12/19/04:

12/12/04:


(See related strip here. This is Beanman, as I draw him. Jimmy loved this strip, and talked about doing a real "cross over" of our two strips. I vaguely remember the idea ... something about Vincent trying to order a cup of coffee. Jimmy was a fun collaborator. He'd tell me what he thought (He flatly rejected a Beanman strip I did once, saying that the customer looked too much like a crazed witch) but at the same time he was willing to let me contribute. A couple of times edited his dialogue (for brevity, if you can believe that I'd be concerned about brevity!) and I was worried he'd get pissed. Instead he'd laugh and say something like "yeah, I thought I put in too many words.")
(Jimmy was one of the few people I really clicked with out here. We had similar tastes and senses of humor. I looked forward to future collaborations, and to be completely honest, thought I had found a life-long writing partner. His death is still unreal.)

11/7/04:

10/31/04:

("Up to Bat" is a strip I did for my high school newspaper. "Devil Dog" was a strip I did briefly in college. Putting them together in one strip is a truly personal joke -- only I get it. Note that Devil Dog's spots are pretty fluid over the course of this strip [talk about "off model"!] The only consistency is the spot over his eyes. Both of my dalmatians at the time had spots in the same, er, spot.)

10/17/04:

10/10/04:

("Beanman" was the creation of the late Jimmy Zerda. Jimmy was a friend and co-worker at the coffee shop where I work. On Sundays we would post our strips side-by-side at the register. Most of the time, we'd produce our strips totally independent of each other and bring them in to post. Occasionally, one of us would inspire the other to get off his lazy ass and produce a strip. A few times we "raced" to see who could finish a strip faster. "Beanman" is a humanoid construct of giant twist-ties and a head-size coffee bean.)

9/26/04:

9/19/04:

(I think this is the funniest strip I've ever drawn.)

9/14/04:

(Election year humor. Oh, and Milla J is a great actress - that's no joke!)

8/10/04:

7/25/04:

(This strip made a lot more sense at the time.)

7/18/04:

6/27/04:

(Bi-partisan humor: to conservatives it trivializes the film and to liberals it trivializes Bush. I like to think of this sort of strip as a "Political Rorschach Test." People see what they want to see, and that's all right by me so long as they laugh!)

6/13/04:

One day the geeky high school student went to college ...

And he found he missed doing comic strips. So, inspired by the insane dalmatian named Holly that he and his wife brought into their lives, he created a new character ... DEVIL DOG.

So here is the second of two (count 'em two) strips I did for my college paper. I have the first one kicking around somewhere. If I ever locate it, I'll be sure to post it.

Those of you who know me can probably guess what this comic strip is really about. On the surface, it's a response to the Heaven's Gate group suicide.

Note that there are at least two hidden penises in this strip.

(Yikes. I was really full of piss and rage!)

Devil Dog has evolved quite a bit, and is now far more inspired by our second dalmatian Piper:

Piper's just happy to be here. So is Devil Dog.

Even though the inspiration has shifted over the years, Devil Dog bears a heart-shaped spot on his shoulder as a tribute to his original inspiration, Holly. (Holly had the same spot, but on her left shoulder.)

I hope you've enjoyed this little walk down memory lane! As I said in the entry about the early "Up to Bat" strip, I think it's neat to see how this character has evolved over the years.

6/6/04:

(The weekend of Reagan's funeral and the Lakers' eminent defeat by the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. I don't really follow basketball, but my audience does. So I try to know just enough that I can crack a joke and not look ignorant. Come to think of it, that's a philosophy I follow in life!)

In The Beginning, There Was A Geeky High School Student . . .

... who was bored in class one day. He found himself doodling when he should've been paying attention, and from his scratching sketching arose THE BAT!

A year later, and at a different school, this high school student found himself on the staff of the school newspaper, the Cry Wolf. Mike Pagano, the brave, young editor of the paper decided to publish a comic strip featuring THE BAT. The rest is history.

I wish.

These strips suck, but here they are anyway:

(It's so cute when teenagers comment on world politics!)

(WTF? I was writing this strip for a high school newspaper, right? I don't know . . . maybe this joke was for the teachers.)

(I think I saw some sort of special on PBS about some species of bat being endangered in Brazil. Who knows. I'm not too sure how high school students in Arkansas could be responsible for some species of bat in South America being threatened. Maybe it had something to do with recycling.)

(This is a joke lost on anyone who grew up in an SAT state. Arkansas was an ACT state. This strip is actually kind of funny and relevant to high schoolers.)

(Yay! Another relevant strip! The first panel is a rip-off of a line Val Kilmer has in Real Genius. I love that movie.)

There you go. The infamous high school strips. I think it's neat how the character has evolved since then.

I just wish my sense of humor had evolved as well.