I only heard about Twaggies recently. They are artists who create ‘crowdsourced’ comics. From what I gather, they take nominated Tweets from Twitter and visualise them into one panel comics.
I’m a huge fan of the one-panel comic and own every Far Side book Gary Larson ever released (The man was a comedic genius) so I’m very humbled and honoured to have inspired these guys to draw up one of my Tweets.
Go to the site and scroll through all of them IF you like to laugh. It’s a terrific idea and they’re brilliant at what they do.
My Twitter: @Mothpete
My Twitter: @Mothpete
~Illustration by: Pete Hillstrom~
A Very Merry 40th Batmany Birthday to me!
Thanks to my gorgeous and very graciously thoughtful partner, Joey, I've a very geeky bat-themed 40th birthday (or two) to try to keep me young. All six of our Brady Bunch family are here with me today and that's the best part of it.
I love the cake. Love it. I can't wait to eat the buildings in a few hours. I'm definitely putting dibs on the Bat Signal.
She had some frames for four of my favourite comics made out of some very rustic looking timber. I spent a good part of the day going through my collection trying to decide which to put behind the glass. Unfortunately 'The Killing Joke' was just a bit too faded to make the cut. A Death in the Family was my first, and I like the look of the others. A Joker-toxined Catwoman looks great, as does 'Speeding Bullets', an Elseworlds issue where the Waynes find Clark instead of the Kents.
I'm also chuffed with my first genuine DC Direct Batman statue and I freaking love the pose and the way the cape supports him. The 'Sock Monkey' Batman was custom made for us, and the little Bats and Supes are too incredibly cute. Thanks honey. Here's to another 40, at least. X PB.
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| Batman with a gun? Smart move in my opinion. |
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| Much better than the suit in Batman Begins! |
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| A very huggable Bat Sock Monkey |
My freaking favstar fascination
Earlier this year I discovered Twitter and it really worked for me. I enjoyed meeting like-minded people and sharing thoughts and jokes about what was on at the movies or on TV. It was a great social experience and I was completely addicted, amassing about a thousand followers in a few months as I followed every lead.Every now and then I'd write a tweet that got Retweeted and I thought that was great. It was an honour that someone thought my 'joke' was good enough to share with their followers, and I started working hard to write catchy retweetable one-liners. I hadn't yet heard of favstar. I was blissfully ignorant of the pressure I was about to put myself under.
I thought Twitter's 'favorite' stars were bookmarks, and they were, but a separate website called favstar collects that data so you are able to see who has been 'bookmarking', or favoriting, your tweets. I thought this was fascinating, and I started obsessively checking the site to see how my tweets were faring. Man, I thought Twitter was for the narcissistic, but favstar is another step up. Once I discovered that you could win Trophies from other users who were using the bonus features, I was in. A few years ago I was involved with a poetry website called AllPoetry and I worked my ass off for there for pixellated trophies too. I drove all my friends nuts.
And so I started favstarring about three weeks ago. I've been frantically starring other tweets and adding followers to my list, and churning my brain to write the perfect tweets that might capture the interest of these special breed of favstar people, and special many of them are. There are some brilliantly funny Tweeters who can write creative, original, funny one-liners, one after the other... and there are also the people who think they can. This is the place to go for people who believe they are comedians, in much the same way as SingStar is for those who think they can sing. You might sound okay in the shower, but in fact, you suck. I like to think I sound good when I karaoke, and I also hope to the gods my tweets are as funny to others as they are to me.
I've been practically begging for trophies to validate the monstrous ego within me that feeds on validation and praise. The rush of star applause that comes after posting a witty tweet is far too addictive to avoid, but every day that goes by without getting a trophy is a blow I can't seem to handle. It's a problem for me. It's also been a problem for my work and family life. It's time to stop fucking caring about these trophies. I'm getting grumpy and resentful seeing these very precious trophies being given away to tweets that just aren't all that funny, in my opinion, or to people that already have dozens... and I feel like punching bunnies.
Someone gave me a trophy recently, and I quickly thanked them, but they didn't receive the thankful tweet because I forgot to put their @ username in it. Less than a day went by and I got a very abusive message and a 'block' from this unhappy little tweeter. I was called an arrogant fuck! This favstar thing was serious and a little scary now. I was hurt, and there were strict rules to follow. *Note: I did manage to explain what happened and she did apologise for her reaction. We're all human twitterers after all... well, apart from the bots.
No more am I discussing horror movies and my favourite television shows that I once enjoyed doing. The friends I had made have been much ignored as I now appeal to the Twitter Elite who have the power to star me. I'm rewriting tweets that I wrote when I only had a few hundred followers and hoping no one notices. I'm finding myself deleting tweets that don't get enough stars and deleting response tweets because someone dared star them, messing up my 'Recent Tweets' favstar page. I'm stressing out because a tweet didn't make it to the Leaderboard quickly enough. I'm doing it all wrong!
