Commentary (on-going)The first strip was based on an AIM conversation! Basically, I was scrolling through old transcripts to look for funny stuff to post on the blog. I was, at the time, starting to post backlogs of old material on this blog and was turning that into a big project. So I came across me saying "Remember that episode of Conan where he showed what would happen if two gay dudes mated and it was just a picture of nothing?" I was going to post it as an aim conversation, but then realized it would be a perfect three-panel comic. So I drew it! I called it EARLY CONAN just to explain why he's a jerk. Something compelled me to draw a second one. Basically as I drew more I realized I'd make this a regular thing. I think it's funny when people tell other people to shut up out of nowhere! SO SUE ME! This is based on how extremely complimentary David Mirkin is re: Conan O'Brien on Simpsons commentaries. I was just trying to think of Conan-centric things and for some reason that came to mind immediately. Gene Shalit blasted this one because I portrayed David Mirkin as a sexual predator, but he's a fat faggot, so fuck him. Also, the Amoeba talk was from when a crazy lady at Borders gave me unsolicited advice about drinking water. I just imagined Andy Richter moaning in bed with some kind of Oregon Trail disease and it cracked me up. Who else would he call but his #1 pal Conan O?? And people skeletizing within a very short period of time is extremely funny. I think I subconsciously stole "your late" from snagglepuss though Just continuing Andy's sweating nervous persona in a comic that is based on 1. how people used to smoke on Talk Shows and 2. Muppet Babies. Here Nanny is played by Tom Scharping (not really) I think this was the first idea Mark gave me, and it cracked me up. I actually have a backlog of ideas he gave me that I want to draw. My contribution to the idea is everyone applauds after Conan screams - they don't get that what is going on is real and think Conan is really good at acting. Also, how Conan repeats the concept in the first panel. I came up with that. Because he always does that. I always wanted to refer to Chevy Chase as a "Handsome comedian and Cocaine Enthusiast" in a thing. Or do a character that was a parody of Chevy Chase and write a sketch where an entertainment news show refers to him that way. I realized Conan was the perfect vessel to make my words sparkle. Also a shirt that says "LEGALIZE IT!" and having it refer to COCAINE is such a good idea and the intent is unmistakable if Checkers Chase is wearing the thing. Chevy is NOT dying from cocaine use, by the way. This was going to be a three part comic, but I nixed the first part, where the Executive tells a rude joke about calling NBC "THE COCK" (a shortening of THE PEACOCK). He says "If you stroke the 'cock, the 'cock will stroke you back!" and it cuts to Conan looking away and crying and the executive apologizes. Then I realized at that point I hadn't had anything truly vulgar in the comic yet and decided now wasn't the time to start. This would be the second part. The third part I'll talk about later. Anyway, this is just making fun of pouty angsty kids who behave the way Conan is behaving, and the executive over-reacting. Mark made a video about Mike Myer's dying, and there was a photo in it that I thought to myself looked like Conan O'Brien. So I instantly came up with the idea of Mike Myers impersonating Conan. I had Wayne on the Brain I guess, so I changed it to Wayne Campbell, thinking it would be funny to have Wayne exist in the world of Early Conan as a rival talk-show. Andrew deserves a writing credit for this, but I didn't give it to him because at the time I thought I'd only credit concepts for strips and not just little jokes. He came up with Garth Shushing and having it turn into SCHWING! Oh yeah, the Aerosmith reference is from the opening of Wayne’s World 2. I was chatting with Mark, and I accidentally called Wayne "Wayne Algar" and corrected myself. The idea of Wayne taking Garth's last name instantly lead to Mark coming up with the concept of a wedding invitation, and that Conan would open it up and it would say "NOT!" inside. Also, I love how close the two Wayne incidents are to each other, Wayne was really gunning for Conan in those early days. The idea of getting yourself worked up over a terrible future so much so that you get diarrhea always appealed to me! This is an all time classic because it features Andy taking a shit and every comic that involves that is a classic! This was going to be the third part in the three-part comic, but I realized that it would be clunky and weird and it'd be best to just space them out. There was no real reason to make them come right after each other. Also the big thing about this comic was that I just lifted the joke from Mark Riddles' hysterical Doogan-related prank and kind of just did it without asking him (even though I credited him). Sorry! Just in case I need to state the obvious, this is based on Conan's penchant for spoofing Walker, Texas Ranger and also on the cartoon DUCK AMUCK. I call it CHUCK AMUCK. I made a headshot Featuring Chuck Norris posing with Conan and Andy, as a parody of cartoonist's