Issue 47 Commentary

I went back and forth for days on whether I wanted to put "cunt" in red text. I finally decided that, unless there was some other word in black, then there was no clear idea what Jimmy had heard. And god damn is Jimmy oblivious. It's almost like he's working at it.

I'm never happy with whatever type of blue I use to indicate that someone is watching TV. Makes me wish I knew my way around Photoshop or Illustrator. Or had any real knowledge about doing color art.

And, just so you know, THUF is a major deal, almost on the order of Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Seriously, we're talking 10 or 11 movies here.

Issue 46 Commentary

Ah, Priscilla and Stuart. Young love. Furtive glances across the lab. Arcs of electricity between their moist, conducive lips.

I sometimes wonder what's going on in Ron's mind. Only he could be making a banner for a Sex Room and somehow let his mind drift to Lucky Charms.

And why is Jimmy going with the Chernobyl story? I thought he thought that Hapford needed the cash? Or, wait, I thought he knew what was really going on? Now I'm confused.

Sheila? You remember Sheila, right? Okay, fine, go back and read Issues 1 and 2 (if you can bear to look at the art).

Issue 45 Commentary

Oh my. Angry Assholes™. How crude. Basically, this game is "Don't Wake Daddy" or "Crocodile Dentist". Remember that? It was one of those tension games where you basically had to do something as many times as you could before the game turns on you. You pull as many croc teeth as you can before the thing chomps at you. In this game, once there's too many foreign objects in Angry Aston™'s Asshole, his "rectum will reject'um", spring them back on the unlucky player. Probably one of the grossest things you'll ever see in the comic.

The name of the cafe is the Coffee Pun Cafe. You'll be seeing it again later.

Like I said before, Stuart usually only has his glasses off during emotional times. Dude is blind as a bat without them.

Oh, and so you know what I'm even talking about there in the cafe:

Issue 44 Commentary

Oh yeah, this thing. Where I put the posts.

Priscilla puts me in mind a little bit of Oliver from Jon Rosenberg's Goats. Not in the sense that she's an evil young chicken. But you start with a character (in the case of my comic, Stuart, in the case of Goats, Diablo the Satanic Chicken). That character has a particular set of personality traits, which may shift over the course of the story. Then you bring in a character that is, essentially, a distillation/amplification of one aspect of the earlier character. That's how I think of Priscilla. Stuart has started to get with it. He knows he's got a good future self ahead of him, he's learned to start making choices for himself. He's still off in his own world, but it's more a world of video games. The mad science thing is really just something that he grew up around. Dad would make the occasional robot, or death ray; he'd mainly use his mad science skills to play tricks on the neighborhood cats (like sending them through a wormhole into a dog pound). But Priscilla...science has been her life for a long time. There's probably some childhood trauma she's using science to escape from. There could be a whole concept album along the lines of Tommy or The Wall there. Everyone's got emotions. She's obviously not comfortable with hers. (This might be a good time to point out that the opaque eyeglasses are meant as a visual metaphor for emotional detachment in these two characters. Stuart typically loses his when he's going through something tough.)

Hey, and Roundtree's back again! Always good to have Roundtree around. I had to bring her back at some point.

Any guesses as to what the original use of that monitor Priscilla is holding was?

Issue 43 commentary

This is one of the rare issues written almost entirely by me, which results in it being lighter on the jokes. For the most part, I stole the "punchline" of the issue from an episode of The League of Gentlemen, the one where Charlie starts to fall in love with Tony. The original joke was about calamari--I improved upon it by changing it to steak!

I thought it was good to do some actual character development. Sure does look like Sappho's life has sucked so far, doesn't it?

Marlene's lines:
"This ends now, you bitch!"
"I've had it up to here with your evasions, your lies, your shit! Always acting like you can't understand me!"
"Hey! Is that some sort of ethnic slur?"

P.S. Sappho can no longer watch Barney without noticing how the oldest girl on the show hugs Barney a lot more than all the other kids.

Issue 42 commentary

Lookit! Information!

This issue was one of the very first I wrote, maybe three or four years ago. In fact, the joke about waking up with perfect hair predates the comic entirely. The original had Hapford buying the photocopier from the kids in the Captain Underpants books, but, well... you'll understand later why I didn't go with that.

All of the Mad Science professors have the remains of various "dead" musicians (remember Liberace's brain all the way back in issue 15?).

Anybody out there recognize Redwang?

Please jump to the 1:19 mark of the following video for the soundtrack to the toothbrush scene.

