The Atrox

The great new character find of 2008 has arrived! Read all about in the new Atrox Comic, now up at The Lair.

If you like people falling down, you'll love today's new High-Quality Erotic Art, now showing at The Lair.

I'm praying Frank isn't posting the exact same thing at this very moment (albeit with a lot more words), but there's a new Atrox Comic up at The Lair.

Part the first

Yeah, so then some other stuff happened.

( Live the adventure! )

This week's new HQEA is now up at The Lair, guys.

I might also direct your attention to this short Stumptown Comics Fest review from user "Frank Castle" on the Comic Geek Speak forum. (I found it via a link on the official Stumptown homepage.)

"As far as the rest of the show goes, it was quite weird. Think about Artist Alley at every con you've every been too and think about all the indy creators pressing their book/product on you. Now times it by 10! This show is for the indy creator and I'm not into lined notebook paper, folded over, stapled and sold for 5-10 bucks!"

I don't see how we can read this critique as anything but a direct slam on Jeff and his work on HQEA. (Although, in all fairness, Jeff was only charging one buck for his mini-comics.) These are fighting words! And from the Punisher no less!

Matt Axehandle's battle against racism finally wraps up over at The Lair. It is the best possible ending to this multi-strip epic, you have my word on that.

Guys, here are a few more details about Team Atrox's 2008 Stumptown adventure!



( Read more... )

There's a new Atrox strip up at the Lair. For those of you new to the site post-Stumptown, I should point out that the Atrox's landlord is a titmouse, as originally illustrated here.

And as long as we're reviewing Greatest Hits (a term applied very loosely where our own endeavors are concerned), new visitors might appreciate this Very Special Atrox Strip from a few months back, featuring a deluxe art style courtesy of Leslie's most fearsome Beastlies.

Belive me when I say there's a new High-Quality Erotic Art over at The Lair, and that it involves a talking cake.

Well, our road trip to Portland has drawn to a close, though rest assured it remained jam-packed with excitement right up though its very last minutes. We took a more leisurely route on this return trip, swinging over to see friends in San Francisco and then sliding onto the PCH from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. This was GORGEOUS (cliffs! redwoods! elephant seals!) but also resulted in a final hour that found us barreling madly down the 101, dodging rush hour LA traffic and hustling to get our rented van returned before the Walk-of-Fame Budget closed. We made it with no more than ten minutes to spare, then hurriedly yanked all our luggage onto the pavement before they grabbed the van keys and shut the gates.



I don't regret a moment of it! We had such a blast at Stumptown that anything less than a white-knuckle final act would have felt like a let-down.

We're all pretty zonked -- I'm sure many of you who also attended the festival can relate -- but I just want to say quickly what a marvelous time we had this Saturday and Sunday and how grateful we are to everyone who made it so terrific. We got to reconnect with old friends, make new ones, run around a beautiful city, and see a tremendous variety of great comics and art. This was hands-down my favorite convention yet. Thanks so much to everybody who bought Beastlies and minis and made us feel so welcome and encouraged all weekend.

Be sure to check back at the Lair tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday (Thursday) for new HQEA and Atrox Comics! If you're new to the site, we'd love to hear what you think right here on our LJ Community. We love praise and/or criticism! But mostly praise! (Also, if you're so inclined, feel free to post or e-mail any Stumptown photos you've got. We're already nostalgic. Expect our snapshots up on our Flickr Page presently.)

Oh, and speaking of stuff we sell, we're going to dedicate this month to launching a revamped Merch page, so look for that soon. We've also got a new short film on its way, so hold tight.

I'd like to conclude with a short list of my favorite road fiction of all time, divided by medium.

Literature: Henry Reed's Journey

Music: "Ramble On"

Film: It Happened One Night

Computer Game: Sam & Max Hit the Road

Television: Johnny Bago*



*Did you know that there is NO WIKIPEDIA ENTRY for Johnny Bago?!? I smell a wasted afternoon in my very near future.

For those of you in the Greater Los Angeles Area this weekend (and not at The Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, OR):

After you've caught Randy at the Meltdown Comics comedy show on Friday, you might consider driving down to the O.C. on Saturday night for the Newport Beach Film Festival, where the new film Lie to Me is headlining at the Regency Lido Theater at 6:00 pm. I'm especially excited about the movie, which will make its world premiere at Newport, because a guy Team Atrox went to high school with directed it, because it was shot in our hometown of Kansas City, and most of all because it's edited by our very good friend Ben Waters. (Ben will appear as "Man in Kitchen" in our upcoming Atrox short. No production still available, unfortunately.) Here's the trailer:



Also the movie stars Brandon Routh from Superman Returns. I haven't actually seen Lie to Me yet (so I'm totally bummed that our Oregon adventures are going to prevent me from catching it on Saturday), but my roommate, who has very good taste and is also usually pretty skeptical of indie films, saw an early cut of it and thought it was terrific. So that's promising. You can find more information and purchase tickets HERE.