headshots where all their characters are surrounding them. I was going to do all the characters that had been seen up to that point, but it was too much work for a joke that normal people wouldn't even get. Word-for-word a Mark Riddles script. Triumph is a real dog and Conan had a heart attack from shock. I think I originally was going to have Triumph floating, suggesting some kind of supernatural goings-ons, but decided against it. I hope people don't think Triumph is still a puppet and I just didn't bother to draw the arm. That would be terrible! Man I love this! The funny face had to be just right. The idea of a lame funny face is hysterical to me. One time Martin Short interviewed Damon Waynes for a Jiminy Glick sketch and he asked him about Jim Carey, "OLE RUBBER FACE!" and then Glick started doing really lame funny faces to get the point across and it was one of the funniest things I ever saw. I can't believe nobody discusses this moment as one of the funniest things Martin Short ever did (And I am one of the few people my age who actually does think Martin Short is hysterical). Mark wrote this one and originally Max was supposed to have a backwards baseball cap on and there was going to be a VH1 Logo in the corner. I just forgot about those details when I drew it. Also, look closely! Max has a flannel sweatshirt tied around his waist! Oh yeah, and also IS IT 1996 YET? was an anti-Clinton slogan of the time that my dad had a bumper sticker of on his truck. I wish my dad was hip enough to keep it on post-1996 (or at least save the bumper sticker for me to put on MY car 7 years later). Max feels like Clinton is ruining his 90s experience. Mark originally pitched this as a joke involving Jeff Goldblum getting snippy with Conan over whether or not the fake skyline in the background was fake or not. Conan says to Jeff "It's the middle of the afternoon!" to which Jeff rejects, citing that his self-tinting shades would be tinting if that were true. Then Mark told me the story of a fat kid he knew in high school who very arrogantly showed off his self-tinting shades and Mark's angry reaction to watching this smirking butterball's eyes disappear. I used that instead! All I really have to say is that the Michael Winslow call is funny because he gives him self an opportunity to do a Machine Gun sound effect but doesn't follow up with the actual sound effect. That was not a mistake. This is basically based on my decision to turn YOUR LA** into a running joke. It has yet to run since. Mark had all these lofty ideas of doing spin-offs, including Future Letterman and Current Ferguson. His pitch for Current Ferguson was that Craig would be listening to an i-pod during a commercial break and would creep out Howie by trying to get him to listen, using his used ear buds. I loved the joke a lot and realized earbuds existed before iPods, and also it'd be much funner to draw Howie Mandel 15 years ago. I combined it with this old comic I drew. Andrew and I had an art class together and we wrote this when we were bored. And when I say "we" I mean ANDREW wrote it. So a million years ago I saw some Animal Planet show about a cat giving birth. It was basically a reality show about a couple with a pregnant cat and it was teaching you how to deal with it step by step. The final shot was of the couple's dog, locked outside in the backyard, going nuts at the sliding glass door. It was a throwaway shot that just stuck with me as being a great, hilarious detail. At the time there was a big joke thread going on on one of our message boards, and I wrote it as a joke: Q. Why did the dog get sent outside? When Mark came up with the idea for Triumph being real, I immediately thought of that, and I put off drawing both comics because I couldn't decide if I should make THIS comic be the introduction to Triumph being real, or if I should do Mark's concept first. I'm still not sure I made the right decision, but I guess I wanted this comic's joke to be more about a dog being locked outside because a cat is giving birth than for it to be about a famed puppet actually being alive. I consider this to be the first in a trilogy of uncomfortable comic strips, just because of Andy dressed all racistly. Basically this just comes from the idea of bleeping a fart. I think the TV edit for Problem Child 2 was on my mind, where Junior farts in Gilbert Gotfried's office; On TV they would change it to a belch (substituting footage of course; they were NOT trying to make it look like Junior farted out a burp). This is based on a seldom-known thing where sometimes closed captioning fails to censor language on TV. This one's funny because the closed captioning probably said "(Farts)" which is obvious without ANY audio. Just explaining the joke in case you're deaf. The hat on the kid is inspired by a pencil I had growing up that said "I'M A LUCKY KID!" with a bunch of four-leaf clovers on it. Also, I hoped people didn't think I was making fun of how deaf people talk. I just wanted to hammer home how uncomfortable this is for Conan and how much of a jerk one would feel like if they were confronted with a kid with deaf dude talk coming out of his mouth. It always sucks when people who are about