Happy Holidays!

Now that we've hit December, it's time for the yearly KFP holiday greeting card!  For the full-size version, click HERE.

Web Comic News

More KFP news -

I've been fairly unsatisfied with the hosting experience at Drunk Duck, and some investigation has revealed that I'm not alone - Apparently it had a corporate buyout last summer and the site, once highly regarded, has gone to hell... losing many previous features and adding a whole lot of ads.  I'll probably still mirror updates to DD just for the broad exposure, but I've also added a dedicated comic page at hosting site ComicFury, and this is where the comic icon at top right now points to:

http://kfp.the-comic.org/

It looks a little different and there are a lot less blank ad boxes.  I am perfectly happy to settle for the very simplified layout in exchange for losing the ads.  What do you all think?

It's now up to speed on ComicFury.  If you have a minute, please check it out and leave a comment or two, or some ratings (CF allows ratings of individual pages, hurray!).  I'll be going public with it on the CF forums sometime in the near future.

Another benefit CF has is an author blog, and I finally wrote out a basic description of the characters here:
http://kfp.thecomicseries.com/blogarchive/10197

Let me know what you crazy cats think.  This is obviously still a work in progress.

Twitch, Twitch - Part 5

The saga of Evil Twitch continues, and our gang finds their perfect summer rudely interrupted now that the Chaotic Evil Twitch is revealed and on the loose.   There's an open comment area on the comic page down at the bottom, if anyone has questions or wants to leave their thoughts.  Hope you enjoy, and click Like if you do!

KFP Web Comic - Twitch, Twitch

Twitch, Twitch - Part 4

...To be continued on our dedicated web comic page!  From now on, I'll be posting the ongoing adventures of the KFP comic cast over at their own dedicated website, where the strips can be organized and flipped through much easier than here.  I've just posted the latest, wherein the Evil Twitch reveals his presence to the gang.  Enjoy, and click Like if you do!

KFP Web Comic - Twitch, Twitch

Twitch, Twitch - Part 3

To be Continued...

Twitch, Twitch - Part 2

To be Continued...

KFP Comic - Twitch, Twitch

Click HERE for full-size view

A Visual History of Pipes in Movies, pt 3

Kentucky Fried Popcorn presents a visual history of the role of pipes in movies.  What other choice could I make for the 40's but film noir?

Part Three - The 1940's

A Visual History of Pipes in Movies, pt 2

Kentucky Fried Popcorn presents a visual history of the role of pipes in movies.  And yes, I know the 30's didn't come after the 50's, but when I realized I'd missed a golden chance to do a Universal Horror toon, I couldn't resist.

Part Two - The 1930's

A Visual History of Pipes in Movies, pt 1

Kentucky Fried Popcorn presents a visual history of the role of pipes in movies.

Part One - The 1950's

American Horror Story

NetFlix 4.6/5
IMDB 8.4/10
My Rating: 9/10

A troubled family move into a notorious haunted house and soon face trials of their marital fidelity, loyalty, and sanity.  The house is very occupied...


American TV has produced some good horror series over these past years, from Supernatural to Fringe to Buffy, but all of these other shows relied on a secondary support mechanism - Fringe has CSI framework, Supernatural balances itself with comedy, and Buffy mixed comedy and teen angst.  American Horror Story, by contrast, is the most flat-out, pedal to the floor, uncompromising horror series in...  Well, I can't actually think of anything to compare it to, off the top of my head.

The plot is simple - A family in crisis pick the worst house to move into.  The husband had an affair and their marriage is hanging by a thread.  The sulky daughter is in permanent, "My life is a black room" mode.  Hopeful of patching their fractured family, they buy a house that's a steal on the real estate market, and soon find out it comes with a lot of unexpected baggage.  Scary neighbors, scarred visitors, something nasty in the basement, and a Gimp-suited stalker in the attic are only a few of the new abode's surprises.  As the story of the house begins to be told, it's horror piled on horror - A history of secret abortions, murders, perversions, illegal surgery, and enough lingering ghosts to populate the Overlook.  All of this tension pressures the already straining family and begins to twist them each to the breaking point.

Those of sensitive disposition should be warned, this is fairly racy for US TV.  The show doesn't flinch in its depictions of sexual kink, ghost rape, teen sex...  Hell, you name it, it's in there somewhere, interspersed with far more of Dylan McDermott's naked behind than I really needed to see.  Ladies may be happy that for once, it's a show that's equal opportunity gender flashing, though.

