Well, this is it. The end of an era. The culmination of over 10 years of work. The very last Theater Hopper comic.

Incidentally, it was Cami’s idea to bring the kids into the comic for the finale. I hadn’t considered it until she suggested it, but it was really the perfect way to end things.

Henry turns 6 years-old in February. Pearl just turned 3 in early December. It’s been a conscious decision of mine not to include them in the comic, even though people have asked me for years to introduce them.

Not to be selfish, but I didn’t want the comic to be about them. Ostensibly, when you introduce kids into the comic, it becomes a lot harder to place any focus on the adults without making them look self-obsessed at best, negligent at worst.

But, hey! Now that the comic is done, I can through those rules out the window, right? It was also a little bit of fun to brush up against the 4th wall one last time.

SAYING GOODBYE

I’ve been wrestling with this blog post for a while. I’ve kicked around versions of it in my head for weeks, started and stopped it a million times. Drafted and redrafted looking for something to properly encapsulate what I’ve accomplished with the comic up until this point.

Ultimately I decided to scrap that and speak from the heart. It’s served me well over the last 10 years. Why stop now?

In nearly every interview I’ve ever given over the years, I’ve frequently been asked the same question: “Why did you start Theater Hopper?” It’s not a bad question. It gives the rest of the interview context. But I always cringed at answering it because I thought it let people know right off the bat that I was a complete fraud.

A little pretext: You talk to some cartoonists and they talk about how drawing was ALL they ever wanted to do. They slugged it out for years drawing comics in their high school or college newspapers, fanzines and getting turned down again and again by the syndicates – never really finding success, but never giving up on the dream.

Now, I’ve been an artist for as long as I can remember. I drew comics featuring my friends back in Junior High. But I never identified myself as “A CARTOONIST.” I was just a guy who liked to draw.

Theater Hopper was almost entirely a fluke. At the time I created it back in 2002, I was trying to teach myself web design. I figured I would be more invested in this process if I had a site that required content and upkeep.

At the same time, I was just starting to get into web comics. I discovered Penny Arcade in a copy of the Official Playstation Magazine. Discovering Penny Arcade led me to PvP. Looking at Jerry, Mike and Scott, I saw three guys who were a lot like me – regular dudes working day jobs looking for a way to be creative. I figured, “If they could do it, why not me?”

Fast forward 10 years later and I’ve had one of the richest, most unbelievable experiences that I could never have possibly hoped for.

I’ve met a lot of cool people through this comic. I’ve traveled the country visiting with them in person at conventions and I’ve traveled the world talking to with people online about it.

Most importantly, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve broadened my horizons through relationships that I didn’t expect a comic about movies to cultivate for me. I learned a lot about what makes other people tick. I learned a lot about my own shortcomings. I see people better now than I used to.

Maybe that’s a part of maturing. Maybe it’s inevitable for all of us. Certainly 35 year-old me is more wise than 25 year-old me. Just as 25 year-old me was better off than 15 year-old me. But I like to think Theater Hopper accelerated my understanding of the world a little bit.

To that end, I want to take a moment to thank some of the people I’ve interacted with over the years who helped Theater Hopper become what it. If I’m leaving anyone out, please know that it’s not intentional. There’s just a lot of ground to cover in 10 years!

THANK YOU

CARRINGTON VANSTON – You’d think if you were starting a movie comic about movies that you would stop to look around the internet and see if anyone else came up with the same idea first. Well, as the last 10 years of this comic can attest, I am an idiot. It wasn’t until months after I had established Theater Hopper that I came across Carrington’s Movie Punks. I wrote him an e-mail and begged forgiveness – not knowing that it was permissible to have more than one web site on the internet covering the same field of discussion. Thankfully, he gave me his blessing. Without that, Theater Hopper would have been over before it even started.

ZACH MILLER – After making amends with Carrington, I started to step out into the wider world of web comics. Zach Miller from No Pants Tuesday and Joe and Monkey was one of the first web comic friends I made. Zach was never shy about telling you his opinion and we ended up exhibiting at a lot of conventions together over the years. A great guy.

MITCH CLEM – If I remember correctly, Mitch (most famously of Nothing Nice to Say) was already in Zach’s orbit by the time I met him. We all started our comics at roughly the same time, so it seemed reasonable that we could help each other out. Like Zach, Mitch and I would exhibit at conventions a few times over the years – even though it was never really his scene. That said, I have probably never laughed harder in my life than the times I got to hang out with Mitch Clem.