I think I've burnt myself out already. I'm not saying I'm committing favstarcide yet, but I've got to stop obsessing about what others think of me and write tweets that 'I' like. Five trophies is probably good for three weeks work and I'm damn proud of my Best Of list. I've nearly got about 1600 followers and I've met a lot of people that are funny as hell. I just need step back a bit and find that balance, because as my partner @eekjoey says, "It's just fucking Twitter".
My Life in Film (Movie meme over my 40 years)
My life in film. The idea is to pick out a movie of personal note for each year of your life from the year they were released. You don't need to have seen it in that particular year.
1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Wow, it's been 40 years since this movie was released. Yep, I'm forty. I'd say something about this movie, but I'm too depressed now... 40.
1972 Monty Python's Flying Circus: When I was one years old the English discovered that you didn't need a punchline.
1973 The Exorcist: There have been very few completely awesome demon possession movies since. It was already kinda nailed. The only time I saw vomit used so well in a movie was 'Stand by me', and Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life'.
1974 Young Frankenstein: Goddam, Gene Wilder was awesome.
1975 Jaws: Some movie about a shark whose name 'Jaws' never gets mentioned.
1976 Bugsy Malone: Jody Foster's name was Talula and she lived til she died. Wasn't Chachi in this movie?
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind: As a kid I was so confused by this movie title. Was this the third in a trilogy? Where were the other two?
1978 Superman: What can I say. I just remember going to Hungry Jacks (Burger King) afterwards and staring into my Coke in awe of what just happened.
1979 Breaking Away: I honestly spent that year of school trying to speak Italian. Drove family and friends absolutely bonkers. Belissimo!
1980 Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back: Imagine nine year olds arguing about the soap opera aspects of Darth being Luke's dad etc... long conversations from memory.
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark: I wouldn't let my little brother see this because of the 'graphic' scenes. I was a douchey big brother.
1982 E.T. The book had m&ms while the movie used Reece's Pieces. That's one of my strongest memories.
1983 Star Wars Return of the Jedi: Man, I loved the original Ewok celebration song at the end. Nub nub nibbidy boo, or something close to that.
1984 Ghostbusters -Nightmare on Elm Street, Beverly Hills Cop, The karate kid. This was a big year for movies, but for absolute brilliance, who ya gonna call? No, honestly? Who?
1985 The Breakfast Club: I just always thought they would have made a good Superhero Team up, Teen Titans, or Power Ranger style. Power of a princess. Power of a Geek... Jock... Emo kid... and etc.
1986 Aliens: The ultimate false ending. Two climaxes!
1987 The Princess Bride: There are people who haven't seen this movie. Worse yet, there are people who have seen it but didn't love it. Go away.
1988 Roger Rabbit: Wow. Nowadays you could make this sort of movie in the tenth of the time with our new fangled CG, but they'd never come close to this level of amazement.
1989 Batman: I almost cried from disappointment that there weren't enough Batman money shots. I learned to love it after I got some more perspective. More of my thoughts on Burton's Batman here.
1990 Ghost: I liked it.
1991 Terminator 2: Shiny melty man. Yeah, I'm getting bored now. Read on.
1992 Unforgiven: When I went to see this movie with some of my douche Christian friends, some of them did a 'walk out'. I was uncomfortable too. God I love this movie.
1993 Groundhog Day: If I was stuck in a time-loop repeating day I would... umm... you know what? Groundhog Day covered EVERYTHING
1994 The Lion King: Elton John was a big deal to me back then. We saw it a few times in the cinema, and it was animated! A new era was dawning.
1996 Braveheart: Soundtrack, battle scenes, script. GUSH
1997 Independence Day: Fun
1998 Titanic: I saw this in the cinema four times, as did everyone else I knew. I was a very gay man, I'm now thinking.
1999 The Prince of Egypt: Yeah, I was still a Christian at that point. This was 'way' cool for my types.
2000 Gladiator: See notes for Braveheart
2001 A.I. - Don't hate on me. I fell in love with this film and I completely loved and teared up at the ending.
2002 Spider-man: Cool. I just kept on rewinding that last city swing scene.
2003 Finding Nemo: Freaking awesome eye candy, and Ellen was perfect as Dora the fishy explorer.
2004 Before Sunset: The most fulfilling and beautiful romantic film of all time. It's one long chat, but we love it and its sequel to bits. Ethan Hawke gets a free ticket for life from me, for this.
2005 Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith: Nooooooooo!