Issue 41 commentary

Golo likes this issue because it's not often in college stories that you get to see the characters moving out of the dorms. I would've gone the direction of seeing how things have changed at home for Jimmy in the past year, but we just saw his parents in issue 39. I figure we can wait a little while before we see Jimmy's siblings again--you know, until I actually have an idea or two for a story with them.

Things I like about this issue:

1. I got to use a Lisa Frank poster. I almost went with the hip-hop bears but decided they weren't as immediately obvious as Lisa Frank characters.

2. Circumcision jokes--as if Jimmy hasn't had enough cut off of him.

3. Don Ruffin. Don is one of those characters that, once he's down on the page, I just know he'll be back someday. Think if you paired him up with Steve! Steve thinks you're inferior if you don't know the music he knows; Don gets really let down if you haven't seen "Bad Taste". Also, check out the movie on Don's shirt. It will make you question your faith in humanity.

Also, here's an alternate page for when Diana's dad is driving the car. Don't get the joke? Look it up, wieners!


Issue 42 in a couple of weeks, guys.

Issue 40 commentary

Issue 41 comes out in a few days, so I guess I should put this up already, huh?

Rufus originated the idea of Watercar. Every so often, Rufus will give me an idea for the comic. They come sometimes but rarely, but they're always pure gold when they do.

The plot of Watercar is my attempt to recreate a low-budget 80s movie. The kind that used to populate the shelves of your local video rental place, with more thought and feeling put into the VHS cover art than the plot or acting. The kind that stays mostly forgotten, unless by some miracle it gets put on DVD.

I believe I had Mr. Benedict from Last Action Hero in mind when I came up with Larousse's disfigurement.

Ski-doos are much easier to draw when you only do the handlebars!

I originally wanted a 1981 TVR Tasmin to be Watercar, but getting reference photos would have been impossible. Look it up, though, it's a very 80s car. I ended up going with a 1986 Corvette, which would make this movie a severely late-80s piece (in my mind, Epstein had been working on Watercar for a few years).

I already have ideas brewing for Watercar 2. Maybe... someday...

Rufus wants the cover image as a t-shirt. Any other opinions out there?

Issue 39 commentary

Hey, remember Jimmy's parents? It's only been 600-something pages since you've seen them.

I wrote this issue, including its "appropriate entry line" joke, before I saw the Arrested Development episode where Tony Wonder does pretty much the same thing.

Notice the subtle hints at an entirely separate world that the Reasoner inhabits? It's nice to have one of those on the sidelines that I can bring in whenever I need to. You get a little more flexibility out of stuff you don't use that often--you're not tied to backstory, and the characters can develop a little more off-screen.

Other characters seem to develop on their own without me. Who knew that Diana would end up being so jealous? Did Jimmy? Does Jimmy? Maybe issue 38 makes a little more sense in light of what happens here...

And hey, isn't that a little big for a hospital room?

Next issue: Watercar!

Issue 38 commentary

Issue 38 is one of the weirder issues I've written, and one of the few that I wrote entirely on my own. I hope it makes some sort of sense!

Jimmy's brain is a weird place. It's full of rock music and symbolism! For those of you who don't know, the cover is an homage to the music video for Robert Palmer's Simply Irresistible.

I also count:

17 unspoken opinions
2 unacknowledged urges
2.5 things he won't admit to himself outside of a coma


Coming up next month: the return of Jimmy's parents!

Issue 37 Commentary

Issue 37 is one of those issues that sat in my head for a couple years. I planned out most of Jimmy's freshman year way in advance; most of these stories were plotted during my first year of working on this comic.

This is the first issue that requires that you have read a number of earlier issues. Namely:

Issue 3: Stuart's mom calls Jimmy a hellspawn
Issue 10: Dr. Hapford wants Jimmy's brain
Issue 11: Stuart creates a monster
Issue 15: Some guy beats the shit out of Dr. Hapford
Issue 19: Stuart goes back in time for the first time; Jimmy confronts him about the "hellspawn" comment
Issue 20: Future Stuart is revealed
Issue 22: Wendell eats Jimmy's vinyl collection
Issue 24: Some other guy (Stuart) beats the shit out of Dr. Hapford
Issue 29: Diana tasks Stuart with stopping Dr. Hapford

There's some other jokes related to past issues, but this ish mainly wraps up Stuart's story for the freshman year. Keep coming back! Maybe he'll eventually turn into Future Stuart. Won't that be nice?