to die touch you. I hate it. At the time of this comic, me and Andrew were listening to Tiny Tim's first album a lot. It's actually genuinely great. I forget if there was more to this comic originally. All I remember was Andrew wanted Conan to meet Tiny Tim and that he’d have a creepy handshake. I got that giant Calvin and Hobbes anthology or whatever you'd call it last Christmas, and never cracked it open until very recently. The idea here is that Andy is just a stuffed animal to everyone but Conan. And if you read all the comics, this honestly could be true for every strip. Not that I tried to do that, it’s just a happy coincidence. Chris Elliott was in a series of Tostitos commercials, where he played a gullible boob and typically the only redeemable thing about his appearance at any given place (whether it be a party or an airport or what have you) is the fact that he brought Tostitos chips and dip, then people would celebrate his arrival, and then tell him something (typically some kind of promise of new-found respect for Elliott because of his saving the day with snack food), and he'd ask "Wow, really?" to which the person would cruelly taunt, "NO, NOT REALLY!" It’s also funny because Chris Elliott is a totally nice dude and would never grab any host by the scruff like he’s doing now and scream in his face. There was a comic I really wanted to draw (this one), but it would basically mean my spinning-off Wayne’s Wedding into it's own comic series. I couldn't really figure out how to introduce the spin-off. So I asked Andrew what he thought, and the idea of a cue card with a picture of a Wedding ring on it was the first thing that came out of his mouth. I wrote the rude Top Ten, which if you look closely the #1 slot is the beginning of "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, ITS SATURDAY NIGHT!" On Saturday Night Live they did Wayne’s World a lot as a cold open, and they'd do the Top Ten sketch, and #1 would be "LIVE FROM NEW YORK!" So as a result, on the Mike Myers Best-of they showed these sketches and they'd just cut away before they got to #1. And people didn't get that that was why and bitched about it. "THIS IS BULLSHIT THEY EDITED WAYNES WORLD!!!" they would moan. And by "they" I meant the one person I saw do it on amazon.com one time. There was probably more. This is a really old Mark Riddles idea I just didn't get around to until late! He originally pitched it as Joel Hodgeson showing a clip, and the clip was going to be of the Mystery Science Theater theme song. But it was too hard to draw. Also I felt like people would call bullshit if Joel Hodgeson was on a talk show that wasn't hosted by a cartoon character. Willie wrote the idea of seeing a masturbating bear in the zoo and Conan getting the idea for a million dollar sketch idea. I added the twist of seeing a Pimp Bot in the zoo as well. I just want to say that there’s not very many big, detailed picture of Pimp Bot to be found online. I kinda had to fill in the blanks. "But Look at there" was a sleeper hit of words and I am very proud of it. Originally I wanted to get a comic off the ground called "Heat of the Moment" where each day I'd draw the best moment of my day. I drew a bunch of them, but since the whole shtick was supposed to be that they were things that happened very recently, I'd be lazy getting them scanned and I'd never put any of them up. I drew one that was complete fiction, and kind of ruined the whole concept of the comic: I approach Andrew at work and lament that the new girl won't talk to me, she keeps going off to do busy work (True, except with Andrew and my roles reversed). Andrew for some reason is mad, and he says "I bet she thinks you are ugly." (untrue) the next panel was me sitting in the Borders restroom, crying. (untrue). I was going to call it HEAT OF THE MOMENT: FACT OR FICTION and have a photo of Jonathan Frakes saying "FICTION" at the end to make it all okay. Since the paper I drew it on got trampled and wasn't in scanable condition, I reused the joke here. Other comics include: Me trying to get tape off my finger and scolding myself "THIS IS TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR. THIS IS FOOLISH!" Me saying something funny and then writing it down after getting a laugh from a girl at work and then folding up the paper and putting it in my pocket (Somebody recommended I read a book because it was "really good, but really sad" and I shot back with "you know what book is really good but sad? MY DIARY") and an autistic kid asking a teacher to turn a painting on it's side and then exclaiming, in a pompous tone "AH! Now I see the flow!" This was the first comic I did without having a big backlog of comics ready to run. My moving out of the horrible city of Eureka was looming closer and closer and I kind of started losing sight of the comic. It's also the first truly topical comic. I had to do a thing about Gay marriage since Wayne and Garth were gonna do the deed. The big joke in here is that I confuse Wayne and Garth with the Ninja Turtles by throwing in a "kick shell" reference. I love the idea of a big brute bully chasing around a little guy and calling him a pipsqueak! I love it so much, it is one of my favorite