The Ding-Dong Cart Is Coming!

Hey everyone! I’m really proud of this week’s strip. It’s one of my absolute favorites, ranking right up there with#6 . I like tapping into things that really nail the essence of childhood; things that can bring you right back to that time and place in your memory. Being hyper-sensitive to the dulcet tones of the “ding-dong cart” is something I feel everyone can identify with. It truly was an almost supernatural ability that kids possessed. The faintest trace of a warbly, out of tune musical note  in the summer air could send us bolting into the house to scrounge up the necessary funds for an Astro-pop, Creamcicle, or some other frozen delight. Kinda strange how we could almost sense that the ice cream truck was coming from miles away, yet we could be totally oblivious to our Mothers telling us to clean our rooms from the bottom of the stairs, isn’t it?

Notice anything different on the main page lately? Yep, that’s right, we now have Project Wonderful button ads that you can bid on to show off your own webcomic greatness! Not to mention the Skyscraper ad in the sidebar (also from Project Wonderful), and the Google Ads. If you have a webcomic or some other creative endeavour you want to show off, whip up a 160 X 600 Skyscraper banner or a 117 X 30 button and place a bid to advertise on Boxcar Astronaut!

Attack of the B-Movies!!!

It’s pretty rare when a soulless corporate theater megaplex chain does something fun and original, but that’s exactly what Showcase Cinemas is doing here in my neck of the woods. They’ve rolled out a promotion called “Attack of the B-Movies!”, and it’s an absolute blast. Every Wednesday night, for a measley pittance of five bucks, you can enjoy a heaping double portion of 50’s and 60’s Sci-Fi/Monster cheese.

Last night Marc and I decided to go with another friend of ours to the second week of the event, which featured The Giant Gila Monster and the Japanese giant turtle classic Gamera. We had a grand ol’ time laughing at the hokey effects of a”man-in-a-suit” (and in some cases, an actual live lizard), crashing through plastic model buildings and wrecking toy cars or trains. It was an evening that I’m sure Ben and Devin would absolutely loved. I know that when I was growing up, I was fed a steady diet of Toho-produced (and English-dubbed) Godzilla flicks and other rubbery giant creature movies on rainy Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They were a  huge influence on my creativity. I even that ultra-cool 24″ Mattel Shogun Warriors Godzilla toy that had a flicking “firey” tongue and a hand that you could launch off! Pure awesome! 

See you Sunday for a new blog and a new Boxcar strip!

Pottermania and Diogee Revealed!

Hey all, anyone out there go to a midnight madness Harry Potter party Friday night? I haven’t had a chance to stop into a bookstore and snag a copy of Deathly Hallows yet, but I’m in the midst of re-reading The Half-Blood Prince to freshen up on things before tackling the final installment.

I used to be one of those people who had zero interest in learning anything about Muggles, Quidditch, Voldemort or anything to do with those “silly kids books”, but then I saw the first two films and thought they were both really entertaining, and when The Order of the Phoenix was released, I was working as a supervisor at a Barnes & Noble so I got to witness the hysteria of J.K. Rowling’s work firsthand at a midnight release party.

I never saw so many excited, sparkly-eyed children in my life. You could see how much the material meant to them…how emotionally invested in the lives of Harry, Ron and Hermione they were. It was like their Star Wars. Right before the film version of Prisoner of Azkaban came out, I read all the books and I’ve been sucked into the hype ever since. A tip o’ the cap to you Ms. Rowling! (Though I don’t think Ben and Devin would have much interest in Harry Potter).

I hope all of you have been enjoying the website. Marc continues to update it with new stuff all the time. There’s the handy new “Jump to a strip” menu located underneath the current running strip and the Diogee’s links page, which, in addition to Diogee revealed in full color, features banners and links to our favorite Webcomics, most of which have generously participated in link exchanges with us. Thanks guys!

Oh, and speaking of links, feel free to use these to link back to us on your website! (you can also find these on the Diogee’s Links page as well).

Standby To Repel Boarders!

Ahhh…Diogee, you just gotta love that mutt. For two weeks in a row now, he’s been the “star” of the strip, and this week he gets a little revenge for all the stuff he’s had to put up with lately. It’s been interesting exploring and developing the relationship between Ben and Diogee. For those of you who had a canine companion growing up, you know that “a boy and his dog” share a very special bond. When I was a kid, my dog Mitzi (a half daschund mutt) was my best friend.

She was the most gentle and patient little dog in the world. One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting on the living room floor and lining up my matchbox cars all along her back when she was curled up sleeping underneath the Christmas tree. A couple of times she opened her eyes, but she didn’t seem to care at all. Most dogs would’ve gotten annoyed in two seconds and shook all the cars off, but Mitzi didn’t mind. That’s how comfortable she was around me and how much trust she had in me. I like to think Ben and Diogee are on that level, but I think sometimes Ben takes him for granted and makes him do things he really isn’t interested in doing, like forcing him into co-pilot duty on the “starship” when he much rather be playing fetch or some other more traditonal dog/master stuff. Anyway, I think this week’s strip is really funny and I love the way Marc drew Diogee’s face in that first panel. Enjoy!

Before I go I’d like to say a few words about the “webcomic community”. Being so new to all this, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from other comic strip creators, but for the past few days I’ve been perusing the topics and posting here and there on the forums on numerous webcomic sties and I have to say that I’ve come across a lot of friendly, talented, and supportive individuals. Boxcar Astronaut is new to the neighborhood, but the neighborhood is wonderful and we’d like to settle down here for a good, long time.

