Walking Dead Episode Guide

Now that it's behind me, I don't mind saying - this strip kicked my ass. Half the reason I decided to take last week off was because I'd already spend a couple sessions working on this one and I couldn't bear to look at it anymore.

Anyway, for the actual Walking Dead readers out there, here's how I'd generally like to see things go from here, now that the series' future seems assured for the time being (heavy spoilers, obviously) - I figured Season Two would primarily be Hershel and Tyrese, with the prison discovery happening at the end, but with only one episode left in Season One I'm starting to wonder if they'll even get to the end of the Shane plotline before next season. I can't imagine Darabont could resist more than one more season without the prison, though, so I still say that's how Two ends - they could easily lose Wiltshire Estates if they had to, especially since there's no Allen and Donna. As tempting as it'll probably be to get Michonne in there, she didn't really have much to do until Woodbury, so her arrival is pretty much a crapshoot. Once they get settled into the prison a bit, though, there's nothing pre-Woodbury that screams "season finale", so I don't see how they could end Season Three earlier than them spotting the helicopter and heading off with Michonne.

By this point, though, the aging of the kid who plays Carl will probably have to be addressed, so I wouldn't be surprised if they worked in a big time jump shortly before Woodbury happens - even as much as a year or two. The way it's been paced so far, I could see them doing an entire season of just Rick's time in Woodbury, maybe even delaying the escape until the fourth finale, and then leaving Martinez and the assault for Season Five. I'll be very interested to see what they do about Rick's hand. If a character isn't going to be around for a lot longer, it's not a huge deal to CG off an extremity or shoot around it, but considering how much further the comic has gone, with Rick still alive and kicking, there's no way in hell they'd have the balls to maim him in any way that's overly noticeable. A foot, maybe, or even just a finger. One thing's for sure - whomever plays Michonne will be showing signs of the Governor's abuse for a good long time; maybe even permanent scars like Locke's eye on Lost.

*achem*

Well, that's enough masturbation for the time being. Obviously, I'm very thrilled with the show so far, and I'm dying to see all the ways they'll prove my speculation wrong.

Invisible Mansion #3 - A Very Invisible Thanksgiving

You know, I do believe I could do an ongoing webstrip of nothing but Invisible Mansion jokes. I'd have to sacrifice the last shreds of my self-respect, probably, but still.

Coming next week: more Walking Dead, probably. Happy Holidays, folks!

Invisible Mansion #2

My show finally ended its 7-week run last Saturday, so while I technically have more time for this now, I have to admit I'm still a little burned out. I want to avoid skipping a day at all costs, though, so expect another Invisible Mansion strip on Thursday. It is, quite literally, the least I can do.

Green Lantern

Look, I'm very forgiving with CG most of the time, and I appreciate that the costume should look a little unreal if it's generated by the ring. The early photos made me nervous, and I was really hoping it would work better in motion, but I'm sorry - it looks silly. It doesn't look otherworldly, it looks like Ryan Reynolds has Play-Doh on his face. It definitely moves well, and it's pretty impressive from a motion-capture standpoint. But it's just not working. And that's not my DC bias talking - I have similar misgivings about the Thor costumes.

I Am Iron Man

I should clarify - a lot of these strips are excerpts from, or inspired by, actual conversations. I'm thinking - and bear with me, since there are only two of them so far - that all the "I swear to God this happened" strips will specifically be stories from my job. Generally they'll be off-topic annoying-customer things, but in the case of this particular overheard exchange, there's a nice little crossover element.

One thing that amuses me about this strip is the fact that the Iron Man figure is from photo reference, which means it's far, far more detailed than the actual characters. Take a look at the photo I used, by the way - how fucking creepy is it that the toy comes with Robert Downey Jr's head on a stick?

Healing Factor

Another mostly-real conversation. Not much to elaborate upon beyond that, except to say that I really would love for them to introduce this concept, if only to make the guy a little less perfect. I dunno, maybe it's a little too late in the game to spring something like that on the character. Ultimate Wolverine, perhaps.