comedy ideas. This is a more poignant comic than it is a joke-a-thon. I was afraid people would think I was running out of ideas and that splitting this up was a ploy to milk an idea. I just couldn't figure out how to draw it as one comic, and at the time was a stickler for the format. This is so conceptual and inside-jokey. Originally the idea was I was going to a whole week of comics like this, but I got super busy and just couldn't dedicate the time to try and think of high-school-esque comics. This is based on a true story, by the way. My math teacher was pregnant and hormonal, and I did a math project wrong, like there were two different assignments and one was just an example and one was the actual project, and I did the example which actually was more work, and I sheepishly went up to her to explain I did it wrong and she started crying and called me a "stupid mother fucker" and left the room. I got a B without having to redo anything (shouldn't I have gotten an A?). This is also a throw-back to when I would make comics about my teachers, but they were all way more mean-spirited and smarter than this. This is based on an episode of “All in the Family” that I hate. It's about Archie's Army buddy coming into town, and Archie and his other army buddies all laud him because he's super rich now. The guy is having issues with his son, and intermittently calls him from Archie’s house while Archie woops it up with army dudes laughing, completely fucking oblivious to their friend's sadness. The only guy who notices is Rob Reiner, who looks on with a sad face while Archie is clueless. And that's it! Archie stays ignorant and Rob looks at the guy all sad, and the whole episode is like SEE THIS GUY IS RICH BUT HE HAS FAMILY PROBLEMS AND THE CONSERVATIVE GUY IS TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND IT BUT THE LIBERAL DOES and UUUGH its so bad. I think it's a Season One episode if you want to track it down and watch it like an asshole. Mark gave me this idea really early on, and I held back on doing it because I started drawing it once and realized it wouldn't be a three panel comic. For some reason it didn't seem right to do two-panel comics. I thought of the Richard Kind one shortly after Mark gave me the idea. The second time I attempted to draw this comic was after I did the Chris Elliott one, which was a little too similar and I decided to get some distance from that. Oh yeah, Mark pitched it as Kevin Meaney throwing Conan's desk, but it was too hard to draw so I substituted desk-throwing for a Beetle Juice face. There was a reality show on TV Land (A channel whose whole purpose is to show reruns of old shows), where parents would pull pranks on their children, and each week they'd bring in a celebrity to help out. Because that's really what we want to see, right? Super rich and privileged people picking on CHILDREN with hidden cameras? Well, TV Land had a Night Court marathon and Mark and I watched most of it, and all through it they aired a promo for an episode featuring "CELEBRITY PRANKSTER RICHARD KIND." Since then not a single conversation went by that involved Richard Kind where we DIDN'T give him the title CELEBRITY PRANKSTER before mentioning him. How many conversations have we had involving Richard Kind? A lot more than you'd think. Also, a joke in this that nobody ever commented on: Their tie status is left-over from the previous comic, so this time they revert back to their original states when they get spooked. Either it was too subtle or not funny enough to mention. So this was the whole reason I wanted to make a WAYNES WEDDING SPIN-OFF. Because Mark pitched the concept of Wayne doing a TOP TEN REASONS WHY I LOVE GARTH and it simply being a big picture of his face slowly being revealed and I thought it was amazingly hysterical and great. He came up with the idea the same night as the concept of Wayne and Garth getting married. I couldn't figure out how to do it in one line of comic, so I decided to draw the entire thing. It was the first comic I drew since moving from Eureka. It took so long because 1) My printer/scanner was packed, and I was unwilling to unpack it thinking I was going to be moving again soon, and 2) I lost my pen I use. I found said pen, but lost it for a SECOND time in the middle of this comic. So half-way through, the lines are a little different because I was using a different pen. The pictures of Garth reacting are so grotesque. It was sort of me giving up on making them look good, and sort of thinking they were funny-looking enough to upstage the main photo of him and that was a big accomplishment and something to be proud of. Mark and I had a friend on aspecialthing.com who was going to Vegas. Mark's response was to write and impromptu Early Conan on the spot: Andy asks Conan where he went on Vacation, to which Conan replies "VEGAS, BABY!" I came up with the idea of Conan putting on sunglasses to say it, and also the phrase "where did you have vacation?" I think the reason I liked this idea so much is because me and my friend Andrew had a running joke about one of our former bosses named Mike. He was a by-the-book douche who was kind of weird and snotty. Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants could easily be a parody of this guy, except not as emotional. He has an insane jaw and a bald head. He's basically a caveman that acts like he's from the future and is above everybody. He wasn't very nice, and he seemed to care way too much about his job yet at the same time he seemed like was barely involved in it. Despite all these negative observations, me and Andrew still really liked him because he was such a weirdo. He was gone for like two weeks one time, and we found out he was in VEGAS. Me and Andrew would imitate his voice going "VEGAS BABY" and joked that he'd come back and suddenly be really super nice. In our made-up scenario, after a week police officers would come to our work, looking for Mike. Mike would walk out, see the police officers, and give himself up. As he was being taken away he'd turn to us like Royal Tenenbaum and tell us that the past week has been the best week of his life. Me and Andrew were brainstorming Wayne's Wedding ideas while watching Wayne's World (Which inspired two additional comics). I think we discussed who should be Wayne's best man out of their group of friends, and Andrew suggested that it should be Garth. As part of his speech, Garth would say he had WAYNE ON THE BRAIN, and it would cut to Wayne swooning. And that's the story of Wayne wanting Garth to be his best man! A long long time ago, Mark Riddles created a website called The Paintjob. The Paintjob burned bright for a couple of months, then it ended. It was officially un-ended many months later, and now it makes an occasional return. In one abandoned attempt to resurrect the website back on Halloween, we drew a bunch of Painjobs (none of which have seen the light of day, but hopefully will some day), including a series where we all drew our biggest fears. Mine was a little insect at the bottom of a bottled water either laying eggs or shitting into the water. I really love how the little creatures look in this comic. I wanted to give the impression that they lead these super-cheap lives. See how on the far right there's one swimming away with another one's head? Like I can actually imagine these things existing in real life, you almost need a microscope to see them... You'd see one mindlessly swim up to another and just bite it's head, and it's body would just instantly fall off while the murderer kept swimming, with the other guy's head in it's mouth. Man, doesn't it make you glad to be born a human and not a creature? THINK ABOUT THIS. IT WILL MAKE YOU APPRECIATE YOUR LIFE. Man, I really agonized over this one after I drew it. First let me talk about the origin. Mark Riddles once delivered the most hilarious spoiler I ever heard. He was talking about the movie "Pay It Forward," which is what this comic is referencing, by the way. It was on TBS I think at the time, and Mark was making fun of it, and said something like "this movie stinks! If I have to turn it to TBS and see Haley Joel Osment get stabbed again I'm gonna puke." I think one of our friends yelled at him for spoiling the ending, but I honestly thought he was sorta making it up (Making up fake scenes in movies or TV shows is a favorite past-time of ours). Years later I had the same experience Mark did: I turned on TBS and saw Haley Joel Osment get stabbed. I couldn't believe my eyes, and I yelped an involuntary laugh, remembering the moment Mark was up in arms about this very moment. For some reason I thought of it for an Early Conan strip, and drew it So, I'm basically mentally high-fiving myself the entire time drawing it, giggling like a retard. And I get done inking it, and I get ready to upload it, and suddenly my heart sank. I realized I just drew a real public figure getting stabbed. Not just stabbed, but dumbly stabbed. It seemed too real of a thing that could happen for it to be funny. I mean, yeah, it's a movie reference... but I was also counting on people NOT getting the reference and just thinking it was just throw-away weirdness, or at least a dumb thing happening they can move on from. Suddenly the comic seemed too creepy to show anyone. It's one thing to skeletize a real celebrity in a matter of hours because they are "sick" because that's just silliness. So my moral crisis caused me to do this: I posted it to a few places and asked people to give me their honest opinion of it. I didn't tell them why, because I didn't wanna lead people to the conclusion that it was morally not-cool. I don't think ANYBODY came to the conclusion that it was creepy, but I got a lot of people saying "Since you asked for honesty, I think this is one of your least-funny strips." So what’s the lesson here? Don't ask people their honest opinions unless you tell them what for. Conan O'Brien hates the Quaker Outs guy. I don't think this one worked very well. I had two ideas, and both of them were half-baked, so I decided to marry them. I think this one is confusing in a bad way. Idea One: Ever since the first Chuck Norris strip, I wanted to do a strip that had nothing to do with Chuck Norris, but ended the same way the Chuck Norris strip did. In my mind, the reality is that Chuck Norris is not just drawing comics that have to do with himself, but he's also drawing ALL