As we get ready for Stumptown this weekend, a new High-Quality Erotic Art arrives at The Lair.

As you know, in a little over eighteen hours from now, Team Atrox will be embarking on our historic roadtrip to Portland in order attend the fifth annual Stumptown Comics Fest, no doubt the awesomest event happening on the West Coast this weekend. However, if you're a fellow Angeleno who can't make it to Oregon by Friday, we don't want you to think there's nothing fun happening around town.

For example, this Friday at 8:30 pm, Linda Pine and Meltdown (our favorite neighborhood comic shop) will be presenting Comedy Meltdown 5, hosted by Jonah Ray and featuring five of L.A.'s most delightful indie comics, including ...



... our friend Randy Liedtke! Randy recently appeared as "Man in Hot Tub" (see above) in our new Atrox short, which should be hitting the Video page in the very near future. I don't want to reveal too many plot details, but I will offer the following production still ...



... in which Randy and fellow actor Tom Becker have made Paul laugh so hard that he has to walk away and just leave the camera running, for fear of ruining the take with his chortles. This is because Randy is really hilarious. Which is why you will really enjoy his stand-up. (And he's from Oregon, coincidentally, so I'm sure if you ask he can share a lot of charming Portland anecdotes so you don't feel so bad about missing the Stumptown convention.)

Plus, guys, the Comedy Meltdown show is FREE! And a single purchase at the store will earn you unlimited access to an open bar (sponsored by Asahi). That's an infinite supply of Japanese beer in exchange for the three dollars you were probably going to spend on the new issue of All-Star Superman anyway! You can understand why LA Weekly has been calling it "arguably the best recurring comedy show in town."


P.S. The full title of this week's Meltdown show is Comedy Meltdown 5: Leprechaun in the Hood, the follow-up to last month's Comedy Meltdown 4: The Quest for Peace. Naturally, I greatly admire any extended series of references to obscure sequel subtitles. But also, after a few more of these events aren't they going to be left with no other options but the subtitles to Land Before Time and Police Academy sequels? I just wanted to voice that concern. Also, I'm a little disappointed that they made it through Number Five without referencing a single entry in The Cremaster Cycle or any of the Kenny Rogers Gambler TV movies. Oh well. Spilt milk.

The other day Emory and I were playing Rock Band -- we finally got some four-person games going and they are THE BEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO ME -- and we started playing an Iron Maiden song, probably "Run to the Hills," and Emory made an offhand remark about Paul Di'Anno. And I was like, "You mean that actor?" And Emory was like, "Wait ... who do I mean? Do those guys have the same name? Or ...? I'm confused." Then we had to play in silence for awhile as he tried to sort things out.

Today he sends me an e-mail simply entitled "I Wasn't as Confused as I Thought I Was" and containing just two Wikipedia links: Paul Di'Anno and Paul Dano.

Paul Di'Anno was the raspy-voiced lead singer who helped define Iron Maiden's relentless sound during their initial rise to fame in the late seventies, before his descent into cocaine addiction led the band to fire him and draft replacement Bruce "The Air Ride Siren" Dickinson, whose glass-shattering power-vocals first debuted on 1982's definitive The Number of the Beast.



Paul Dano is that kid that Daniel Day-Lewis keeps slapping around in There Will Be Blood. He's also in Little Miss Sunshine, and turns up rather frequently in Emory's diatribes, as he's a definitive member (along with Michael Pitt, Lou Taylor Pucci, and others) of the Pasty-Faced Mouthbreathing Young Men of Modern American Cinema, with whom Emory takes some umbrage.



They do have very similar names! So you can understand the confusion.

I e-mailed back: "You know what always confuses me in exactly the same way? Every time I hear somebody mention Simon Cowell (from American Idol, which, as you can imagine, happens a lot), I initially think they are talking about Simon Callow."



Emory's reply: "No one ever talks about Simon Callow when there's Simon Cowell to talk about. I think it kind shows how deluded you are that you think you had to explain to me who Simon Cowell is, and not Simon Callow. Guess which one I had to look up?"

There have been a lot of rumors circulating lately about Team Atrox and the upcoming Stumptown Comics Fest, so we've decided it's time to separate fact from fiction.

1. This whole annual Stumptown convention is one big scam, because I swear to God the last time you guys said you went was only like six months ago.

FALSE

The Stumptown Comics Fest is totally a real, awesome thing. Yes, it's true that the last time Team Atrox had a table up there was just six months ago, but that's because historically Stumptown has been held in the fall. For 2008 it's switched its timeslot to the spring, because San Francisco's Alternative Press Exposition, historically held in April, has been delayed until November; and if you had the two west coast indie comics conventions in the same season THE UNIVERSE WOULD BE THROWN INTO A STATE OF COSMIC UNBALANCE.

