Here it is August 3rd and Hollywood Elsewhere, a reasonably hip, zetigeist- appraising, industry pulse-taking site, is only just waking up to Don’t Forget to Validate Your Parking. I’m speaking of the brilliant, extremely well written webcomic by screenwriter and “movie executive” Mike Le that’s been going since last December. I missed Cory Doctorow‘s Boing Boing link last January because I don’t read Boing Boing so whatever, sue me, I do what I can.

All I know is that Le’s dialogue feels natural and well-timed in a deadpan, GenY-ish Doonesbury vein, and that he knows from Hollywood suck-up psychology. And from bitterness, cynicism, hunger and desperate, under-educated phonies. I laughed out loud twice this morning, and I’m not a laugh-out-louder. (Mainly a heh-heh type.)
“Don’t Forget To Validate Your Parking is a webcomic written and illustrated by Mike Le, the American screenwriter and movie executive,” says the DFTVYP Wikipedia page. “Officially launched on December 11th, 2007 and published roughly once a week, the webcomic is loosely based on the author’s experiences working in Hollywood. Don’t Forget To Validate Your Parking’s initial popularity was limited to Hollywood insiders as it was passed around through internal work emails and private tracking boards”
“The only main character is a drawn version of the author sitting behind his laptop and on the phone. All supporting characters are expressed through dialogue, usually as a voice on the phone. The tone of the webcomic is comedic, satirical, and ironic.”
22 words to have, keep and hold: “You can tell how far your life and career will go based on the five people you spend the most time with.”