Showbits

RiffTrax, the comedy troupe composed of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni, earlier this year conducted their first Kickstarter. The plan was to raise enough funds to secure the rights for a one-night live riffing of Twilight. Having heard their MP3 riffs of this film, I was all in. The Twilight studio proved enthusiastic to work with RiffTrax but felt the timing wasn't right to dilute their sparkly vampire brand, so the comedy team moved onto their second choice: Starship Troopers.

Prepare for an explosion of funny.

The show was last Thursday, which I attended with my middle brother Dan and dozens of friends from the local Meetup group. I encouraged everyone to wait after the movie, as my Kickstarter pledge had earned my name an inclusion in the credits. Dan, in anticipation of seeing my name on the silver screen, pulled out his iPhone and started recording the credit sequence.

It didn't turn out quite how we expected.

How "Ken Gagné" became "Ken GagnŽ", I'll never know. But that'll teach me to be all fancy with my foreign accent marks.

Thanks for the riff, guys! An encore performance will occur on Thursday, September 12, at 7:30 PM. On August 30, tickets will go on sale for their next original live show: Night of the Living Dead!

UPDATE (5-Dec-13): Bill Corbett (aka Crow T. Robot) balanced the scales when he got my name right in the first 30 seconds of this Kickstarter thank-you video:

UPDATE (20-Dec-13): RiffTrax offered an official apology as a comment on the above Vimeo video.

Bill Corbett (whose birthday is today — happy birthday, Bill!) is a writer who knows no bounds: his comedic stylings have defined both RiffTrax and MST3K; the best parts of the Eddie Murphy film Meet Dave were his work; he even contributed to the animated short Max the Hero.

Television, film, live performances, animation — what remains? A graphic novel, of course! And that's exactly what Corbett has envisioned with his Kickstarter project for SUPER-POWERED REVENGE CHRISTMAS!.

The artwork will be drawn by Len Peralta, who formerly did the Geek a Week trading cards.

[Show as slideshow]

Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing platform that solicits pledges from the mass market to fund a project. This approach allows artists like Corbett to retain control of their creative vision without sacrificing it to meet the demands of a publisher. Perhaps that is why the final book will be made available as an e-book only and not in a dead trees edition printed for $100-level donors only. The project has until April 28th to raise a minimum of $23,000, or else no money is collected and the project doesn't happen, so pledge at least $15 to guarantee your copy of the finished novel this Thanksgiving!