Since this is the weekend of my 20th High School Reunion (which I will not be attending) I thought it appropriate to completely embarrass myself electronically by posting the very first newspaper comic strip done all on my own.
It was called Moonbeam the Happy Hippie… published in Rome Free Academy’s The Knight Times.
I have to chuckle about it for many reasons, the biggest being I had a deadline of FOUR WEEKS to get this thing done. At the time, I remember that being a blink. I also remember panicking to get this done. 20+ years later I can get 4 strips done in 4 hours.
There are a MULTITUDE of things wrong with this first strip (published I believe in October 1992) but like my mother always said, “You gotta start somewhere, Frank”
- Mixed lettering (hand vs. electronic)
- No spaces between panels
- Foreground/ background… who needs those? Can’t tell the tree from the ground from the sky…
- No midtone…no tone at all really.
- Good grief that lettering is HORRIBLE!
- Who is laughing in the last panel, the tree?
- Why is the tree being such a jerk?
- Why did I draw the hippie with five fingers? I NEVER do that now. You don’t believe me? Find a hippie I’ve drawn lately and count his/her fingers.
- Did I mention the horrible lettering? Can you read it? Because I sure can’t.
I could go on, but beating an almost 21 year old piece of work into dust is not as fun as it should be. Especially since it’s something I did.
Let the pointing and gawking begin…