2006 Borat: So funny. So freaking funny. As was Bruno.
2007 The Brave One: I like vigilantes and Jodie Foster, from Bugsy Malone to this.
2008 The dark knight: OMG OMG OMG (See Dark Knight blog post)
2009 Avatar: 3D done damn right. Remember 12 months earlier we were promised this would be 'F*cking' our eyeballs. It did.
2010 127 hrs: Yeah, go humans! We can do it! Inspiring stuff. Oh yeah, and I love it when Jo nestles her head in my arms and can't watch gory bits.
1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Wow, it's been 40 years since this movie was released. Yep, I'm forty. I'd say something about this movie, but I'm too depressed now... 40.1972 Monty Python's Flying Circus: When I was one years old the English discovered that you didn't need a punchline.
1973 The Exorcist: There have been very few completely awesome demon possession movies since. It was already kinda nailed. The only time I saw vomit used so well in a movie was 'Stand by me', and Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life'.
1974 Young Frankenstein: Goddam, Gene Wilder was awesome.
1975 Jaws: Some movie about a shark whose name 'Jaws' never gets mentioned.
1976 Bugsy Malone: Jody Foster's name was Talula and she lived til she died. Wasn't Chachi in this movie?
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind: As a kid I was so confused by this movie title. Was this the third in a trilogy? Where were the other two?
1978 Superman: What can I say. I just remember going to Hungry Jacks (Burger King) afterwards and staring into my Coke in awe of what just happened.
1979 Breaking Away: I honestly spent that year of school trying to speak Italian. Drove family and friends absolutely bonkers. Belissimo!
1980 Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back: Imagine nine year olds arguing about the soap opera aspects of Darth being Luke's dad etc... long conversations from memory.
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark: I wouldn't let my little brother see this because of the 'graphic' scenes. I was a douchey big brother.
1982 E.T. The book had m&ms while the movie used Reece's Pieces. That's one of my strongest memories.
1983 Star Wars Return of the Jedi: Man, I loved the original Ewok celebration song at the end. Nub nub nibbidy boo, or something close to that.
1984 Ghostbusters -Nightmare on Elm Street, Beverly Hills Cop, The karate kid. This was a big year for movies, but for absolute brilliance, who ya gonna call? No, honestly? Who?1985 The Breakfast Club: I just always thought they would have made a good Superhero Team up, Teen Titans, or Power Ranger style. Power of a princess. Power of a Geek... Jock... Emo kid... and etc.
1986 Aliens: The ultimate false ending. Two climaxes!
1987 The Princess Bride: There are people who haven't seen this movie. Worse yet, there are people who have seen it but didn't love it. Go away.
1988 Roger Rabbit: Wow. Nowadays you could make this sort of movie in the tenth of the time with our new fangled CG, but they'd never come close to this level of amazement.
1989 Batman: I almost cried from disappointment that there weren't enough Batman money shots. I learned to love it after I got some more perspective. More of my thoughts on Burton's Batman here.
1990 Ghost: I liked it.
1991 Terminator 2: Shiny melty man. Yeah, I'm getting bored now. Read on.
1992 Unforgiven: When I went to see this movie with some of my douche Christian friends, some of them did a 'walk out'. I was uncomfortable too. God I love this movie.
1993 Groundhog Day: If I was stuck in a time-loop repeating day I would... umm... you know what? Groundhog Day covered EVERYTHING
1994 The Lion King: Elton John was a big deal to me back then. We saw it a few times in the cinema, and it was animated! A new era was dawning.
1996 Braveheart: Soundtrack, battle scenes, script. GUSH
1997 Independence Day: Fun
1998 Titanic: I saw this in the cinema four times, as did everyone else I knew. I was a very gay man, I'm now thinking.
1999 The Prince of Egypt: Yeah, I was still a Christian at that point. This was 'way' cool for my types.
2000 Gladiator: See notes for Braveheart
2001 A.I. - Don't hate on me. I fell in love with this film and I completely loved and teared up at the ending.
2002 Spider-man: Cool. I just kept on rewinding that last city swing scene.
2003 Finding Nemo: Freaking awesome eye candy, and Ellen was perfect as Dora the fishy explorer.
2004 Before Sunset: The most fulfilling and beautiful romantic film of all time. It's one long chat, but we love it and its sequel to bits. Ethan Hawke gets a free ticket for life from me, for this.
2005 Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith: Nooooooooo!
2006 Borat: So funny. So freaking funny. As was Bruno.
2007 The Brave One: I like vigilantes and Jodie Foster, from Bugsy Malone to this.
2008 The dark knight: OMG OMG OMG (See Dark Knight blog post)
2009 Avatar: 3D done damn right. Remember 12 months earlier we were promised this would be 'F*cking' our eyeballs. It did.
2010 127 hrs: Yeah, go humans! We can do it! Inspiring stuff. Oh yeah, and I love it when Jo nestles her head in my arms and can't watch gory bits.
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