With the whole Internet protest going on today, I figured maybe I should throw in my two cents. If you still don’t believe that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or it’s evil twin brother Protect IP Act (PIPA) will become a tool for censorship, then you should at least know that these bills will give even more copyright power to media corporations who already wield too much copyright control.

Copyright law in the United States is messed up, favoring media corporations because they’ve been lobbying for years to get these laws passed. SOPA and PIPA are just the most recent (and probably most insane) examples. It’s a crazy system, made only worse by additional laws and further restrictions. That Disney Vault picture above? I put that picture up there because that is where all old movies go to decay. A corporation like Disney only needs to endlessly extend the copyright on properties like Mickey Mouse, but other, lesser known properties also get extended as a result. Because Disney can’t make a profit remaking or re-releasing these old properties, they end up rotting away in the Disney Vault. And Disney is fine with this, because restricting access to old properties creates a demand for the newer properties. This isn’t just Disney – every media corporation has a bunch of old movies that they keep locked away. This is one of the reasons I love sites like Network Awesome – they save these old films and videos and let everyone see them. Sure, some of them are bad, but that’s no reason to lock them away forever.

Still not appalled? How about how Nina Paley, an independent filmmaker, was originally charged $220,000 for the usage of 11 songs in her film Sita Sings the Blues, a film that didn’t even cost that much to make. And how these songs were from 1920s singer Annette Hanshaw, and how the recordings were in the public domain, but the compositions, the actual sheet music, were not. She managed to get her cost down to $50,000, but with so many strings attached, she could be sued at any time for illegally distributing the songs. Even though she gives the movie away for free, she could be accused of selling the songs for zero dollars.

Still haven’t thrown up in disgust? What’s wrong with you?! Throw up! Right now! All over your computer! Okay, how about how Shepard Fairey, the graphic designer behind the Obama HOPE poster, was sued in 2009 by the Associated Press for copyright infringement because he used one of their pictures as reference, even though Fairey’s usage should have fallen under Fair Use, because last time I checked, Obama’s skin is not red, white, and blue.

Still not quaking in your boots? Okay, well here’s something that should scare all the media corporations that don’t view my site – before The Hangover II was released, tattoo artist S. Victor Whitmill sued Warner Bros. for copyright infringement because Ed Helms had a tattoo that was similar to the one he created for Mike Tyson. If it was taken to court, there was a good chance that Whitmill could have stopped the distribution of the film. But of course, Warner Bros. settled, because you’re not going to risk losing several million dollars.

So how does this relate to SOPA and PIPA? These are essentially copyright bills, designed to protect copyright by getting rid of online piracy through shutting down entire sites and cutting off their funds. The messed up thing is, even if the bill is passed, it won’t stop online piracy. There are simple workarounds to the proposed DNS blocking (sound familiar? That’s because China and Iran use DNS blocking). To use a Star Wars metaphor, this is basically the Death Star of copyright protection, where the lowest setting on the laser is “Destroy Internet.”

That’s all I got to say right now. Go call your Senators.

This would be a great strip to explain why I haven’t updated much this week, except that in this case, it wouldn’t be true. Around the holidays, though, this is the reason I don’t update much – I tend to visit family members that don’t have internet access.  So remember this comic the next time you visit Pretty Jeff and there hasn’t been an update in a week.

So in lieu of an actual update, I’ve decided to make another Hoops post and make fun of my younger self.

For the uninitiated, Hoops was a comic that I drew while I was in junior high and my freshman year of high school. It is about a stupid person named Hoops with a basketball for a head who travels across America and has crazy adventures with his friends. At one point, I tried to submit it to my local newspaper, The Toledo Blade, and was rejected in the gentlest way possible, considering the material at hand. You can read previous blog posts about Hoops here, here, and here. Click on the images for a slightly larger and less distorted view.

For those of you who have read the previous Hoops posts, you’ll know that Hoops has a bizarre habit of blowing himself up. His dedication to being consumed in large explosions is almost masochistic. But instead of delving into the psyche of Hoops and revealing the madness behind its creator, let’s look at some old comics instead.

Now, you may be thinking “This guy is an asshole.” But keep in mind that the character that blew up Hoops was Bomb, the character who has a bomb for a head. Due to the combustive nature of his head and Hoops’ obsession with blowing things up, the two don’t get along.

Now that you know a little backstory about Hoops and Bomb, you’re probably thinking “This guy Bomb is an asshole.” And you’d be right. But as we’ve seen in the world of Hoops, explosions don’t seem to be that big of a deal.

My dad is like this, so maybe that’s where I got the inspiration for this strip. “Which character?” you ask? Both of them. Seriously, my dad can be incredibly cheap, but if he feels like he’s found a good deal, he’ll jump on it and spend some serious dough. I have no idea why.

I was hoping that Hoops would die in the last panel, but it seems that my younger self disappointed me. Seriously, there are several storylines where Hoops dies but comes back to life with little trouble, as if to say “Hoops can never die.” Oddly enough, this aspect of the comic has carried over to Pretty Jeff, since I just got done with a storyline about Jeff going to Hell and another storyline where Jeff dies and becomes a ghost. And before that, there was a storyline where Jeff dies in a roller coaster accident but comes back to life. Spooky.

Nothing too special here. Basically, I wrote the same punchline for these two strips – fireworks will hunt you down and blow you to pieces.

And that apparently ends the Fourth of July story arc. Huh, that was actually pretty short. Well, I guess I’ll throw in a couple other strips to lengthen the blog post.

