to "win" her this "worst actress" designation... which is particularly interesting because the movie in question (I Know Who Killed Me) made less than $7.5 million dollars theatrically and under $2.5 million in rentals. And the average movie ticket price was undoubtedly somewhere north of $6.55 (the 2006 average)...

So... I don't know, because gosh, maybe all the voters downloaded the movie online or something, but based on all that, I think there's a pretty good chance that SOME people didn't see the movie and just voted because they "hate" Lindsay Lohan.

And that's why the Peoples' Choice Awards don't mean a damn thing, either.

Multiplex #23 1/2: Proud and Prejudiced

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:14:27 GMT

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2153633876&size=l

Happy New Year, folks. Here's another bonus strip from the upcoming ebook collection for WOWIO. This one fits between Multiplex #s 23 and 24 in the archives, so it takes place in late November, 2005 -- when the Keira Knightley Pride & Prejudice was new to theaters.

So nerdy.

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:57:14 GMT

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Fighter/Wizard (2nd/2nd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-9

Dexterity-12

Constitution-12

Intelligence-12

Wisdom-14

Charisma-13

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Fighters can be many things, from soldiers to criminal enforcers. Some see adventure as a way to get rich, while others use their skills to protect the innocent. Fighters have the best all-around fighting capabilities of the PC classes, and they are trained to use all standard weapons and armor. A fighter's rigorous martial training grants him many bonus feats as he progresses, and high-level fighters have access to special melee maneuvers and exotic weapons not available to any other character.

Secondary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

More from Coppola about filmmaking

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:22:54 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071213/ap_en_mo/film_francis_ford_coppola

"I don't feel a big studio wants to do movies in this kind of adventurous way, where making a movie is like asking a question, and the finished film is the answer. They want to know the answer before they even finance it."