Multiplex - a comic strip about life at the movies
DELETED SCENES


Work on Multiplex: Book 2 begins…

I’m currently aiming to get Multiplex: Book 2 (not the final title, of course) ready for Summer 2012. That may or may not change, of course.

I’m not currently planning on including a long, exclusive story like the Prequel in Book 1, but there will be at least 25 pages of new material interspersed between the five chapters (6 through 10) included in the collection, some of which might be exclusive to the print collection.

Since Multiplex takes place in real time and generally update twice a week, I occasionally have to paint the story in relatively broad strokes. And, unfortunately, sometimes a story thread gets lost in the shuffle. It happens.

For Book 1, I used much of the new material to flesh out Devi and Gretchen, strengthening the narrative in the process, although it still lacks an overriding thrust over the course of the book. But adding a few finer brush strokes to the book, I think, adds a bit more dimension to the characters than you get from just the archives.

Book 2, on the other hand, has a stronger narrative in that it’s centered around Jason and Becky for chapters 6–8 and, in some ways, Jason’s absence in chapters 9 and 10 (although the book ends happily, with Jason returning to the theater).

So, like I did in Book 1, I’ll be using the bonus comics to expand on things between the characters — in chapters 6–8, between Jay and Becky, as well as Jason and Devi’s break-up. And in 9 & 10, I’ll be expanding on things in and out of the Multiplex 10 during the period where Jason had quit working at the theater.

To that end, if there’s a story thread from this period that you’d like a little more neatly tied up, or a movie you’d like me to touch on — basically, a deleted scene you’d like see added into the extended edition — feel free to make a suggestion! I, of course, reserve the right to disagree with you, since it’s my comic. ;)

(Please keep the suggestions to the range of strips included in Book 2: numbers 103 through 216 (November 2006 – March 2008). If you’d like to look up what movies came out in that time frame, ComingSoon.net’s release calendar is always a valuable tool; you just need to manually edit the URLs to find older dates.)


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A note about misprinted Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show books

Apparently a few (two so far) copies of the book have repeated/missing pages around the p117–122 mark. If you got one of these, E-MAIL ME. It’s definitely not in all of the books, or even 1% of them; it’s a misprint. I try to flip through all the books to make sure they’re clean, but these things slip through sometimes.

I can get credited for them by my printer, and I will happily send you a new book — but I do need some sort of photographic/scanned evidence.


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An Interview with Bryan Lee O’Malley

This interview was originally published on May 24, 2006.

In 2005 and 2006, I wrote for Bookslut and Comic Book Galaxy on occasion. In that time, I interviewed Jon ScieszkaHope Larson, Ivan Brunetti, and Big Time Attic, and also Bryan Lee O’Malley. But due to a few snafus, I ended up having to post this one myself at my own website instead of CBG, where it was intended.

I’ll be redoing my portfolio website in the near future, so for lack of a better place to put this (very) old interview, I’m posting it here at Deleted Scenes.

(more…)


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Review: Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite

Directed by Scott Sanders.
Written by Michael Jai White & Byron Minns & Scott Sanders. From a story by Michael Jai White & Scott Sanders.
Starring Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson, Arsenio Hall, Kevin Chapman and Tommy Davidson.

Spoofs are a tough thing to pull off. Even when they manage to be funny, they’re rarely funny for more than half an hour, and usually so overloaded with padding as to render them a waste of time overall. Even more frustrating is when spoofs write themselves into a corner so badly that they end up turning into straight-faced, crappy version of the movies they’re supposedly parodying.

So it was with some trepidation that my friend Pete and I tossed in Black Dynamite one evening… and almost immediately loved it. Not only does Black Dynamite work shockingly well as a comedy — never wearing out its welcome for the full, brisk 84 minutes — it’s also a pretty effective action movie, thanks to its co-writer and star Michael Jai White.

The premise is a cliché as they come — Black Dynamite avenges his brother’s death (a.k.a. Revenge Plot #3) — but this sort of movie isn’t about plot; it’s about execution, and Black Dynamite is at once a terrific action movie, a painfully funny comedy, and a spot-on parody of the blaxploitation genre, both the relatively down-to-earth movies like the first Shaft and, over the course of the film, the increasingly ludicrous stuff from the tail end of the wave.

For me (and, I think, many film buffs), the best laughs were from the many so-dumb-they’re-brilliant touches peppered throughout the movie: a boom mike dipping into view, straight into Black Dynamite’s impressive afro; “I threw that shit before I walked in the room!”; and the lyrics at one point in Adrian Younge’s fantastically funky score giving a literal play-by-play of the on-screen proceedings.

Sadly, the film sank like a stone in theaters, only screening in 70 theaters for two whole weeks. But that’s what home video is for, isn’t it?

Black Dynamite is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Netflix (via disc and streaming).

Recommended Reading: If you loved Black Dynamite, check out Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg’s similar, yet also brilliant Afrodisiac.


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