This one is actually autobiographical; another precursor to Pretty Jeff, if you will. One time, when I was a kid, I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but I was too tired to make it back to bed, so I went back to sleep in the bathtub. My dad, however, had to use the bathroom, and after a half hour of waiting, started knocking on the door to either wake me up or tell me to stop hogging the bathroom.

But Hoops isn’t a cute little kid, and as a result, the strip is a little weird.

Okay, this is probably a better conclusion to the Fourth of July storyline. Hoops’ brother, Foul (get it?), comes over to beat up Hoops for…blowing up his house? I don’t remember exactly, and I definitely don’t want to go through all these comics to find out.

Also, if you’re wondering about the helmet, Foul was in the Iraq War and apparently decided to keep his helmet on while he’s home. Yeah…not sure where I was going with that character trait.

Back to the fireworks, though. Hoops decides that the best way for him to get rid of his brother, who is pounding away at the door with all kinds of sibling aggression, would be to blow up the only barrier between him and Foul.

Funnily enough, it works.

Well, that’s enough Hoops for now. I’m not sure if I’ll do another post about Hoops anytime soon, since it’s sort of difficult to maintain interest in my old, lousy comics. But until then, consider the above comic as the last Hoops comic I ever drew, with Hoops buried beneath the smoldering rubble while his brother walks off into the night, never looking back.

Need to fix some things. Site will be back to normal soon.

So it’s been a while since I’ve talked about Hoops, and probably for the best. But I haven’t updated in a while, so I figure I’ll post some more embarrassing drawings to get me motivated. And these next few are pretty fucking embarrassing. Funnily enough, these comics are actually more recent than the past few comics I’ve shown.

So I forget how things got to this point, but it looks like I gave up on that whole “go to college” thing, since I think they finally got there. But I realized I don’t know anything about college, so now they’re vagrants, wandering around the United States and getting into all sorts of random trouble.

Like this little storyline. If you remember from my past posts (here and here), Hoops and his friends are bullied by three generic-looking assholes called The Bullies. Well, it seems that the Bullies are moving up in the world, as they’re now generic-looking mobsters. And they have small bits of individuality – Al is the leader who looks generic, Cal is the guy with an eyepatch, and Bone is the guy who never speaks and always carries around a suitcase (fun fact: say their names in that order really fast – wasn’t I so clever???).

So now the Bullies, with their new mafia status, decide that the best thing to do would be to kill Hoops and his friends instead of bully them, and they challenge them to a fight. Why, I don’t know. I don’t know what the events leading up to this comic were, but I’m pretty sure that Hoops and his friends were just goofing off and not doing anything to the Bullies. I guess it follows with the Bullies’ character – they are assholes, therefore they must fuck our heroes up.

And they’re joined by a team of mercenaries – Hockey, Scorch, Charge, and Scary Bob. No, those aren’t codenames – that is literally the sum of their character.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the battle takes place in a power transformer. I’ll admit that location isn’t too bad to have a fight in. But I could have the battle on the sinking Titanic while it’s on fire and it wouldn’t change the fact that I only drew a couple of background images for the whole 23 panel battle.

I remember when I drew this I was thinking “This is so EPIC!”

I don’t know why the hell one of the characters is standing on a skateboard during the fight. Is he going to grind on someone’s face? Is there a Cage of Doom that he and a mercenary have to skateboard in?

Also, it is sort of disappointing that Hockey (the guy with the dark face/hockey puck) doesn’t have a hockey stick or even dressed up like Jason Voorhees. I would totally pay for a mercenary who dresses up like Jason Voorhees and goes Friday the 13^th on someone’s ass. But no, the Bullies have to go mercenary-recruiting in the fucking locker room, because apparently all sports stars end up becoming hired killers. I mean, look at Football (the guy with the football head). He’s all set to fight this guy. And apparently, neither of them thought to bring any weapons. I mean, the spiky-head guy (Scorch, who’s head is supposed to be a flame) brought a flamethrower.

Oh, and of course, Scary Bob vs Hoops. Scary Bob can’t beat him because Hoops is an idiot. HA HA HA HA HA! SO! FUNNY! (uggh)

Note to everyone – if you want to discredit whatever you have to say, simply use the word “idiot” in the description. Examples include “I’m here to point out how some people are idiots” or “I talk about idiocy.” There is no faster way to make yourself look like a pretentious asshole than including a derogatory word like that as a description for your opponents or for certain aspects of society. And even using it in situations like this comic just makes me groan because you always have to have a pretentious character to show that the “village idiot” isn’t the intellectual average. Just…don’t use the word. Let’s just all retire it to the wasteland of socially-unacceptable words.

The climax of the battle! And what a climax! The Bullies pull out a rocket launcher and Hoops decides to throw his explosive friend (he has a bomb for a head) into the path of the rocket. It would be kind of badass (but still heartless) if the rocket had not exploded four feet away from Hoops and had actually resulted in some sort of explosive stalemate. Seriously, how does this make any sense? Is Hoops invulnerable to a certain kind of explosion? Why are the Bullies firing a rocket launcher at Hoops at point-blank range? How does a massive explosion that should destroy both parties end the battle with one party being victorious? In fact, why does neither party get injured and the Bullies just seem to walk away from the battle?

It’s really pointless to ask these questions, though, because it won’t change the fact that these stupid comics exist, and no amount of writing will get rid of them or change their content. In the end, Hoops and his friends succeed, they make friends with the mercenaries who tried to kill them, and then they drive off into the sunset, er, snow. All is well for our basketball-headed hero and he continues life as if nothing happened in the first place.

I once heard that you have a thousand bad drawings in you that you have to get out of your system before you can draw good drawings. I’m glad these are out of my system.