My Captain America Minute

April 15, 2026
I was recently a guest on episode #49 of the ‘Captain America Minute’ podcast, hosted by Hal Bryan, Jim O’Kane, and Eisner Award Winning cartoonist, my good friend, Brian Fies.
Brian had invited me to guest on the podcast that breaks down the 2010 film, ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’, minute by minute. Each show they examine a minute of screentime of the film and what is happening. They usually have guests like engineers to talk logistics and actors who were in the film at that particular minute.
When Brian asked me, I was excited because I’m a devoted listener of the show and this is not only about my favorite superhero of all time (since I was about seven), but one of my favorite movies. I said, “I would love to come on your show but I had nothing to do with the film and I’m not an engineer or technical expert in anything. What could I possibly have to talk about?”
Brian assured me that I was the perfect person to have on the show that pertained to this specific minute, minute 0:49. In this moment, Steve Rogers is in his costume and about to go out on stage at a USO show as Captain America to sell war bonds. Brian felt that since I’m an actor and have actually portrayed Captain America before- I really did wear that costume- I was qualified to speak to the situation.
It turned out extremely well actually, we talked about playing heroes, which I have done many times in my career as a struggling actor and stuntman. I’ve played Robin Hood and Batman as well as other heroes in shows since my very first play in middle school as a fireman saving the heroine ‘Penelope, Pride of the Pickle Factory’. So I did have something to say about portraying a hero.
One of the fondest memories I have of playing Captain America happened in 1995, and I mentioned it on the podcast. I was portraying Cap for Marvel Comics back then, going to store openings doing meet n’ greet stuff, shaking hands with children and signing autographs as Captain America. I would just write ‘CAP’ with a star taking the place of the ‘A’. I felt that this is how Captain America would have signed autographs.
Well after one of those gigs, I had heard that a friend of mine, actor and artist Federico Castellucio, was having a big gala event being held for him at a restaurant on the lower east side of Manhattan. He had finished a massive mural on a wall at the outside dining area of the restaurant, and he asked me to come to the gala if I could. So I had an idea, I would get into the Cap costume (I didn’t have to return the costume until after the weekend) and go to the gala and surprise him. I told Federico that I couldn’t make it, and that I was sorry.
That night, I drove my blue pickup into Manhattan in full costume, the mask pulled back and away from my face of course. I didn’t want anyone to see me in the mask driving, that wouldn’t be right. I got near the restaurant, but the area was packed and I couldn’t find parking for a while. I ended up parking my truck a long 2 blocks away. I put on the mask and climbed out of the cab, grabbed my shield, and turned to go. And I thought, ‘Wait I can’t just walk over there, Cap doesn’t just stroll down the street at night, and it was the lower east side, I might get mugged. That wouldn’t look good. Besides, Marvel would have had a fit if anything happened to the suit since this was not a sanctioned thing I was doing. If they found out about it, I’d be in big trouble.
So I started running. Heroically, with big strides and a determined expression. All the way down one long block, around the corner, and on to the next long block. I was coming up on a couple strolling along the sidewalk and with smiling urgency said, “One side, citizen!” I ran another few paces and from the top 4^th or 5^th floor of an old brownstone I heard someone yell from a window, “Go get ‘em, Cap!”
That is one of the most memorable moments of my life, honestly. From being a little kid reading Captain America comics up in a tree by my dusty house in Phoenix, dreaming of being Captain America, to the dark treacherous streets of New York City, living it out. I still get such joy from remembering that moment. I like to think that that guy believed for one little second that Captain America was real.
I arrived at the restaurant, trying to hide my heavy breathing, and went up to the Maître d’ who stood at a small black podium just outside the front door. He looked at me with subdued surprise as I stood before him, he unconsciously looked down at his reservation book, and then quickly back. He finally began to say something and I said, “I don’t have a reservation, I’m just here to pay my respects to the artist.”
He pointed to the back of the restaurant’s outdoor seating area. I thanked him and complimented him on doing such a great job.
The restaurant was packed with diners, not formally dressed but all dressed very nice, and they watched me cross the dining area, shield in hand, as I casually saluted them and said, “Good evening.”
Federico was speaking with someone, probably a beautiful woman, and as I walked heroically up to him his jaw dropped.
“Oh my God,” he said, “Is that Jus-“
I cut him off, “You must be the artist, Mr. Castellucio!” I shook his hand. Admiring the gorgeous 70 foot tall mural, and said, “This is some truly fine work sir.”
He began to laugh and seemed a little embarrassed but really happy.
I told him that I had to go, that there was some kind of robbery happening somewhere or villain on the loose or something, some kind of heroic excuse to bug out. I didn’t want to stay long, just a short sharp shock and then I was out. I walked back out of the restaurant in character still, wishing the diners a pleasant evening. Then I ran back to my truck and, with a grin that began to hurt my face, headed back to New Jersey.