What's that? Oh, right - dead.

Scarlet #3

Just when I've finally reached the point where I'd rather stab myself in the eyes than buy another Avengers series, Bendis comes roaring back out of the gate with a new creator-owned series - and with Maleev, no less.

I'm not crazy about the bimonthly schedule, mostly because it appears inextricably linked with the schedule for Powers, which has a proven track record of coming out whenever it feels like it. But the story so far is compelling enough that I'm willing to deal with whatever delays come up, and keeping up with what's going on should be a lot easier than in Powers - which at this point has ten pounds of continuity in a five-pound sack.

Bendis' letters columns have always been great, but Scarlet's is already shaping up to be something special itself, thanks to the charged political nature of the story. I have friends who genuinely believe that a civilian uprising of this nature will (or at least needs to) happen someday in the United States, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Bendis elaborates upon what I see as a fundamentally wrongheaded and doomed premise.

The Hiding Dead

The first issue of The Walking Dead I picked up was #31. I very clearly remember the issue, and my own complete confusion as to what was going on - some lady with a sword was being forced to fight chained-up zombies in an arena by a guy with an eyepatch. Strange as it was, it was interesting enough that I went back and picked up the first trade. It took long enough to catch up that the next single issue I bought was #36 - but I haven't missed an issue since.

Between the source material, Frank Darabont, Bear McCreary, and the excellent casting, I was primed very early on for the Walking Dead TV series to be something very special. That said, though, direct adaptations are always really difficult for me, because I can't stop myself from watching them in pure analysis mode - why did they leave out that panel? Is that character going to act the same way? Are they going to use that one great line? Why did they move that one moment to a different scene? Even when I can look back on something as being a very well-done adaptation of beloved source material - Scott Pilgrim, for example - there's always some part of the experience that feels hollow in retrospect, because it's impossible to let myself just watch.

I did, in fact, analyze every second of the premiere this way. Even still, I was absolutely amazed to find myself being moved a great deal by the character moments. What Darabont did with Morgan and Duane especially, by dealing with the mother, took their story to a whole new level and not only made me care about the TV characters as an entity unto themselves, but actually made the comic's Morgan and Duane more interesting and three-dimensional in retrospect. It was positively thrilling to hear that the premiere had such great ratings, because it alone earned this series another several seasons in my eyes - I was already dying to see Tyreese, Michonne, the Governor, Axel, and so on, but to see them not only in flesh and blood, but taken as far beyond the comic as Morgan was? I don't even have words.

Oh, and Glenn? We haven't even technically seen him yet, and he already kicks all kinds of ass.

Ultimate Enemy

My ultimate enemy? Statistics.

So basically, ever since the reveal last month, I wanted to do a strip about how I totally called the Reed Richards thing. Of course, I didn't really call it, of course, insofar as I'd said nothing to anyone prior to the reveal; I'd just seen it coming for the previous issue or two, which for me is light years in advance.

Anyway, I settled on another ripoff - ah, homage - to xkcd in the form of a Google-results chart. The comic seen here isn't so much the embodiment of my results as it is a dramatization of the research process. Figuring out a way to search specifically for fan predictions and guesses based on key words and/or phrases was hurdle number one; hurdle number two was that, even to the extent such information was findable, a lot of it was on message boards, where there's nothing stopping several guesses from appearing on a single page and thus obscuring their true frequencies.

Number three was the realization that no matter how many characters I thought to search for, a true results chart would involve a big useless "other" chunk - in fact, the figures included in the comic only represent about half of the 9000 or so total search results for the phrases "ultimate enemy" and "bad guy" on their own. Last but not least was the fact that "ultimate enemy" can and will be used in contexts wholly unrelated to the series in question, or even to comics at all.

All in all, the pie chart is nothing so much as a monument to my failure. You're welcome, internet.