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The Nathan’s Famous 4th of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island is tomorrow at 12pm ET, airing live on ESPN!
The story over the last 5 years has been all about Takeru Kobayashi, a 144-pound Japanese guy who’s won the contest 5 straight times by absolutely ANNIHILATING the rest of the field, including a bunch of 400-pound dudes who think that just cuz they’re fat they can eat a lot. Kobayashi, the greatest competitive eater of all-time, set the record in ‘04 by eating 53.5 hot dogs in the contest’s 12-minute time limit. WTF. FIFTY-THREE AND A HALF HOT DOGS. INCLUDING THE BUNS. He’s consistently destroyed his competitors, in ‘02 winning by 24 dogs. It’s been so lopsided that it’s actually been kind of boring and Kobayashi has talked about retirement.
But this year could be different. Here come the Americans. The 2nd place finisher in last year’s contest was Sonya Thomas, a 100-pound Korean-American woman who set the American record with 37 hot dogs, and who’s been improving on her own marks rapidly over the last few years. And the really exciting news? On May 18, a 22-year-old Californian named Joey Chestnut broke Thomas’ American record by plowing through 50 dogs in a qualifying event. So we may have an ACTUAL race this year. Tune in tomorrow!
I’ve been tempted to hold eating contests before (all-you-can-eat sushi places are especially tempting), but I never went through with any of ‘em cuz I know I’d lose. I eat a lot, but I eat real slow. But who hasn’t been curious to see how many hot dogs they can actually eat in one sitting - never mind the official 12-minute time limit?
Support aLp by advertising!
I’m offering advertising space now, so if you have any sort of website you’d like to show off, this’d be a great way to support us and attract a bunch of new visitors to your site. Click here for details!
Twisted Kaiju Theater - Our first main banner advertiser (top right of the page) is TKT, a webcomic that’s featured photos of action figures (Godzilla, in this case) for way longer than I have. Be sure to check out the series he did as an homage to aLp!
Minus - This webcomic is extraordinary; it’s about a kid named Minus who’s got more imagination that Calvin, without the nasty streak. The watercolor work especially makes this comic one big dream you don’t wanna wake up from.
Comments on this comic (15)
Schedule Say Relax
Hey everyone… sorry but I gotta slow down a bit again, if only temporarily. A lot of things are ramping up for me right now and I gotta be able to focus, or else I’ll screw all of it up. This dance probably looks familiar to you, but the difference this time is I still got plenty of comics in me, not to mention a storyline I’m dying to complete. HONEST!
You can expect new episodes “every 1-2 weeks” now… so this ain’t a hiatus, or the end. When I took breaks in the past I had doubts about the future of aLp, but not this time. aLp is gonna live on for a lot of reasons. I just need to lift the stress that my once-a-week deadline was strangling me with. Hope you guys can understand. As I said, I’m hoping this is temporary and I’ll get back to at least weekly eventually.
As usual, the best ways to catch all updates are: follow me on Twitter, join the mailing list, or become a fan of - oh sorry, “like” - the aLp Facebook page.
So as always, thanks for being super great and reading my comics… and SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!
About this super time-travelin’ storyline
Hey, I wanted to say this about the current storyline if you haven’t heard me say it before… I KNOW IT’S TAKING FOREVER AND I’M SORRY YOU GUYS. I’m glad that most of you are enjoying it but I also know that there’s at least some of you who aren’t - maybe cuz it’s taking so long or maybe you just plain don’t like it.
I just wanted to try something new, y’know, and I’m pretty much happy with it, but still I do hate that it’s taking forever. The first problem, of course, is that I only have enough energy to do (almost) one update a week. On top of that, I’m trying not to let the jokes slip, and it’s hard to be funny and keep the story hummin’ along at the same time, with that one update a week. So, yeah, it does get to me when weeks go by and the story hasn’t budged much. But I’m trying not to let go of why you came here in the first place, which is for the yuks. I know you like the yuks.
So I’m gonna keep doin’ my best to make you all laugh and if it takes me another forever to finish telling the story I set out to tell, then sorry. I’m not gonna half-ass it cuz that’d be unfair to me and anyone invested in it. I just hope you’re diggin’ it… if you are, let me know so I don’t feel like I’m just a raving lunatic. And if you ain’t, well thanks for stickin’ with me for so long. I’ll just be here pluggin away the best I can.
THX GUYS I LUV U
Casting Call!
With the couple of Speed Dating strips I did a month ago and the print I recently re-mastered, an idea came up that I’ve been tossing around for a while… How would YOU like to star in your favorite aLp episode?
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If You See Something… Buy It
Hey, that new print that I debuted at MoCCA is now available for you at TopatoCo!
Based on this fan favorite episode, completely re-shot in super high-res and starring a real girl human (the lovely/talented/extremely dangerous Carly Monardo), this beauty is a generous 11″x17″, printed on super high quality paper and guys, it is gorgeous.
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YOU LUCKY BASTARDS
Here’s the 5 randomly selected winners of the recent contest! All of you lucky bastards will receive a copy of the new Sega/Rebellion Aliens vs. Predator video game for either the PS3 or Xbox 360, compliments of Sega:
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WIN A COPY OF AVP!
Contest time! This one’s a biggie. Sega’s given me 5 copies of the Aliens vs. Predator video game to give away - your choice of console (PS3 or Xbox 360… sorry, PC gamers)! Yo that’s a $59.99 value each.
Note: only US/Canada addresses are eligible to win the game, BUT you can still win an A<3P t-shirt if you’re not eligible. Details below.
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Jurybreak
I did get dismissed from jury duty last week after they interviewed me for 30 seconds, but after I’d sat there doing absolutely nothing for 12 hours over 2 days. I learned a lot of interesting stuff about the process from watching and listening to everything go down, and from all the folks who emailed or twittered their jury duty stories to me - thanks…
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From the dark depths of my kids’ imaginations
The scariest movie I’ve ever watched with my kids is, seriously, Finding Nemo. Yet it’s like Elaine just pulls random things from my horror movie collection for them when I’m not looking, judging from the drawings that come out of their imaginations.
The 5th picture below looked to me like some sort of H.R. Giger inspired Alien; thanks to reader Wendy for pointing out it’s a dead ringer for Onyx from Pokemon.
Happy Halloween! And let’s hope you don’t see my kids on the news tonight.
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Achievement Unlocked: 10 Years
Today is my 10th wedding anniversary with Elaine. That’s crazy.
We’re on our way down to a gorgeous place near New Hope, PA for our first ever weekend without the kids! I’ll be live-blogging the whole thing, especially during our fireside massages*.
Today it’s incredible outside so when we get there we’ll be doing some lakeside biking. I’m happy to see Elaine’s wearing her aLp t-shirt that she looks totally hot in.
Happy anniversary baby, I love you.
* No I won’t.
Hey my buddy Noah and I are starting an official aLp Killzone 2 clan, just for fun, just to find some more cool folks to frag around with. If we get enough people we’ll make clan-only rooms where we’ll blow each other’s heads up. If you can’t/don’t wanna join the clan, that’s cool; we can just be friends. All skill levels welcome. If you’re interested, leave a comment here or email me with your PSN ID, your email address, and where you’re from and you’ll get an invite.
