"Smells Like Face-Punch"
3/31/2002
Artist's Commentary
1/16/2014
A lot of things go through my mind when viewing this comic. This is the strip that started them all, and yet, when I look at it today, I feel as if I'm standing in a museum staring up at some ancient fossilized bones. Or maybe it's a relic from a civilization long gone where things were accomplished in such a crude fashion. The lack of a "build-up" and punchline aside, there are numerous aspects of this strip that make me ponder how that younger cartoonist managed to overlook them; Where does the design on the t-shirt go once the one character is being grabbed? Who the hell are these characters? What's with the white line in the comic's black border? I mean, seriously, couldn't I manage to create a freakin' black BOX back then?!
If nothing else, this comic helps set the tone for Randy's character. However, it does nothing to serve a larger narrative or establish any history.
Perhaps I'm being too critical in my old age. After all, we were 19 and initially created our strips strictly for our own amusment.
As you read on, you'll see a steady rise in quality, as our skills grew in both technical and creative capacities. I grew more skilled in the use of Photoshop, and our senses of humor (like any muscle) grew stronger as we used them. One avenue for such humor was in our blurbs that would accompany our strips, some of which I may attach here if I feel they have any relevance.
Here's the very first one we ever posted.
A Blast From The Past...
Original Commentary - 3/31/2002
"Well, we finally made it. Our site is up and running! As most know, we’ve been kicking around the idea of starting an online cartoon for quite some time now, but now we finally acted on it. In the meantime, I’ve produced 14 comics, and the temptation is to put up one of our more popular ones first, but I believe that we should start at the beginning as if the later ones never existing. I’ve gotten better at Photoshop as I churned out more strips, so I think it would be weird to have one of my best ones first, and then one of the older ones later, looking like crap comparatively. So here’s a look at our ‘pilot’ strip.
Anyway, yea…when starting a strip based on your friends, you’d think it’d be hard to figure out, “Well…where should I start?” That was hardly the case here. I think anyone in our group would agree that Randy (the guy in black in this strip. I’m the fella with the cap.) is one of the most colorful people in our group, if not the most colorful. I have ZERO trouble writing material for him, because the man’s a living cartoon! He finds everything he does to be hilarious, and for the most part, everything he does has a violent edge to it. I tried to capture a bit of it in this strip, and I think I’ve done so successfully.
And don’t worry, we’ll see plenty more of Randy in the future…God help us."