You know the people in your life who you get along with instantly, absent any real knowledge of their background or personality? Mitch was one of those guys in my life. We just got each other’s humor really well… even if I did have a knack for annoying the crap out of him.

GORDON McALPIN – Most people who read Theater Hopper probably read Gordon McAlpin’s Multiplex. It makes good sense. Both of our comics are about movies to an extent, so we just kind of fell into each other’s orbit. We solidified our association when we teamed up with Joe Dunn (more on him in a second) to form The Triple Feature podcast.

Gordon has always been the pragmatic smartass pal that I’ve turned to bounce idea off of. Gordon has a real knack for storytelling and knows how to take a good idea and make it great. He’s always been an excellent friend and confidant. If I didn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t have turned Charlie and Jimmy over to his care. Look for them to show up in Multiplex in 2013!

JOE DUNN – I know of no other artist more prolific, amazing and humble as Joe Dunn. A large collection of his work can be seen at Digital Pimp Online, but the guy has been everywhere the last few years. I consider him to be one of my main artistic inspirations. Much like Mitch Clem, Joe is one of those guys that I’ve been fortunate enough to just click with. We’ve shared a hell of a lot of laughs together.

C2E2 in Chicago this year was my last convention. I’m not sad about leaving the insanity of the convention circuit behind. But I am sad that I won’t get to hang out with Joe Dunn again anytime soon. The man is awesome, sincere and a great friend.

COMRADE F, DAVID BUIST, TYLER MARTIN, PHILIP HOFER – Each of these guys had a hand in developing the back-end systems that kept Theater Hopper up and running over the years. They were frequently the recipients of panicked e-mails when I had touched something on the server that I wasn’t supposed to touch. Their insights and service were invaluable to the growth of the site over the years and I appreciated each of them for their hard work.

BRIAN ARNOLD – Much like the gentlemen listed before him, Brian was integral to the success of Theater Hopper behind the scenes. He provided hosting and support, coding knowledge and expertise and all around awesomeness. More than anyone else, I have leaned on Brian for his help and he has never asked for anything in return. As I’ve gotten to know him over the years, we’ve come to learn that we have had many similar experiences and share a philosophy about life that you don’t find too often in others. We joke that we are almost like brothers. The bottom line is that Theater Hopper could not have existed for as long as it did without him.

THE THORUM – When Theater Hopper first started out, it has a forum community much like every other site did at the time because – hey – that’s what you did. Over the years, people came and went, but there was always a core group that kept the conversation lively and fluid. They came to christen our forum the “THourm,” and we were a happy little family.

As the site began to grow, I was unable to dedicate as much time as I had previously to the community. To be completely honest, I flaked out. When the THorum was attacked by a particularly nasty hack, it pretty much ended things for good. I tried to reignite the THorum a couple of times later on, but the spark wasn’t quite there. By that time, social media had come along and online conversations started happening in different places.

However, there are still people from that core group that I talk to almost every day. People like MadMup, Andelyn Harrison, Frogglin, bd, JClark, Meags, ADSquirrel, abe, Angela Elmore, Bishma, Scootles, Charley and more. If I’m forgetting any of you, please forgive me. I’m trying to keep a lot of names straight in my head right now!

The point is, these are the people who first came to support Theater Hopper and they are people I still talk to a decade later. I feel very fortunate for that. If I could give each one of them a Golden Danza, I would.

I know that means nothing to the rest of you, but that’s kind of the idea.

MY FAMILY – This kind of goes without saying, but what kind of monster would I be if I didn’t thank my wife Cami and our two beautiful children Henry and Pearl for supporting my dream the last 10 years?

The extraordinary late nights, the groggy mornings, they frayed patience and short tempers. The sacrifices I made pursuing this dream were very real to my family. I think it would be over-dramatic to say they suffered for it, but it wasn’t always fun. Especially those long weekends away when I was at some far-flung convention.

Now that it’s done, I feel confident that I’ve created a body of work that does them justice. I know that I’ve accomplished something real when my 5 year-old son Henry looks over my shoulder at the comics I’ve drawn and starts to create his own comic strips. He has a love for art that I’m not sure I had cultivated they way he has at such and early age – and I can’t wait to see where that takes him.

