In the words of Jesus Christ, "It is finished."

My small backlog of "Up to Bat" comics has been uploaded over at www.uptobat.blogspot.com. I'm going to attempt to make this a weekly thing, but you know how that goes ("Disembodied Animal Head Theatre," anyone?)

Speaking of DAHT, I also have episode four uploaded to www.daht.blogspot.com. Why did it take so long, you may ask? The truth of the matter is, my collection of animal grabber toys is very limited at the moment. I've been just about everywhere trying to find more, but no one carries them. Correction: They have them at the zoo, but I'm not sure I want to pay $10 admission just to buy $5 worth of cheap, plastic toys (although I've spent more than that in gas money trying to find a store that sells them.) So I concocted this whole "labor dispute" plotline to excuse the fact that I don't have a full ensemble at my disposal.

(On a related note, I'm curious how many people thought that I had more than just the giraffe and flamingo? I tried to create the illusion of a much larger cast, and I wonder how successful I was in that attempt. Let me know?)

You may also note that Tex's mouth doesn't work so well in the better lit shots of episode 4. Yeah. His mouth has lost most of its elasticity so I installed a piece of ribbon elastic to keep his mouth closed. I have a ton of Tex pictures that I'll post later on today (cross you fingers and hold your breath!) that show his construction in more detail. Trust me, seeing that bicycle brake sticking out of his ass is pretty impressive.

I'm still learning much from this mad, rubber chicken-involved experiment. For instance, the importance of matching lighting between shots. Watch episode 4: the mismatch between shots is glaringly bad. Pun intended. I'm very proud of the edits in terms of matching action (I taped the full-shot on Thursday and the close-up on Saturday.) If Tex's mouth had been working right and if the lighting had been more harmonious, I think the whole thing would come off seamlessly.

Oh yeah ... after I put together episode 2, I noticed that the black and white inserts looked hand held (I was moving Tex back and forth towards the camera.) So in episode 4, look for a slow "dolly in" on Tex towards the end of the monologue (really just me moving the puppet closer to the camera.) Stupid simple, and subtly effective.

Well, as subtly effective as a rubber chicken performing Shylock can be!