I often look back on my life as an actor and think about how hard it was, how embarrassing it was at times, how often times painful, and how hungry I was. But moments like that confirm that I would never do it differently.

Here’s a link to the podcast: https://www.capminute.com/cm/

An Observation From My Trip Through SNL.

Feb 20, 2026
Since last spring, I’ve been binge-watching every episode of Saturday Night Live. It’s been a fun ride through nearly five decades of this cultural chronicle, but this season I’m watching now, the 45th season (from Fall of 2019) has been chilling. Their political parodies just aren’t hitting as cute anymore because of where we are now, some six years later. Giuliani and other Trump sycophants, the illegal activities of the administration that have gone by forgotten, seeing Kamala, Biden, and Tulsi Gabbard in the mock debates, it’s just an awful feeling knowing how this all builds to what has happened politically by early 2026. Even at that time they were stressing the disaster that Trump and his gang of authoritarian bullies were, and the feeling under all of that was a mild fear, comparatively.
Perhaps even more than the politics, I just keep thinking, ‘these people have no idea what’s just around the corner’- Covid, the insurrection, the fall of the Supreme Court, our complete loss of moral status on the world stage, Epstein… I just watched the first mention of Epstein, it came on Weekend Update Dec 21, 2019. It was related to Prince Andrew and it was treated as humorous and not a really big deal. There has been no mention yet of Covid although it had started by this time in Asia and was spreading. I think I remember hearing of it in National news by that Fall of ’19. When they do mention it for the first time on Weekend Update, it will be interesting to see how they handle it. They likely will not be taking it seriously, or as something to be worried about. They couldn’t know that about 1,235,000 Americans will die from it and, by the end of 2022, the infection rate would stand at 77.5% in the United States and as of February of 2026, 200,000 deaths still occur from Covid in the US every year. It’s not over.
This SNL journey continues to be an incredible hindsight trip through nearly 50 years of American cultural and political history, we have nothing else like it. But now because of our current tragic reality it’s just getting eerie and sad.

Out 25, In 26.

Dec. 31, 2025

Yep, the remaining grit of 2025 is falling to the bottom of the glass and it’s time for me to look back at my year. It was eventful, good things happened, but it did have its challenges. As much as I tried to avoid it, the political nonsense really chipped away at my frame of mind and now at year’s end I admit to struggling a bit because of it. I gotta do better with that in the coming year.

On the difficult side, I had two trips to the emergency room and a couple of operations last summer into autumn and then moved right after it, which was really challenging. But I’m doing fine now. My 9-yr old cat Bucky had to get an operation on his paw, he got a cut and opened it up somehow on something. He’s doing fine now too. A friend and (Peanuts) colleague passed away this year, and two volunteer organizations I was involved with ended; The Mentor Project and The Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. The loss of all of them stings.

I had the honor of donating my time and efforts to a few things: 1) Reviewing films and working the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, and leading a couple of filmmaker Q & As during the festival weekend. 2) Teaching my class at the Erasmus High School in Brooklyn for a week last January, and 3) Narrating Peter and the Wolf with the Santa Rosa symphony orchestra in the spring. I also did volunteer work for a Secret Santa charity a few weeks ago, I love doing things like that. It counters the hard times.

Good stuff; My MythTickle book just got published so I spent the first few weeks mailing my books out. So fun!!! (some books still available at www.mythtickle.com )

I saw my son perform in three musicals, had my own table and sold my books at two mini comic-con type events, and my girlfriend Lori and I went on the inaugural ‘Comic-Con The Cruise’ where I got to give a speech, a talk, and an art demo about Charles Schulz and ‘Peanuts’. I even managed to sell 9 or 10 of my MythTickle books on the ship. During a break in the cruise, I celebrated my 63rd birthday at Margaritaville and ran around some Mayan ruins in Cozumel. After the cruise I was honored by a performance at the Miami Children’s Museum of a staged musical adaptation of my Peanuts book, ‘If I Gave The World My Blanket’. 

