Hi All! Per my post on 4/1, I’m going to quickly tear through some of the comics I’ve read over the years. It does explain why I want to make my own, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone (myself included).

Let’s start with the basics: obviously, I read the Sunday newspapers. Well, the comics section. Specifically the comics Garfield, The Far Side, and Foxtrot. These were my favorites growing up; I still occasionally look up some classic Far Side comics on their web page. Now that I’m an adult, I can actually get a lot of the jokes that flew over my head as a kid.

My dad used to have a collection book of Marvin comics, too, but I think that largely had to do with the fact that my father’s name was Marvin, too. Because I couldn’t really see him regularly reading a comic about a baby getting into various types of shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong; the comic was funny, and my dad certainly considered himself a jokester. I just don’t really recall him being particularly humorous himself. Still, I would sit up and read the comics whenever I couldn’t sleep. It was always nice finding something that could make you smile before going to bed.

When I finally got access to high-speed internet, I found my way to comics like Bug, Something Positive, Sinfest, Real Life Comics, and a few strange items that have since slipped out of my reading bloc. I enjoyed the sense of humor, the short stories, and, in the case of Something Positive, Sinfest, and Real Life Comics, the bursts of longer storylines that hit a bit differently.

I’m sure some of you have thought: but what about the comic books? Didn’t you read comic books?

Nah, not really. I didn’t hate them or anything, but I didn’t really find any places that sold them where we were growing up, and I was already spending most of my allowance on video games, so I just never got into reading comic books. I do enjoy people discussing them, though, and have found a lot more about Marvel and DC storylines from other passionate comics fans anticipating the latest superhero film.

As for my own webcomic aspirations, I have a few goals.

The everyday comic:

This is what I’m planning to start with: a comic that tends to caricaturize my own life experiences, ranging from idle thoughts to actual absurd life experiences to delusional fantasies to actual dreams I’ve written down so I couldn’t forget they happened. This is meant to be a single story told over a handful of panels, though there might be a few short storylines. All names would be changed, since none of these would really happen (except for those that did) and I’d rather people not have trouble blurring the line between my friends and my stories.

The big story:

I’ve got a sci-fi storyline that I hope to develop with the goal of practicing my drawing and storytelling. It largely has to do with the idea of a wealthy scientific pioneer stupidly creating a time machine with limited knowledge of the mechanics of time and space relativity, which would leave the main character up a temporal creek trying to fix this moron’s cosmic mistake. This would be a long-term storyline, built out in a type of graphic novel or comic book style.

That’s it for now! I’m sure there are a few other ideas for storylines, but these are my current plans. I’ve got to start practicing drawing, though, if I want to make regular posts. Hopefully I’ll feel good about what I start doing within the next month or so, but don’t expect to see any regularly-posted webcomics before July.