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.