Lori and I saw two different Cirque De Soleil shows, Hugh Bonneville, Shaina Taub in SUFFS, Sturgill Simpson, Johnny Mathis, George Takei, Jerry Seinfeld, and William Shatner in performance. We adopted a kitten and moved in together last September and we’re very happy. I marched in a protest, and celebrated one of my best friends getting a huge publishing deal. That’s huge for me too, since I love the guy.

I played Falstaff in a wonderful outdoor bare-bones production of Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ and got nominated for best performer in a play by ‘Broadway World’ for doing it. This is very special to me because of how I struggled through that show. During the dates of performance I was in between those two aforementioned hospital stays. I was in pain and not in the best of health. I got cast in the musical ‘Hello Dolly’, which will be in performance in April next year. I’m going to try and do this one without having to deal with any health problems. It should feel a lot easier.

I got some travel in, went to southern Florida, Seattle, San Diego, Las Vegas, Mexico, New York City, and a brief time in Phoenix, where I got to spend time with a couple of my oldest and dearest friends. 

For 2026 I will travel to Hawaii again, perform some more, and find some new volunteer work to dive into. 

I will set the intention to keep trying to put my best work out there and despite the troubles in our country, strive to see the good, stay hopeful, and be positive. 

I wish you all a very happy and productive new year.

Post Mortem

Sept. 2014
If you’re reading this I will assume that you’ve read the entire Underworld Saga ‘Redux’, and I hope you really enjoyed it. It’s the longest story I ever wrote for MythTickle and I remember that when I first wrote it over four years ago I began with an idea and didn’t plan where I was going to go with it nor knew what was going to happen. At the first I wanted to kill Boody and have him enjoy an adventure in an afterlife but I didn’t know that Dudley would go after Boody and wind up in a different afterlife and I didn’t have any notion of what I’d do for an ending. I just wrote it moment by moment, and no farther ahead than maybe three strips. It was an exercise in creative writing that happily turned out well. If the saga was new for you I’m very glad to have you along.
I thought I’d just write a note about this, nothing major, just wanted to say thanks for indulging my rerun and thanks for staying with me. The time off that I’ve had from the strip these last few months has allowed me to focus more on my health and I have to tell you that I am a much healthier and better guy now than I was last April. My knees rarely hurt anymore and I’ve dropped 25 pounds since then. And I can carry my daughter up and down the stairs in my arms with ease. It’s a great feeling to have all that weight off my knees, go down two full waist sizes, and wear my old favorite shirts again. Somehow now I have to try to keep my work, gym, and MythTickle schedule juggled effectively. I really don’t know how I’m going to do this but we’ll see.

I also want to clear something up:
The recent cartoon I posted on Sept. 17th seemed to garner some sympathy comments which isn’t what I was going after at all. I was making an allusion to the recent free download of U2’s new album on iTunes. Some people got that, but I wanted to clarify this for people who didn’t understand what I was trying to do. I kept it subtle because I like subtle, especially in comics. My readers are smart people, they pick up on ‘subtle’. But if the comic was too obscure then I congratulate you on not being so tuned-in on pop culture and the snarkiness of the web. After U2 made their new album available this week to everyone on iTunes for free and uploaded it to their “cloud”, I was really surprised at the resentment and even anger I saw on the internet from many people. I read things such as “an infringement on my account”, “trespassing”, and “forcing” their album on the public. I was just astounded at the derisiveness for a band who made their album free for everyone. They didn’t download it onto anyone’s device, just made it available. If people didn’t want it, they were free to delete it and not download it. But oh boy, the hipsters and wanna-be rock critics were in a uproar. I only wish they could get that angry and active at election time.
I got to wondering about that, “No thanks, damn you!” perspective and how I believe it proves that artists can ironically damage themselves by giving away their content. It seems so silly, one would think they would be thanked. Or at the least, “thanked but no thanks”… thanked. Yet many people want to burn Bono in effigy right now. For giving them a new album for free. I just don’t get it. But what about other people who give their talent away? The artists who aren’t already rich rock stars. Artists who seed their paintings onto the city walls and streets, actors who perform shows for nothing, non-syndicated web cartoonists, and musicians who perform in the subways and street corners, all of these noble artists are looked down upon by most people, sometimes even as harshly as a mime. YIKES! The thinking is, “If it’s free it can’t be that good. Must be crap”.
I wish I could figure out a way to make this perspective change but it seems impossible in our fabulous ‘übercapitalist’ culture, I can’t even imagine what it would take. People rarely look past a price tag to value content or talent.
But anyway, that last frame wasn’t about a pity-party for me, I wanted to have someone respond to Karma with the line “You too?”, as in ‘U2’, but I couldn’t think of anyone in the strip who gives their work away to the public for free, except yours truly. Sure I wish I were syndicated in newspapers, even if it were Sundays only (which is the only way I think MythTickle could survive in papers really). But I have many web comic artist friends who aren’t even syndicated on the web like I am from Universal, who have to distribute their work on their own websites and try to pull readers over to them, who have been struggling for years and their work is absolutely amazing- far superior to most of what I see in the newspaper. Not every strip in the paper, but most. That comic wasn’t about me, more for my web cartoonist colleagues who aren’t paid something by the syndicate like I am. My fault for not being clear on that, it was a complicated thought and I tried but wasn’t clear enough. Mea culpa.
I guess my message is, think twice about the artists of every stripe who are just putting it all out there just so you’ll notice them, and appreciate them. Maybe give them a break. Maybe open up a Sunday paper and think, ‘Gee, that’s not very funny or imaginative. Why is that even in here when there’s so much more unique work being done out there in the cold?’ Or maybe you’ll hear a song and think, ‘Why am I hearing this person on my radio? I heard someone in the subway yesterday who’s voice could melt this singer to ashes.’
Then write a letter.

