Comic for Monday November 3rd, 2003

"Before You Die You See The Ring" Sunday - November 2nd, 2003

Halloween has come and gone. It was a fun weekend besides the fact that my tooth laid me out for most of Saturday. We're talking not able to chew food type of pain. It's subsided somewhat today, but there's still some lingering inability to chew anything harder then taffy. Ah well.

The Halloween party at work was fun. I've never been to a company party before. You get to see the people you work with outside the work place type of deal. It was pretty cool. I came in second place at musical chairs. I won't go into Brian Regan's whole thing about musical chairs, but I wish someone else was there that knew what the hell I was talking about. Should I have won? The crowd was against me, I was facing a former college athlete, and I was just hip checked a few rounds earlier. Am I bitter over losing musical chairs? Not in the slightest. I reserve bitter for things like sports and the fact that John Doe was cancelled and I'll never know just who John Doe was.

How about the Joe Schmo Finale? I didn't get a chance to mention it in my last post. I thought it came out awesome and the additional hour they put up was also very nice. It sorta gave closure to the whole thing. My thoughts on just how cool MK Gould is, is posted in the Forum. I will reiterate that the show was brilliant and should they try and make sequel, it will never be as good as the original. I mean sure, the whole show was written and scripted to follow a set path from the beginning, but Joe Schmo was the guy who provided the spark to make things work. Will they get another guy as nice as Matt Kennedy Gould? Maybe. He may be just a cool at Matt, but so what? It's simply a rehash of the first season. I hope they don't make a sequel, because I can't see how they could possibly expand upon the first show to validate it. That's just my honest opinion.

Oh and continuing about the weekend, The Kelly and I watched The Ring on Saturday. I know that critics and a lot of people may not have loved it, but I did. It's definitely in the top 5 scary movies of all time in my opinion. I mean what else beats it or is equal to it? The Exorcist, The Shining, the First Nightmare, and only a few others. Oh and F all those people who say Silence of the Lambs because that wasn't even a horror movie. Sixth Sense was excellent, but let's face it. The movie stopped being scary almost half way through and then became a sort of suspense drama.

The Ring was a remake of an almost perfect Japanese horror movie, Ringu. I felt that some of the elements that helped make Ringu a great movie were lost in translation, but it was an otherwise great movie. The opening scene rates among the best scenes ever. Plus the ending was beyond classic. It should be one of the top scary moments in film.

I heard there was a list of the all time scariest moments of film. The top 5 were in order from fifth to first, the ending to the Blair Witch, chest bursting scene in Alien, the decapitated head in Jaws, Linda Blair's famous head spinning scene in The Exorcist, and the twins from The Shining. As far as individual scenes go, not the whole movie, I would agree with the Blair Witch and the Shining. I mean yes, that scene from the Exorcist was F'ed up, but come on now. The Spider Walk was by far the most F'ed up scene in that whole movie. In fact it was so F'ed up that they had to cut it from the original cut and was not seen by viewers till it's re-release years later. That would top the list easy. The "real" ending to the Ring with that F'ed up walk/crawl by Samara/Sadako should be number three. Who else argues this?

I mean think about it. They find the remains of Samara and finally put her to rest. The mom survives past 7 days. The mom and dad look like they're getting back together. A nice tidy ending to a very creepy movie. You're relaxed and you think that while the movie was good, it wasn't great. Then the kid starts that shit up with "Why did you do that?" with that creepy face and voice. All of a sudden your heart is jacking a hundred miles per hour and boom, one of the greatest scary scenes of all time happens. The ending leaves off on a downer and no clear resolution. Roll Credits.

Well anyhow, I need to get back on the comic. I'm sorry to everyone for not being able to get up a Halloween pic. I know I mentioned it on Wednesday, but time constraints just didn't allow it. My concept drawings will be put to good use though as I'll probably use them for a calendar that I plan on making available through the cafepress store.

I think out of all the panels, the only one that I think stands up is the first one. The rest are okay, but just aren't up to the level I've been seeing myself capable of these past few weeks. I don't know what it is, but they just rub me the wrong way.

This strip hopefully explains just how Yuki was able to defeat Lord Hawk for those that couldn't figure it out. Also I'd like to point out that hints to Dave's possession by Reiko were laid about here and there. When he is talking to the unknown voice way back in spirit 15, I'll point out he was actually having a conversation with a voice inside his own head. Also to clarify, while Dave was being possessed it wasn't as if he had no control, he was simply influenced to do what Reiko wanted till he had little choice and simply believed that he had to.

Now that the high drama has been resolved though you can see a return to the humor a bit in this strip. There's probably only 3 or 4 more strips till the epilogue of Chapter One is over. you might think it's just resolution, but I promise just one more revelation that should be a surprise to most. Just what is it you ask? Bwah hah ha!!

Vote for Ninja Spirit!!

River saw the ring.