Also, for the record, our 2007 Stumptown table was manned by one Leslie Page Levings alone, because the rest of us had blown all our travel money on Matt's wedding in Dallas. (Leslie's the only member of Team Atrox who can manage her finances.) Anyway, we all felt really bad about it and swore a blood oath that in 2008 at least 80% of us would be in attendance.


2. Team Atrox will be roadtripping to Portland in a specially-commissioned van with a giant flame-emblazoned Atrox custom paintjob.

MULTIPLE TRUTH VALUES

Okay, it's true that we're kicking off the Atrox West Coast Summer Road Tour '08 early this year by renting a van and driving north to Stumptown next week. However, we've read through the rental agreements a couple of times, and it looks like the insurance policy doesn't cover airbrushed cartoon logos. Boo.


3. Isn't Coachella that same weekend? Won't Frank have to miss that?

TRUE

Yeah, Coachella is that weekend. And Frank totally had a hook-up on free tickets, too. But it turns out that he's really selfless and dedicated to this website. Class Act.

Emory has promised to make it up to him by playing a special Jack Johnson/Tegan & Sara mix CD for the entirety of Friday's drive.


4. The Oregon State Police have a warrant out for Paul Cibis's arrest.

TRUE

For a few years now, Paul has been wanted for questioning regarding his still unexplained relationship with Oregon's notorious Fratelli Crime Family. To speed the trip along, he will traveling under the alias of "Stan Dyson," a truck driver with a mysterious past. Paul hopes to spend much of the journey on the van's CB, initiating a romantic relationship with a beautiful but lonely radio dispatcher.


5. The Stumptown Comics Fest sounds RAD AS HELL. I can't wait to see you there April 26th and 27th!

TRUE

We can't wait to see YOU! Rest assured that we'll post more details and updates here on the Atrox LJ in the week to come.

Albeit slightly delayed, the new Atrox Comic is now up at The Lair.

And man, I will never forgive Frank for posting a Zippy strip in his last post. Let alone one with a fucking pun as the punchline.

As there are only a few days left in the Heinz Top This TV Commercial Challenge, I thought I'd gently encourage you to vote for our friend Doug's entry "3,250 Miles" with another tidbit of Ketchup-based Americana trivia.

Did you know that the world's largest ketchup bottle is located in Collinsville, Illinois? It's seventy feet tall (atop a one hundred foot steel base).



Note that this is the world's largest ketchup bottle and not the world's largest container of actual ketchup. It's in fact full of water, or used to be anyway. The tower, built in 1949 by the W.E. Caldwell Company, supplied the pressurized water required by the adjoining G.S. Suppiger Catsup Bottling plant - bottlers of Brooks "Old Original Catsup" - so its possible that the giant bottle's contents did eventually become ketchup.

The Brooks company left Collinsville in the seventies, and the tower was eventually slated for demolition. But in 1995 the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group banded together to save and restore the landmark. Really, I think, the Collinsville bottle is a testament to the fact that a group of Americans, with enough drive and imagination, can come together to engineer and cherish a ridiculously mammoth version of anything, no matter how silly and superfluous. That's what this country is all about.

As with many of our nation's great oversized novelties, you can see the Collinsville bottle commemorated in a Zippy the Pinhead strip.

Jeff announced to the rest of us the other day that he wanted his strips to become more "issues-oriented" and challenging, "you know, like that movie The Power of One." You can see the results in today's new High-Quality Erotic Art, now up at The Lair.

Longtime Team Atrox chum/roommate/girlfriend/collaborator/fan-favorite Laurel Vail (whom I'm sure you remember from such Atrox joints as "Who Invited Count Orlok," "Tea Time," and "Boat City, Poulation: Boats!" as well as her appearances at every social function we've ever thrown ever) can currently be seen in the delightful FunBox comedy short "Astounding Tales of the Hunt," one of the ten finalists in this years prestigious Sketchies awards.



Watch and enjoy, then spend the afternoon chewing on the challenging ethical dilemmas. Yep, FunBox goes there.



"I hunt them all the time! I hunted like ten yesterday."

Tuesday Emory managed to snag one of the long-awaited stand-alone Rock Band guitars, which apparently are just barely trickling into retailers. (I think he had to lean on a Toys R Us employee a bit to get the guy to hold one for him.) The important thing is that Emory now possesses a complete lead guitar/bass guitar/drum kit/microphone set for full-on, balls-to-the-wall, four-person rocking.

So probably you'd imagine that Team Atrox has spent the past forty-eight hours in a riotous, enraptured, and possibly chemically-fueled marathon jam session. But you'd be wrong! I certainly showed up Tuesday night with this agenda in mind, but Jeff had to draw this week's High-Quality Erotic Art and work on compiling the new HQEA print collection, and Paul had to edit our upcoming video, and Leslie had to draw the Atrox and sculpt Beastlies and make us dinner. At no point were more than three of us free at any one time to give the new equipment a trial run.

Guys, why are my friends so selfish?

In any case, the new Atrox comic is now up at the Lair. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.