My Inner Voice Is A Movie?

I just put this on again and I’m blown away by what I realized.

Listening to (only partially watching) ‘Annie Hall’ again is becoming revelatory for me right now. I’m realizing (1) how much of this film I have actually memorized, and (2) what a pervasive influence it has been throughout my life for whatever reason. Lines from this film pop into my head nearly every day and I know that they have since I first saw it when it came out. I was 13 then and I had never seen anything like it before. For some people the film that blew their mind was maybe ‘The Godfather’, or ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, but ‘Annie Hall’ was my monolith-moment. It made me climb up to a new shelf, to think differently. It caused me to listen to humor differently, want to read more, and it made me want to go to New York.
And be in love.

It must have been that it hit me at that crucial age and time when we most change. The edge of teen when we begin falling into a world of change and start grasping for sense. My parents had recently divorced, I started going to my first new school since first grade, and suddenly there was this totally different kind of movie on the screen which has, over nearly 40 years now, dogmatically guided my perceptions and responses to life’s moments as I go along. I’m sitting here now realizing how often these lines have bullhorned inside my brain all this time and I have so often repeated, sometimes involuntarily. “That’s OK, we can walk to the curb from here”,
“Oh really? Well I happen to have Marshall McCluhan right here. So…”,
“… but, uh, I guess we keep going through it because most of us… need the eggs.”
“..a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.”
“Darling. I’ve been killing spiders since I was 30.”
“I forgot my mantra.”
and of course ultimately, “…what we got on our hands,.. is a dead shark.”

It’s just extraordinary discovering something like this, I feel like this is something very significant that would have come out of me on a therapist’s couch after two or three years of whining.
The question now is, what do I do with this information?

Kickstarting?

First off, my second new knee is doing really well and I’m settling into the idea of having a set. I’m not limping much anymore and that’s good.
So, news; Firstly, that Venus strip today (May 15^th), is the first of a 4 or maybe 5 part little series so I hope you enjoy these new ones. I’ve recently written about 30 new strips that I think are really fun, I just can’t seem to get the time I need to ink and color them. But I’m trying, I really am. I’m running on very little sleep this week, preparing these strips, but damn it’s fun to get back into it. I’m really enjoying doing this. I was supposed to have written this blog you are now reading last night but I fell asleep on the couch before I could even get a few words down. That’s why it’s posting a little late.
Secondly, ‘Kickstarter’: Have you heard of this? Where you hit up your fans on the internet and try to raise money for your project? My buddy Alexis Fajardo of ‘Kid Beowulf’ recently did it and he funded the publication of his lasted book (I’m glad to say I helped) and now I’m wondering if I should do that to raise the money for the new MythTickle book. Whether I do Kickstarter or not, I will have a new book this year, likely this fall. What is attractive about Kickstarter is you get your funding to publish your book and the fans who contribute are guaranteed a copy. What I don’t like about it is if you don’t raise enough money to reach the goal, you don’t get any money and you look like a total failure and have no confidence to ever even think about publishing a book or doing anything creative ever again. Also, it seems like… I don’t know, there’s just something… desperate or “beggy” about it. It’s never seemed ‘overly classy’ to me, but I’m just too old school I guess. It looks like this is how things are done now so maybe I should just get over myself and do it. Let me know what you think about this, OK?
One last thing, I checked my subscription numbers yesterday over at GoComics and was just blown away. I don’t look at that very often, maybe once every 4 or 5 months or so, and I saw that I’m very close to having 10,000 subscribers! I am so happy! Mainly because I do hardly ANY promotion for the comic and I still seem to be growing and that tells me it’s all word of mouth. That’s all about YOU guys!

