July 31

 

July 29

 

July 28

 

July 27

 

July 26

 

July 25

 

July 24

 

July 22

 

July 21

 

July 20

 

July 19

 

July 18

 

July 17

 

July 12 - 15

July 11

 

July 10

TENPAM celebration 12

 For our last celebratory TENPAM anniversary post, I thought I'd do some character history. As you've seen, Lily's been around the longest, and I got Savvy worked out in math class the year before I started NPAM. Besides Lily's sporadically appearing parents, the first character I came up with for the strip was actually the Grub Guy.

The Grub guy debuted on July 13, 2013.

A greasy looking fellow who has the monopoly on all pop-up shops, typically selling Grub but also seen slinging coffee, sweets, squid, stuff, and milkshakes, among other things. Over the years, we've learned that his name is Mike, he has a twin (or perhaps any number of identical siblings all with one-syllable M names), and his mom is the manager of the local grocery store. She looks just like him but with a bit more hair. Though the Grub Guy doesn't show up in the comic too often, I still think his totally blank face and superhuman franchise abilities are hilarious.

Just after Mike the Grub guy, Champ arrives on the scene! Everyone in his family is named after plants (his given name is Basil). When I was designing him, I was trying to go for a breezy, casual beach style. I accidentally completely designed (the yet-unnamed) Tyler, but it wasn't the right look for Champ. I pivoted at the last moment, adding the trademark hat and worn out jeans. You can see it on the far right below. Funnily enough, year later when I went back to figure out Champ's real hair, it looks a lot like those swoopy ones I started out with on the left!

Champ debuted on July 23, 2013

Another side character, Bike Shorts Guy, showed up a month later! I think he's really funny in a very bizarre and inexplicable way. His main traits are his good posture and his hobby of hunting wild pastries. He has never been seen on a bike. I don't think he's been featured recently, but he always makes me laugh.

Bike Shorts Guy debuted on August 31, 2013

Tyler came next. That early Champ design stayed in my mind, and so our sensitive artist showed up on the scene. He and Savvy became unlikely friends. Imagine, he could've been named Hamlet.

Tyler debuted on September 10, 2013

 In eighth and ninth grade I went to school online. Eventually, every school subject had a main representative character, a sport/hobby, and a sidekick. (That's what happens when you spend two years at home and it's just you and your gel pens and workbooks). Zo was my science girl, with a bonus human, Nelly the assistant. Their pet friend was a plain cat named Kitty. Looks familiar...

The lines under their eyes are safety goggles. My mom thought they were mustaches.

Though I risked following the formula of every ensemble-cast comic, NPAM got its own fluffy friend, the precocious cat Herriman! He's named for George Herriman, creator of the historically iconic Krazy Kat comic. I fooled around with markings, whiskers, and noses, but ultimately made him very plain, just like Kitty.

Herriman debuted January 6, 2014

I tossed out an anti-joke right around the time I was graduating high school. It was intentionally unfunny. I figured it was just a silly one-off sort of thing. I was... very wrong. Early on, I returned to the Slug every Saturday because they were an easy way to whip out that last comic as I drew them in sets of six week to week. To this day, the Slug is definitely my most popular character.

The Slug debuted May 29, 2014

I had plenty of characters, so I didn't feel moved to make another until over a year later. I developed Sera Sophia and Dart at the same time, knowing they'd be best buddies, but Sera Sophia snuck into the comic a bit earlier. I wanted her to have that sort of earthy hippy fairy look. (It's pretty common around where I grew up.) Though this was way before I decided to literally make her part fairy!

Sera Sophia debuted on July 6, 2015

I posit that Dart was always around the NPAM world, living his merboy life happily unobserved by the NPAM audience. Savvy, who knows all the living creatures on land and sea, has known him for ages. But she's very discreet, and never told any of the humans about him. Dart and Sera Sophia hit it off instantly, as Sera Sophia is very accepting of unusual (magical) phenomena. 

Dart debuted July 27, 2015

And that's our main cast! Savvy retired in 2020, and other characters have come and gone (anyone remember Kai, the Japanese fish?). This concludes our TENPAM celebration. I'd like to thank all of YOU, readers, for your continued support and kind words. I'm glad that this silly ol' comic can brighten your days. Ever onward we go!

TENPAM celebration 11

 At last we reach 2012-2013! This school year in my trig/pre-cal notebook, we get some honest-to-goodness primordial NPAM comics! I had nailed down the idea of a regular girl and her feral friend. I just kept on using Lily from my previous comics. You can see Savvy's hair changes a lot as I tried to figure out what looked right.