One thing I dearly loved about the show was that it didn't tease its mysteries.  There is payoff to everything.  Series TV, especially in these post-X Files days, has developed the annoying habit of always dangling "The mystery that has no solution" to artificially hook viewers.  You've seen it a million times... Who is that shadowy man watching the heroes at the end of the episode?  What are the motives of the secret government agency shadowing our heroes?  Ugh.  I've reached the point where I just roll my eyes and tune out when these kind of elements are introduced, because I see them for what they are - Nothing.  Literally, nothing.  No great secret to be figured out, no complex backstory that will be revealed...  More often than not, they're just random, mysterious hooks tossed out by different writers desperate to grab a repeat audience.  AHS, by contrast, actually unnerved me by just how much it did reveal.  I kept thinking, "No, this is to soon to explain that.  You're letting all of the gas out of the tank too early!"  But that's the glory of the show - With a 12 episode run that actually ends, the pace never lets up and there's no fear of losing the mystery because this story will be told in full in one season.  Next year, it will be new characters and a new story.  This has the added benefit that no one is safe... No recurring characters means there's genuinely no telling who will live or die in a season.

The characters are brilliant too, though they're also my one single beef with the show - They are almost universally unlikable.  Connie Britton tries for sympathy as the wronged wife, but just seems too abrasive.  The husband is a lying sleaze, and anyone over 23 will want the whining daughter to die immediately.  I'd have hoped for at least one genuinely likable character to invest in and worry for, but as it is, their very fractured psyches contribute to the "I just can't relax with ANYONE!" atmosphere and keep viewers tense.  And the bad characters...  Well, they're delicious in their Grand Guignol creepiness, and rivet your attention using every trick from pity to pure lust.

So there's my review.  See it.  It's one of the best TV series to hit US television in 10 years, and it's a sheer joy to see such an uncompromising horror tale get a series run.  If I seem light on details, it's because I don't want to give anything away - The revelations come fast and bold and it's better to go in knowing as little of the plot twists as possible.  In my opinion, the AHS house takes a deserved place alongside the Overlook and Hill House as one of the scariest locales in screen horror, ever.

KFP #2 - Twitch

Kentucky Fried Popcorn - The Comic

Here is a little something I've been fiddling around with for a while now.  It's a wretched example of a first comic strip - It was worked on over a period of about 6 months in my spare time using half a dozen different graphics programs (None of which I was very familiar with), ergo the wildly varying inking style and character looks.  I was half-tempted just to toss it, but thought I'd go ahead and post it as a little background for (Hopefully) better stuff to come.  Readers may have wondered about the cartoon characters that started turning up in movie reviews a few months back - Well, here they are with the story explained.  These kids will be appearing more often in future movie reviews to put in their two cents circa 1977.   Click the pages to enlarge.

This comic is not approved for use by anyone under 35.

And that's that.  Recurring characters will be P.A.L., the narrator with the flippy hair (That's me, age 11), George (Turtleneck guy), and his younger friend Twitch.  A young Emily is also going to be added whenever I can figure out a way to draw a ponytailed girl that doesn't look like Dilbert's girlfriend.  These kids and their robot will wander in and out of reviews, putting their own two cents in.

On the wild, wild chance that anyone is interested about the evolution of this stuff, here are some of the original doodles that eventually developed into the characters we'll be seeing.  The very first version of the narrator was this extremely simple sketch:

I liked the attitude but had misgivings about the simple face (It's cute, but difficult to convey more complex emotions with such a simplified style).  Also, I was never crazy about the AstroBoy hair and it changed constantly over subsequent sketching as the character also grew taller, skinnier, and generally more like I was.

Above is a page out of my sketchbook featuring a lot of random scrawls (There's one of our cats and a pipe design and a bit of my eye obsession).  As the drawing style of the character got more and more "realistic", the blank eyes actually got a little creepy, looking out of place on the character.  I finally started getting some hair styles I liked simply by thinking back to the days of Luke Skywalker hair.  Tried a couple of more realistic face sketches above but both were way more anime than I wanted, and I became conscious of trying to pin his look down to a more age-appropriate look.  I was shooting for 10-12ish, not 7 or 15.  Finally, one night while watching TV I scratched out this and had the voila moment of, "That's the look I want."

A year from now he'll probably look nothing like the above, again, as his appearance evolves, but we'll see how it goes.  So there's a little backstory for those who are interested in such stuff!

Welcome to KFP