Thank you so much for spreading the word around to your friends, please keep that going.

Worst Day, Best Day, what’s the diff?

Hi Gang,
I’m glad you like this strip, I actually did a version of this a very long time ago. So long ago that I had completely forgotten about it. I think it might have been way back when I was on Comics Sherpa, before GoComics. I never reran it because I remember getting one bad comment on it so I didn’t want anyone to see it. I don’t even remember what it said but it hurt me and I couldn’t rerun it so I completely forgot about it. Then something happened and triggered the memory a few days ago so I completely reblocked and redrew it and there ya’ go. See how crummy comments can hurt a strip? I like this and I wish I could think of more strips like this. Hopefully in future I can.

Anyway, in other news, my knee continues to heal. I am getting better, although it seems that every time I go to physical therapy I strain it and I get set back a few weeks. I’m at that point where the pain is just SUCH a freaking’ nuisance. But it’s a hump I have to get over and I can be patient. I’m only using my cane about 40% of the time now so that is encouraging. But I really do love that cane. I like pointing at stuff with it and turning out the lights to my office with it. It’s cool like that.

Work: If you guys want to keep following my work outside of MythTickle, you can buy the monthly Peanuts comic books that are published by KABOOM! comics. I always do something in every issue, lately I’ve been inking and coloring. I rearrange the old Schulz Sunday strips into a vertical format (not an easy thing to do since they were designed to be seen horizontally and so obviously the frames don’t always line up) and that is a fun and challenging task. Always a bit of a puzzle, really. There are usually three of those per issue and I always do the reformatting on all and usually color about 2 of them. I will likely be traveling back to Japan again in mid April on Peanuts business, I’ll keep you all posted on that.

So that’s about it for the progress report, if there are any questions feel free to ask, I’l answer them.
Cheers!
-Justin

Ra, Ra, Sis-Boom-Bah.

Briefly, here’s what’s going on with me:
My knee is healing just fine, there’s still a lot of pain and rehab is a bitch but it’s all good. This knee is healing much better and faster than the left one did a year ago. So that helps my spirit when facing those excruciating exercises and rehab treatments. I’m still working from home but hope to be back up to my office at the Peanuts Studio in Santa Rosa this coming Monday.

So in the earlier saga, Robin Hood, Karma, Sir Dudley, and Boody travel to ancient Egypt to gather new bees (because the bee population here, all but dwindled). They heard that they were referred to in that time as ‘the tears of Ra’. With the help of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti, the wife of Ra, they tricked Ra into shedding ‘tears’ and they herded the bees through the time portal they created with the ‘Go-Yo’. Ra, angry at being tricked, plots revenge on the heroes who took his tears.

Here’s a little bit of background on how I made the choices I made with this mini-saga.
I love Egyptian mythology I’ve always loved it. It’s probably my favorite pantheon to read about and study. In fact when I was in high school, I studied it so much that I was all set on going to college for archaeology. But I grew up in Arizona and I soon saw that studying archaeology in Arizona meant that over the next several years I would pretty much be digging up and studying Native American pots. Looking back at that now, I think it would be fascinating but back then I wanted no part of that. Now, here in my MythTickle world, I can play with this pantheon and do whatever I want. In a HUGE saga I wrote about four years ago, Boody actually dies and winds up going into the Egyptian afterlife and meets Anubis, Horus, and Ma’at. I had the most fun I’ve ever had doing this strip while creating that story and I hope to rerun it for you soon.
Here’s the poop on the gods represented in this storyline.