Wow…

Wow. I continue to amazed by the glowing reviews that I keep coming across for our little strip here. The latest kind words are from a gentleman with the net handle of “Movies At Midnight” over at the the mighty Geeks of Doom site.

The comparison he makes between the exploits of Ben and the gang to one of the most influential and beloved comic strips of all time is very humbling, indeed. I’m not naive enough to think that Boxcar will ever reach those heights. We’ve only just begun and we’ve got a long way to go, but it’s nice to know that our work is striking a similar chord with some individuals out there. Thank you Mr. “Movies”, we’ll do our best to keep producing a quality webcomic!

In other news, Marc and I have been ramping up the promotional efforts to get the strip noticed and generate more traffic for the website. You can now find listings for Boxcar Astronaut at Piperka, the Belfry Index, and The Webcomics Super 100 List. You also may  have seen some Project Wonderful banner and button ads on Buzzcomix.Net, Gone With The Blastwave, and Diesel Sweeties. Lastly, as a sweet incentive to get you guys voting for our strip at the ranking sites, Marc’s whipped up a super-cool Boxcar Astronaut Desktop wallpaper that you can download by voting for us at Top Webcomics. Spiffy-Keen, aint it?

Yes, Even Dogs Play It…

So remember a few posts back when I was telling you how great a comedy writer Marc was? Yeah, well, this week’s bit in the final panel is a perfect example of that. Periodically I’ll come up with a premise for a strip, get through the first three panels (Heck, sometimes it’s only one!), then go completely blank on a funny way to end it. That’s why it’s great to do a collaborative webcomic, especially with someone so experienced in coming up with punchlines and dynamic visual gags. I have this awful tendency to get wrapped up in trying to write something high concept and/or philosophical with the strip, but in the end, Boxcar is all about having fun. So I think it’s best to keep blowing the boys up with laser beams and have dogs playing Sudoku. If philosophy through the eyes of the innocent is your cup of tea, there are a couple of guys out there named Schultz and Watterson who did some comic strips on the subject. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?

Curse You, Invisible Lasers!

Ahhh….the ol’ “I got you!”, “No you didn’t!” refrain. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that reverberating through the neighborhood back in the day. It’s amazing how we were able to dodge or block all those imaginary laser bolts flying through the air isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I never pulled that lame “forcefield” card. I just felt it was a total wuss move. If you’re going to get killed by invisible blaster fire, die like a man!

In other news, have you seen the beautiful new Characters section over at the main page? Once again it features layout and graphic design by Marc, and words by yours truly. Head on over to see some really nifty, sepia-toned character art and to learn a little bit more about your favorite backyard space cadets!

Webcomic Warfare!

Hi everyone, if you have moment, won’t you please click on over to Webcomic Battle and vote for Boxcar Astronaut? Marc submitted what I feel is our strongest and funniest strip to do battle against a comic called Polls. So far we’re in the lead, but we could always use more votes. Let’s win it for Ben and Devin!

In other news, I saw Transformers last night and boy…what a mess. The action is big and loud and there are some fun moments, but overall it’s a huge trainwreck. I wasn’t too big on Transformers when I was a young lad (I preferred Star Wars and G.I. Joe, and I always thought the Transformers toys were too fragile and lacked play value), so I didn’t have as strong an emotional attachment as many of the Gen X crowd did. I know there are tons of individuals in their late 20’s/early 30’s who truly hold the Transformers close to their hearts. I thought the film was a real letdown, so I can only imagine how they must be feeling. 

Makes me wonder though, can Robot transform into something? Hmmm…..

King Of The Mountain

Hey everyone, Happy Sunday to you all! I’m typing this at almost one in the morning, so I’m not sure how the weather is going to be for the day, but so far the weekend has been great and I hope that Sunday will be a beautiful wrap-up to the Holiday weekend. I got a chance to see some fireworks tonight over a field of tall grass out in the country that was twinkling with hundreds and hundreds of fireflies. It was nature’s own fireworks display! It inspired me to write a strip about Ben and Devin trying to catch some fireflies. I’ll have to try and work out a funny scenario for that one.

Speaking of beautiful scenes, just take a look at that first panel in today’s strip. I absolutely love what Marc did with it. The backlighting from the high sun on the characters on that hill is really, really cool. Its funny how things work out, too. When I wrote this strip and sketched it out, I had always intended for it to be set during the winter on a huge snowbank. I guess I didn’t make that clear enough in the rough format, though, so Marc gave it a summer setting like all the other strips.

“King of the Mountain” was always a game that I associated with the winter and snowbanks, but Marc told me he used to play that with his friends on dirt or grass mounds all the time and it was a universal game for all seasons. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. If I found myself on any type of hill with a couple friends around, back in the grade school days, there was going to be some shoving going on, snow or not.  It also makes more sense in the context of the current story, with the boys “teaching” Robot about things that little Earth-kids do. It would’ve been pretty jarring to suddenly have a winter scene. Of course, because of that haunting first panel, it’s hard to imagine the strip any other way. Click to check it out!

Before I go, head on over to the main page and check out the new Creators section. You’ll get to learn a little more about Marc and I, as well as see some adorable pictures of us from back in the day! Awwwww……