I always really like these chain-wrestling sequences when they’re done, but the layouts and pencils are a nightmare (not Danny Davis).
In other news, my friend Dan and I are starting a YouTube show about wrestling, called Super Wrestling Funtime! We recorded the first four episodes last night, and should have an episode about the Cruiserweight Classic posted this week.
Next Week: Replace chain wrestling with FLIPZ. Read it now by supporting HEAT on Patreon!
“It was all going so well, and then he kicked my balls into my lungs.” Actually, that’s a better punchline than what I wrote in the comic. Pretend I wrote that instead.
I’m watching a lot of ’90s All Japan recently, as followers of the blog and my Twitter are likely aware, and I’ve reached the interesting post-NOAH split period. It’s a pretty big step down in match quality for a few years, with an aging and kind of boring at that point Keiji Mutoh taking over the company and carrying the Triple Crown. 2003 starts to pick up again, as Kawada recovers from injuries and gets the long run with the Triple Crown that was probably intended for him several years earlier. Kawada had a fantastic match with Shinjiro Otani to capture the belt, then a less fantastic but still pretty good bout with Tenryu. He also beat Mike Awesome in 3 minutes in the tournament semi-final prior to wrestling Otani, which was just pretty funny. I think he legitimately knocked Awesome out with a soccer kick to the head.
Next Week: Bust a gut.
I should probably explain the title of this one. For that, I shall turn to YouTube and our favourite melting wrestler, Yoshihiro Takayama.
Everest German suplex. Fuck yeah. That was a ton of fun to draw. I frequently air doodle German suplexes when I’m warming up to draw, so it was fun to actually get to draw one with pencil on paper. I think this did a much better job of conveying the motion of the German suplex than the last few times it’s been busted out. This is, as of the time of this news post, my favourite HEAT page thus far. Most pages don’t stay my favourite for long, because I draw a crapload of these things, so I’m sure I’ll have a new favourite page before the end of the year.
Next Week: Special Man Pain gets into Star Wars territory.
Why do people keep letting me come up with strip titles? WHY? Naturally, they get even worse after the 24 Hour Comic Challenge which I did this weekend. More on that when I’m not exhausted.
The reference I used for the second panel was from Bret Hart and Owen Hart’s WrestleMania X classic, which is one of my top 5 matches of all time. So instead of me continuing to use my thinking brain, watch that:
Next Week: Dick the Bastard channels his inner Yoshihiro Takayama. Or Akira Tozawa. Or some other Japanese wrestler who drops people on their heads. So… all of them.
I just spent a solid two minutes trying to come up with a name for this strip. It was not two minutes well spent. You know what’s a better way to spend time now that you’ve read the strip? Check out the Vader vs. Misawa match I posted on the HEAT blog. It’s about 20 minutes and awesome. Vader does an actual, proper, moonsault. It’s terrifying.
As people who follow my Twitter are already aware, I’ve been watching a lot of All Japan Pro Wrestling lately, and as a result I’ve seen a shitload of back suplexes, which are for some reason called back drops. While this particular back suplex drops Smashmouth Smith mostly on his neck and shoulders, it’s not nearly as brutal looking as the shit Misawa was taking on a nightly basis. The King’s Road was lined with skulls of CTE sufferers, apparently. Oof. Still, the matches. Oh man. They’re good.
Next: Bret Hart was used for photo reference, and also I need to do another bulk scanning day. Not a fan of those days.
It turns out that I have a lot of fun drawing headlocks. They’re something I find myself doodling quite a bit, along with German suplexes and lariats. You may or may not see both of those moves before the end of this match, he said, unsubtly hinting at the next few pages.
In other news, Edmonton Expo is coming up on September 28th and 29th! I’ll be at the Renegade Arts Entertainment booth promoting Jeff Martin’s The War of 1812, so stop by, say hi, and check out all of the cool stuff at the booth!
Next Week: Cockiness is a bitch. So are hammerlocks.
Instead of updating during RAW I… forgot to update because I was watching RAW. Crap. Three hour RAWs are surprisingly watchable thus far, however, so I’m optimistic about that going forward. I kind of assume that all of you reading this watch RAW, because… well, you’re reading a wrestling webcomic, so why wouldn’t you be somebody who watches RAW? That just makes good sense.
Blorg’s line in the third panel might be one of my favourites he’s had, although I should preface that with the fact that by the time I post these comics, I usually can’t remember what they’re about until I see the preview graphic, so remembering lines that I wrote months ago isn’t really a thing I do regularly. Speaking of video games, though, I just picked up a half price copy of WWE ’12. My Dick the Bastard create-a-wrestler is almost complete, barring some minor tweaking, but apparently you have to pay to use the online mode if you bought the game used. What the fuck, THQ? I’m already paying for Xbox Live, and you want more money to play one game on it? Eat a Dick… the Bastard. That was awful. Anyway, if you can upload creations without paying for their Online Axxess BS then I’ll put him online so you guys can download him if you want to. Next up, Mad Doc Crockett, who should be a little easier since his finisher is actually a thing that exists in the game, whereas Ragnar’s Revenge isn’t even possible in the create a finisher mode.
I can’t remember when, but at some point I decided that the exploder would be one of Dick’s signature moves, as at the point of the decision I had drawn a few matches already and was starting to build his arsenal of moves. I may have chosen differently had I realized that finding photo reference for the exploder is a pain in the balls.
This news post is long. I shall stop now.
Next week: Uno needs to make a tag. So does Dick the Bastard, but he can’t. So Uno is the only one whose need to tag is particularly relevant. Cool? Cool.
The title for this strip comes from Mick Foley’s first book, Have a Nice Day, in which he tells a story about WCW becoming so PC in the early ’90s that they referred to foreign objects as international objects. I have no idea if that story is actually true, having not watched WCW at the time and being far too lazy to go look it up right now, but I think it’s ridiculous enough to be plausible. I think “Dead!” might be my favourite onomatopoeia of the last few months, and probably my second favourite of the series behind “Ptooth!”
Because I forgot to post it along with HEAT 158, here’s Dick and Ron’s entrance music (which is also Ron’s music as a singles wrestler):
On Saturday: Either Ron gets the three count, or gets kicked in the face. Maybe both.
Plot mover AND the insinuation that the Warden is a) a racist, and, b) doesn’t realize that racism isn’t cool. Also, a perfectly good Spanish word has been ruined forever.
The side headlock in panel one was a lot of fun to draw, and I think made the page a little more interesting than just Doc and the Warden talking. Although the Warden’s awkward cough turned out better than I was expecting it to.
Fun facts about current projects: A pitch for a British magazine resulted in me learning that Canada and the United States are the only two countries that use 8.5 x 11″ paper dimensions instead of A4 (8.3 x 11.7″). I could probably just go out and buy some A4 paper, but I found a whole bunch of Legal-sized paper in my basement so I measured out borders on it and got to work without having to leave my house. Becasue that outside shit is scary. I also learned that I really like turning “nothing” moments into action sequences (I do it a fair bit in my print series, Hell, Inc.). Hell, Inc. doesn’t lend itself to combative action like HEAT does, so I have to find action in other places. Like putting toner in a photocopier, or hoping the elevator shows up before somebody you don’t want to talk to gets there.
On Saturday: Off to Prison Asteroid 17E. And yet another homage to Bobby “The Brain” Heenan.