A lot of my early jokes were just Savvy not knowing any social conventions. Transcript: Lily: sneezes. Savvy: May thou be blessed. Lily: Thanks, but the correct term is "bless you or "God bless you." Savvy: Oh...

Transcript: Lily...And so the next day he said to me... hey, watch out for that centipede. Savvy: He said that to you? Lily: No, I said that to YOU. So anyway, he said... Oh gross! You're eating a tree! Savvy: He said that to you? Lily: Forget it.

This one I reused in the first weeks of NPAM proper. Transcript: Lily: Boy, it sure is creepy being lost in a jungle. EEP! A native! AIEEE! Run for you life! It's a primitive bloodsucking cannibalistic savage! Savvy: Sheesh! Can't a primitive bloodsucking savage read her newspaper in peace? Lily: eek! aaa! Help!

Weird to think Lily's Dad of all people existed before, say, Champ. Transcript: Lily: Hi Daddy! Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything to drink? How was your day? Dad: Hi, Honey! I'm fine, thanks. How much money are you asking me for? Lily: Daddy! Can't I be nice for a reason other than money?! I wasn't going to ask for a DIME! Dad: I'm sorry. So what can I do for you? Lily: Can I have nine cents?

I always hinted that Savvy, despite her jungle upbringing, is a genius. All of my trig homework is happening inside of her head here.

Transcript: Lily: I'm going to the store. Savvy: Don't Last time you went shopping, you knocked over an entire display of Pringles! Lily: I'm GOING to the store.... let the chips fall where they may.

Transcript: Savvy: you know the guy who lives in the couch warehouse? Lily: The old guy? Yeah. Savvy: He's not doing too well. Lily: He's really sick? Savvy: Yeah. He's on his deathcouch.

 

Having learned from Silly and Frilly, I knew if I wanted to start a comic for real, I'd have to share it on the internet. So in the summer of 2013, I scribbled out the first week of NPAM in my trusty purple notebook. On July 1, the first one went up... and the rest is history!!

Here's what my drafting looked like for the first week. Pardon the scan quality. I wrote out all the words and then figured out panel composition. 

If you were around back then, you may remember that my first comic got weirdly cropped and you couldn't even read the whole joke. We've come a long way!

TENPAM celebration 10

 By 2008/2009, I knew I wanted to try a regular comic with recurring characters. Heavy on the characters. One idea, "Kowz cant speL" never got much further than a character sheet (plus random appearances in my doodles). I was busy reading B.C. by Johnny Hart at the time, and the cows reflected a lot of his characters. "Stripes" was a definite knockoff of the sarcastic BC character Curls. Smiley Jack was my sister's horse pillow pet.

And apparently I just really like the name Lily.

My next attempt at a recurring comic went a little better. Unfortunately, I didn't scan the notebook where it first started, but I assure you it was in purple glitter gel pen ink. Again there were TONS of characters. This time they were thinly disguised caricatures of all my friends at school. Except their names were different. And their personalities. And some of their physical traits. Nevertheless, there was still a slight resemblance. And at the heart of it all were two BFFs... Mia and Lily!

It started out as "The Floof and the Goof" with an "opposites attract" theme, since Lily was kind of prissy and Mia was more chaotic. I based them on two of my good friends, one of whom I affectionately called "Lilypod."

The comic strip evolved into "Silly and Frilly." I remember thinking to myself, "Once I start making these, I have to make one every day." That didn't last very long because I wasn't sharing them outside my family--I had no accountability. My jokes are starting to make a bit more sense, though it was before I realized that I can't really actually draw dogs.

I'm still ripping off Calvin and Hobbes with this one. It's from the storyline where he gets lost at the zoo.

I don't think Martha was based on anyone in real life. She's just the stereotypical smart one. She's got a bit of Marcie from Peanuts in her.

Most importantly, this was around the time that I developed my artist's signature, which I still use.

BUMP still makes me laugh!

And finally, I had to make a mini newspaper in class this year. One gag title was...

Our local newspaper was the Garden Island, so I combined it with garden pizza (though now we usually just say veggie pizza). The origin of "No Pizza After Midnight" is shrouded in mystery, but in my mind it's somehow connected. Clearly I have pizza on the brain.

Addendum: Upon further reflection, Martha might have been me.