Ra is the God of the Sun, and really the big palooka.
He’s the lord of all the Egyptian gods and is usually shown in human form with a falcon head, crowned with the sun disc encircled by a sacred cobra. After a bunch of sketches I thought the sun disc was a more suitable image for his head than a falcon, plus a gigantic head sorts well with his ego. His leather pants and boots are pure Jim Morrison. Why? I don’t know, I just thought it would be funny if Ra sort of idolized ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ and copped his look.

Ra sailed across the heavens in a boat called Mesektet. Hang in there with this saga and you will see him in this boat a little later. Or, just look at the drawing above, I guess.

Toth is the god of wisdom and knowledge, shown with an Egyptian ibis head. So he’s a professor, a brain guy, a scribe, the kind of dude Ra would go to for answers. Toth is usually shown wearing a crown consisting of a crescent moon topped by a moon disk. Meh, not funny. I drew him wearing a graduation cap, it’s much more scholarly looking. There’s a reference to Sekhmet in part 5, and she being at camp. Sekhmet is the daughter of Ra and a fierce and scary warrior princess. She is depicted with a lioness head and her breath actually created the desert. More from heat than odor, I’m sure.

Toth here thinks about unleashing Sekhmet’s wrath and terror upon the world again but alas, she’s at camp and unavailable. Why is she at camp? Kids go to camp sometimes, why not? My son is at a three day camping outing with his school right now as a matter of fact.

I hope this answers some questions,

Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll try to keep coming up with things to write here.

Justin

Oh, PS!
I want to mention an astounding movie that I recently watched. It moved me so much, its message is so profound, that I really want you all to see it. I’m actually BEGGING you all to see it. It’s the most important film I’ve ever seen. Rent this, please:

‘I Am’, by Tom Shadyac. Yes, the ‘Ace Ventura’ Tom Shadyac.

Here’s what it looks like, please watch this. It’s what I’m all about.

What Did You Expect?

So let’s move on, OK?
Some people seem genuinely disappointed that the world didn’t end today, isn’t that messed up? Not only does that come off as a tad selfish, but I have to wonder- have these people grown so bored with real life that a ‘Michael Bay Day’ really sounds like the best alternative to a hum-drum afternoon?
So do it!
What better day than today to blow up some aspect of your life that you would rather not live with anymore? Be it an old hanger-on friend who you just can’t stand but don’t have the heart to blow off, or really face that personal fear or horrible bad habit that you have and declare a doomsday on it.
Think about how empowering that is. Choose today rather than January first to make that life-changing resolution.
You have the power to blow up your own world and change it, and if you do that- you’re bad ass! You’re Galactus, Cthulu, Shiva, all of them!
Don’t feel all powerless and shaky, looking up at the sky today, thinking about it all happening upon you,….
Make a change to be that better person you’ve always wanted to be, today is the perfect day.

Doomsday comes but once in a lifetime.

The Hobbit

No spoilers here,
but I assume that 90% of you readers of my comic strip are familiar with what happens in the story anyway. I was not. I never read Tolkien (not for lack of trying, believe me) so I went in cold and didn’t know what would happen in the movie. Now I feel really lucky for this because I was completely involved in this movie the whole time. If I knew the book I wouldn’t have been invested in the action I don’t think. I would have remained ‘outside’ and been nit-picking on what was in the book and what they left out and such. Man, it was incredible! Honestly, I’m not a LOTR fan, but a week ago I went to a marathon showing of all three films in a row on the big screen. I went with William, my 10 yr old son and we sat there from 11:00 AM to 11:30 PM, an entire day in Middle Earth. I thought I would be in hell but y’know? Seeing all three of them like that in a row as one long story- I finally ‘got it’. I saw the big picture, the whole story, and I really liked it. Maybe that’s what opened me up to the Hobbit movie.

But I have to say it was by far a much better movie than any of the other three are, mainly because this movie had such a great sense of humor to it. The characters and even some of the antagonists were genuinely funny and I SO appreciated that. It was quite a welcome change from the other LOTR movies where everyone seemed to be crying every five minutes. That got tiresome for me very quickly. But The Hobbit had a wonderful balance to it, the drama and action were perfectly balanced and offset by the frequent humor and it all complimented itself beautifully.
And what imagination and art! It was a total feast for me visually but what kept me really involved the most was that these ‘heroes’ were such underdogs, they are up against so much and they just keep going forward with ultimate confidence. How can you not love that?

I haven’t read any reviews on it yet but I hope they are good so I don’t look like an idiot for writing all of this. I hope you all like it too.

I’ll write again soon, post-surgery.

Cheers,
Justin