Cami, in particular, deserves a lot of credit. She’s been my sounding board when I’ve been frustrated or dejected. She’s been patient and understand when she really didn’t have to be either of those things. She saw what Theater Hopper meant to me and gave me support. I’m beyond lucky to be married to her and make every effort to tell her that often. I only hope she realizes how deep my well of appreciation and love for her actually goes.

WHAT’S NEXT

Since announcing that I was ending Theater Hopper in January, several people have written to me and asked me what’s next.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I should say first of all that – just because I’m ending the comic – doesn’t mean I’m going away completely. I’ve been online too long now to quit cold turkey, so you can find me in all of my usual haunts.

Drop me a line on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tombrazelton. I’m always down for a little conversation.

You can also stay up-to-date on what I’m working on by checking out the Theater Hopper Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/theaterhopper. Yeah, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense to maintain a Facebook page for a comic that doesn’t update anymore, but I’ve got a good thing going there. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been transitioning the page as a hub for me to share cool movie-related things I find.

Whether that be the occasional picture or an article about the state of Hollywood that I have to comment on, you can find it there. Every now and again, I throw an old Theater Hopper comic from the archive into the mix to keep things interesting. I update there pretty frequently, so if you aren’t following the page already, now is a good time to check it out.

And, of course, you can always e-mail me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com. All of my e-mails are being forwarded to one account these days, so I see everything still being sent there.

Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes…

THEATER HOPPER eBOOKS KICKSTARTER

One of my greatest accomplishments with Theater Hopper in the last 10 years is fundraising and producing three print collections of my work. Theater Hopper Year One, Two and Three were great experiences for me and I really appreciate the people who helped support my dream of seeing Theater Hopper in print.

By my work is not done.

Now that the comic is over, I’m shifting my sights to producing SEVEN NEW BOOKS – Theater Hopper Year Four through Ten. The only hiccup is this: Since I’m not producing the comic anymore and I won’t be going to conventions to sell them, producing printed editions is out of the question.

So where do I turn? I’ve decided instead to produce the new material as eBooks. The up front costs are lower, the storage problem is no existent and I can sell them in perpetuity on an as-needed basis.

The books will be very much like the print edition. Each comic from each year will be presented along with commentary. So the books will provide readers with unique insights into the history of Theater Hopper and how I developed the comic. You’ll learn what jokes work, what strips bombed and what I learned along the way.

Since I don’t have a lot of experience producing eBooks, I plan on turning the production over to a company called Graphicly. They’ll be able to take my spreads and convert them into practically ever eBook format known to man. These books will work on the Kindle Fire, iPhone + iPad, NOOK Color, NOOK Tablet, NOOK Touch, Android Tablets, Android Phones and the Kobo VOX Reader. Turning production over to Graphicly will allow me to focus on the content and produce books faster.

Of course there is a cost associated with this service and that is why I am crowdfunding through Kickstarter.

You guys might remember that I raised funds for Theater Hopper – Year Three through Kickstarter and we made goal. I needed $3,500 to produce a print run of 500 books.

For the Theater Hopper eBooks, I’m asking for $3,000 to pay for the production of SEVEN NEW BOOKS. I think that’s a far better deal, don’t you?

Check out the campaign here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tombrazelton/theater-hopper-ebooks. Watch the video, listen to my pitch, read the story about the project and check out the rewards. Once the project goes live, I’ll update the campaign page with information each week. I’ll also be posting updates to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, so that’s another way you can stay up-to-date.

I think this goal is very reasonable and – with your help – we can make short work of it. Once completed, it will help to ensure that Theater Hopper can be enjoyed by existing fans and potential new fans that haven’t even discovered the comic yet. It’s a way for the comic to live on.

I’ll add here (only because others have asked about it) that it is my plan to keep this site up and running, fully in tact, until I am unable to afford hosting. Hopefully that will be a very long time. So if you ever want to come back and visit the archives, they’ll be here for you.

Last but not least…

MIDWESTERN NICE

I’ve kept this pretty close to the vest, but I DO have a new project that I will be working on in the future. It’s called MIDWESTERN NICE. Click that link and you can visit the new site.

What is Midwestern Nice? I can’t go into details other than it will be a very personal project and I think you guys will like it. But the time isn’t right to unveil it right now.

Instead, what I think is best at the moment is for me to decompress a little bit, hopefully start working on the Theater Hopper eBooks in the near future and then reveal Midwestern Nice when I have it set up exactly as I like it.

Sign up for the mailing list and I will keep you up to date on all news related to my new project. I won’t be hitting you with a ton of e-mails, so you don’t have to worry about it right away. But it’s a good way to stay connected.

THE END

And that, my friends, is how they say “is that.”

I’d like to thank everyone who has visited the site in the last 10 years, who has offered criticism and feedback and who has taken the time to share their thoughts and ideas with me. It has not gone unnoticed and I have made every effort to engage with you where I could. I’ve been the richer for it.

I think I’m at a point where the full reality of ending Theater Hopper hasn’t sunk in – despite the fact that I gave myself a year to make peace with it. But I know – should I go off the deep in in a few weeks from despair and regret – you guys will still be out there and I’ll calm down a little bit.

Like I said, I won’t be going too far. But for now, this is… the end.

With thanks.

Sincerely,
Tom Brazelton

THEATER HOPPER
2002 – 2012

Yeah, I know that this comic is totally schmaltzy. But I felt since I had been building up the pregnancy question throughout this entire year-long arc, it was important for there to be that confirmation and pause to celebrate.

Frankly, I’m finding it hard to put my sentimentality in my back pocket as we’re rocketing toward the end of the comic on Monday. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.

I had to kind of force myself to do it, you know – end the comic. 2012 is creeping to a close and it just sounded profoundly lame for me to stretch out this conclusion into 2013. But as lame as I found it, I could easily see ways I could have made excuses for myself and keep the comics going.

But facts are facts. I can’t do that to these characters, to you readers or to myself.

This entire year has been about the long, slow process of letting go – both for yours and my benefit. I guess with the crush of the holidays weighing on my shoulders, I haven’t been able to look back and take stock of the last year like I wanted to. I’m feeling a little rushed, to be quite honest. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. In some ways it feels like the tearing off of the bandage that I wanted to avoid all year. I wanted things to be peaceful. Instead I feel like I’m driving a car without brakes.

It will all be over soon – and I’ll be okay with that. It hurts now, but it’s the right thing to do. In the very least, I’m confident that I’ve gone about it the right way.

Thanks for putting up with all of the “flying by the seat of my pants” antics the last few weeks as I bring the comic to a close. I hope you’re not feeling as hurried as I do. I swear I’m not trying to push these characters out the door.

If anything, I feel like I’m clutching their pants cuffs and they’re dragging me out the door with them.

See you Monday.

The above piece of art comes from Jesse Guiher. You can learn more about him at his web site – Tiger Tail Art.

Jesse actually wrote me a few months ago asking me about some of my favorite movies. Bi-polar as I am, I remember suggesting both Vertigo and Anchorman. Little did I know that inquiry would result in this piece of fantastic art!

I don’t know if there’s more that I can say about it other than I am very appreciative to have fans like Jesse who pour their heart and their talent into pieces like this.

Jesse was very complimentary to me in his e-mail. “I am sorry to see Theater Hopper going away, it was one of a handful of comic sites that influenced me to try my own hand at starting a comic on the web after sending countless submissions to syndicates over the years,” he said.

My reaction to that kind of praise is to almost shy away from it. I’ve had people over the years tell me I’ve been an influence to them – which I appreciate – but I’ve never doubted for a second that these talented individuals couldn’t have made their dreams real on their own.

But then you look at a piece like this and it’s kind of hard to ignore.

And I am humbled further.

Thanks, Jesse. And thanks to all of the fans that have kept me humble over the years. Cheers.

What’s that, you say? You don’t remember Baby: Secret of Lost Legend? Then take a minute to watch the trailer from this steaming 80s turd-burger…

Feel better? I know I do.

Turning our attention toward the comic, I want to let people know that this is NOT how Cami informed me that we were pregnant with Henry back in 2006. It would have been pretty cool if she did, but it didn’t shake out that way.

I do remember, however, that Cami had a unique fascination with John Hughes’ She’s Having A Baby leading up to and during that pregnancy – which I didn’t mind because, on the one hand, John Hughes. However, on the other hand… Elizabeth McGovern. Not one of my favorites.

I don’t have much more to add to this comic. To be truthful, I’m wiped out. After producing two comics back-to-back with the Christmas holiday thrown on top, I’m actually looking to New Year’s Eve so I can get a little REST!

As for Theater Hopper, this is the third to last comic. I’ll produce one more this week – likely Thursday or Friday – and the very last comic will be Monday, December 31.

Incidentally, I recently learned that James Kochalka’s American Elf is ALSO ending it’s run next Monday. This was not planned. But now I’m bummed out. I love American Elf. We’re losing a great journal comic, folks. But I’m interested to see where Kochalka goes next.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Please share up this comic to put some extra eyeballs on it. If the internet is anything like me, they’re probably a little distracted at the moment!

See you soon!

While this comic marks the LAST APPEARANCE of Jimmy and Charlie in Theater Hopper, it does NOT mark their last appearance in webcomics.

Jimmy and Charlie are moving to Multiplex.

This was an idea that I had started to kick around probably sometime this summer. It’s taken this long to move the chess pieces around to get us there.

I talked with Multiplex creator Gordon McAlpin several months ago. I followed up with him last week to see if he still might be interested in adopting Jimmy and Charlie once Theater Hopper ended.

As fortune would have it, he was still interested! So I went ahead and drew Jimmy and Charlie’s last Theater Hopper comic, knowing that I was sending them off into an unknown future. But a future where I at least knew they would be in good hands.

Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I like this idea of handing Jimmy and Charlie over to Gordon for use in Multiplex for several reasons.

First of all, Gordon’s a hell of a writer and relationships are his specialty. Jimmy and Charlie have a rich background – one I invested a lot of time into. Their lengthy back story was not something I had really tried before as a writer. Turning these characters over to a writer as competent as Gordon ensures their story will continue in some form.

I also like the idea because – from what I’ve gathered – it’s somewhat unprecedented.

Now, web comics as a genre run pretty far and wide. So I could be completely off-base, but I’ve never heard of one creator handing over a set of characters to another creator like this.

Sure, characters change hands between writers and artists all the time. But usually they stay confined within the universe they were created in. How often has it occurred that a creator establishes characters in one universe and hands them over to a creator with their own established universe? It would be like Marvel turning to DC Comics and saying “Here. You can have Spider-Man from now on. Have fun with him!”

I don’t know. I could be completely wrong. If I am, I take it all back. I didn’t intend to offend. But I haven’t come across it in the last 10 years I’ve made web comics.

Lastly, the reason I like this idea is because it gives the people who supported Theater Hopper a place to land once the comic ends next week. My comic and Gordon’s comic have always had a close affiliation. I’m certain there is a lot of overlap between our fans. But in case there isn’t, Jimmy and Charlie showing up in Gordon’s comic gives my fans a conduit through which to explore one hell of a great comic in Multiplex. If you like Theater Hopper, I know you’ll find a lot to enjoy there.

Whatever happens, I told Gordon he’s free to do with the characters whatever he wants. If he decides to make Jimmy a serial killer and Charlie a lesbian, that’s his choice. The characters are his now to do with as he pleases. I don’t want Gordon to write the characters as I would have. I want to witness with everyone else the new places he takes them.

I don’t know for sure when Jimmy or Charlie will first appear in Multiplex, but Gordon indicated it would be sometime early next year – as soon as his current story line concludes. So help me keep an eye out for them, will you?

I’m very excited about this step forward. I think it’s unique and a lot of fun. I hope you guys feel the same way about it as I do.

If you could help spread the word about this comic, I would greatly appreciate it. I originally intended to upload it last Friday. But a blizzard that whipped through town last Wednesday left our home without power for over 24 hours. We were kind of scrambling to get things back together on the homefront and the Friday update didn’t happen.

A change like this is a blockbuster and I’m worried that not a lot of people are going to see it due to the holiday. If you’re reading this right now, MAKE SURE OTHERS SEE IT. Share it on Facebook or Twitter. Let your web comic reading friends know. Even if they don’t read Theater Hopper or Multiplex, the might get a kick out of what we’re doing. Who knows?

I have another comic that I intend to work on and update for Christmas. We’re doing another small leap forward in time so the comic I’m posting on Christmas actually takes place on Christmas. So be on the lookout for that.

After the Christmas comic, there will be one more comic this week. After that, the VERY LAST THEATER HOPPER WILL BE PUBLISHED MONDAY, DECEMBER 31.

Be there, guys. I can’t imagine it without you.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

As promised, here’s this week’s second comic. The goal is to publish one more this week – and it’s an important one because it will be the LAST APPEARANCE of Charlie and Jimmy. Get your tissues ready, true believers. It’s gonna be a weeper!

Originally, there wasn’t going to be much of a punchline to this comic. As I conceived it, the passage of time and the parking lot getting darker was going to be the joke. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought how thirsty Tom was probably getting as he meticulously poured out the contents of a giant beverage. So I’m glad I took the extra 43 seconds to think it through. I believe the comic is better for it.

Not much else to tell at this time except to expect a third comic this week and hopefully two next week. My birthday is this Friday and that kicks off a five-day stretch of social commitments (I also think there’s some kind of holiday in there?) But one of the comics is Christmas themed, so I’d really like that to go live next Tuesday.

For the moment, it looks like the very last Theater Hopper comic will land smack-dab on Monday, December 31.

Thanks again for checking in on these last few comics as I scramble toward the finish line. I’ve you’d like to share it with your friends on your Facebooks or ya’ Twittahz, that would be cool.

Take it easy. See you in a couple of days!

Hey. Funny story! Remember last week when I was all “Hey, guys! I have seven comics left to produce to wrap up Theater Hopper by the end of the year, so there are going to be weeks with double comics?”

So I made that announcement and then my hosting provider decided, “Nope.” The site was down for three and a half days.

I never really got a good reason as to why the site was down, which was frustrating. But I’m not sure if I would have understood anyway. All I cared was getting it back up in time to get these comics published.

When I shared news of the site being down on Facebook, one of my readers suggested it was the universe’s way of telling me not to end the comic. I mean, how do you contend with THAT?

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, UNIVERSE!?

At any rate, here’s the first comic of the week. I have another comic inked and will hopefully have it posted tomorrow or Wednesday. I have a third comic that’s been penciled, but not inked that I want to have out there by Friday.

After that… I’m a little afraid. Friday is my birthday. I work on Saturday from 11 to 6. I have social commitments on Sunday. Then there’s Christmas and Christmas Eve. That means there won’t be a lot of time to prepare the two comics I hope to publish next week. One of them in particular I want to post on Christmas. It would be a nice bit of synchronicity. But we’ll have to see if I can carve out some time to do it.

We’re racing toward the finish line, folks. Thanks for your patience after last week’s downtime. Keep a close eye on the site for the next few weeks. LOTS happening!

See you again soon!

Believe it or not, but the giant soda cup made it’s first appearance over TEN YEARS AGO in this comic. Yes, comically oversized concession stand soft drinks were hilarious even back then!

The Spider-Man 3 collector’s cup was featured prominently in the blog post of this comic from 2007. This was after I eviscerated the movie in my review that was posted here.

I remember people being really, REALLY upset with me for that review. The comments were lost when we switched the site over to WordPress in 2009, but I remember there literally being hundreds of angry complaints. When I posted the picture of myself with the collector’s cup in the subsequent post, someone went out of their way to tell me I was fat – which I thought was mean.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten cross-ways with readers like that. I’ve been fortunate to have a fairly controversy free “career” in webcomics. I attribute that to the fact that I have very awesome fans.

But, boy… that Spider-Man 3 review. A lot of people took that personally.

I sleep fine, though. I think 5 years later, history has proven I was pretty much right about that one.

So what’s next? Let me tell you what’s next. Last Friday I took the day off from work, sat down and plotted out the last handful of comics I need to produce to bring Theater Hopper to a close.

Because here’s the thing: I told you in January that I was ending the comic on August 5. That didn’t pan out. But I’m not about to drag this out into 2013.

So, as I’ve decided, there are six comics left for me to produce in order for me to put a bow on this by the end of the year. I managed to pencil half of them on Friday and I’m hoping that will give me the head-start I need to keep me from blowing deadlines between now and then. If all things go to plan, the last Theater Hopper comic will be Monday, December 31 – New Year’s Eve.

Of course, this means that I’ll have to step up production between now and then. So that means two comics a week for the next three weeks. I think I can do it, but it’ll be a squeaker considering my birthday is on the 21st and Christmas is right after that.

I’ll do what I can. You guys have been more than patient. It’s time to wrap things up and move on.

Look for another comic sometime this week! See you soon!

Something interesting happened this week and I don’t know if you saw it, but it was certainly relevant to the situation I find myself in, as we head into the home stretch toward Theater Hopper’s conclusion.

I’m not certain how much of our audience overlaps, but this week Tim Buckley decided to reboot his long-running gaming comic Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Tim and I started roughly the same time. We socialized a little at the beginning, but it wasn’t long after that his comic took off.

Tim’s kind of an odd cat in webcomics. He has an enormous following, but he’s a bit of a pariah among creators. I’ve never had a personal problem with the guy, but I’ve heard the stories about him and they’re kind of hard to ignore. So on Tuesday when Scott Kurtz, Dave Kellet, Brad Guigar and Kris Straub reassembled to produce a new episode of Webcomics Weekly to discuss Tim’s decision, the armchair analysis and schadenfreude were in full bloom.

I can’t quite articulate what it was about their recording that hit home for me, but a lot of what they expressed was immediately recognizable to me. There was a lot of talk about being burnt out, about maturing, about moving beyond the gag-a-day format and shedding the pursuit of persistent updates to generate revenue from advertising networks that don’t really pay out anymore.

I was listening and nodding my head the entire time.

I don’t know what’s going on right now, but I’m detecting this weird sea change in regards to web comics. Maybe I’m sensitive to it because I’m in the middle of it, but I’m hearing a lot of talk about ditching the traditional models, about moving into new territories.

I kind of consider myself to have caught the tail end of the “First Wave” of webcomics. Most of the big name web comics established themselves between 1998 and 2000 by people that wanted to be cartoonists but couldn’t get the time of day from the syndicates. Theater Hopper came along in 2002. So basically, I’m one of those people who looked at webcomics and said “I’ve never submitted to a syndicate, but I’ve always enjoyed cartooning and this looks viable.”

I don’t know. Maybe I’m Second Wave. Maybe it doesn’t matter. All I know is that 10 years in the game is a long time and it was comforting to know that other creators have struggled with the same issues, have the same thoughts and are afraid about throwing away the brand they’ve built up over the course of the “career.”

Now Tim didn’t exactly throw his comic away. His stripped it down. He got rid of what he thought wasn’t working and says he’s going to go back to more gag-a-day style comics about gaming. Some people have asked me why I don’t do the same thing with Theater Hopper – dump the stuff that I don’t think is working or is too time-intensive.

I know that I’ve expressed it before, but I never wanted to leave Theater Hopper in a “less than” position. In other words, having elevated the comic to a certain level from a time-investment standpoint and being unable to keep pace with it any longer, stripping things away from it for the sake of efficiency doesn’t feel fair to me. Fair for the audience, I mean.

For me – as much as it hurts to do it – letting Theater Hopper go is the best thing for it. That’s why it was important for me to communicate my goals for the last year of the comic – so that you guys knew what was going on and understood. More than anything else with these last few comics, I want to convey the idea that these characters will “be okay.” It’s as much for you as it is for me. Because I’ll be sorry to leave them behind.

I don’t know how successful I’ve been at communicating what I gleaned from Tim’s reboot or the Webcomics Weekly podcast this week. All I know is that it made me feel a little less haunted about the decision I made to end the comic.

Thanks for your understanding. Cheers.

I don’t know if any of you had pets before you decided to have kids. If you have only one or neither, maybe this isn’t for you. But I know that before we decided to have kids, I felt a little guilty about what it would do to Truman.

I mean, we FAWNED over that dog for 5 years. We got him gifts on his birthday. He was our child until Henry came along.

That’s not to say that we ignored him completely after Henry was born, but your priorities shift when you’re a first-time parent. You learn how to juggle your responsibilities, but the shift takes time.

I remember when we brought Henry home and put him down on the floor, resting in his car seat. Truman sniffed all over the place before giving us an inquisitive look. After that, he got… sad. He didn’t eat much for the next two weeks. He literally started to isolate himself in other rooms in the house. It bums me out to remember.

Eventually he came around. He learned new ways to steal attention where he could get it. By the time Pearl was born, it was all old hat to him. We worried that he’d resent being knocked down another peg. But, honestly, he took it all in stride.

Truman’s a great dog, by the way. He’s fantastic with the kids. Never snarls or bites, even when the kids messed with him while he was eating. He’d just sit back and wait for them to get out of the way.

Truman will be 11 years old in February. In many ways, he’s the spry dog he’s always been. Loves to play-fight. Loves to cuddle. But sometimes I worry that maybe his better years are behind him. He has a lot more white on his face now than he used to. Henry is 5. Pearl will be 3 in less than a month. They love Truman, but sometimes I feel sad that maybe they’re not getting the best of him or that they won’t remember him when they’re older and we’ve lost him.

I guess it emphasizes the point that you’ve got to cherish the time you have – not spend too much time thinking about what was or what will be. Now is all we’ve got.

Funny it takes me writing a blog post about a dog to crystallize that sentiment.

Cheers, all.