the Early Conan Comics. And Two: George Lucas' bullfrog neck is mistaken for a flesh-colored scarf. My disdain for neck tattoos (any tattoos, really) gets thrown in there... I guess this comic is what commentaries are made for, huh? Here's another old, old idea that hung around for a while. I might have referred to an AIM CHAT me and mark had that I printed out and mined ideas from in the earliest days of Early Conan. We had this whole run about how there's a Locker Room backstage and everyone showers after the show. This included a comic I felt was too rude for Early Conan where Max kept his drums in his locker, and boastfully did a drum roll with his dick, exclaiming to Conan "look Ma, no hands!" to which Conan would reply, rolling his eyes, "look Ma, no brains." (All but Conan's QUIP was written by Mark). So anyway, just in case I need to plainly explain what's going on here: Andy has to wait for everyone to leave the locker room, because every time he gets in that all-fours position he involuntarily farts, and apparently it always terrifies him. This is a comic that just got simpler and simpler. Here's the original sketch. Originally the ending I had in mind was Andy is woken up from a dream and is either being told by Conan that World War III has started, or he maybe even they are in a trench fighting it, and Andy has dozed off in the middle of combat. Then I decided to change it to JUST Andy being happy that he's having a more pleasant bowel-movement than the one he's used to. Then I decided to just take THAT out so you're not even sure what he's referring to. I don't know, maybe I am afraid I won't surprise people so nowadays when I think of a twist ending I'll try to talk myself out of it. I forget that people are supposed to read these in five seconds and move on, you know? I never really felt that strongly about this idea, so much so that I never even wrote it down. It just kinda stuck around in my head for a long time. Then one day I decided to sketch it out just to see what it would look like. Then I realized I was half-way to just drawing it as a comic, so I did. I still really like the final visual, I like to think these characters exist in a nightmare world and Andy is confronted with this fact more than everyone else. The picture of spooked Andy I tried to actually draw/trace the second time: I photocopied it as a work-in-progress and tried to trace my original drawing, but like an idiot I accidentally traced it onto the photocopied version, which still had un-erased pencil marks on it that, because it was a photocopy, couldn't be erased. So I said "fuck it" and simply copied and pasted it in MSPaint. Realizing I did three strips with JUST Andy in them in a row, and that they both happened in the month of August, I decided to make it a very ANDY August. Anyway, this comic got everyone talking. I thought it was pretty straight-forward, Andy accidentally dropped his sandwich into the toilet (a single sliced tomato fell out of it and is floating around independent from the sandwich), and got so mad that he punched the mirror. Basically this comic is just my roundabout way of saying Andy eats in the bathroom. This is the one time disaster struck. Some people were also confused as to what the item in the toilet actually was. Here's what a few people wrote: "...is that a phone? Or a half of a sandwich...?" - aenemaTron (aspecialthing.com) "it is either a sandwich or the snout of a crocodile." - yumitree (aspecialthing.com) "it's obvious inside the toilet is David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past" -billynord (aspecialthing.com) "I was hoping that he pooped a full sandwhich because he doesn't chew when he eats and the power of his poop-pushing itself broke the mirror." - suavepebble (aspecialthing.com) "I thought on that particular day, Andy was having severe self-esteem issues involving his weight and appearance. He looked in the mirror and didn't like what he saw and smashed it, and dramatically threw his sandwich in the toilet because he was unhappy with his weight and that symbolized his determination to get thin." - BananapeelWilliams (aspecialthing.com) "is that a rolled up condom" ... "that Andy dropped his sandwich AND unrolled condom in the toilet gave me an extra secret joke until now. The secret's out." - Tommy "aww man tommy's first post made me think that the joke was that andy r. was smuggling a half sandwich in a condom and he forgot about it and crapped it out and was mad that it got toilet water on it" - Kon "I actually thought that neither the condom nor the sandwich were Andy's doing, and that his expression in the third panel was anger and resentment over his depressing living/working conditions. The already-broken mirror completes the picture." - jon (aspecialthing.com) "I thought the sandwich was a messy turd and andy had trashed his dressing room on the way to the toilet." - disl (aspecialthing.com) "it looked like a tongue on a bed of pubic hair to me." - ragu sauce (aspecailthing.com) "I thought it was his dentures and I was truly lost." - nathansmart (aspecailthing.com) I really shoulda made this two comics. I didn't think "Messy Eater Magazine" was a strong enough twist. That's originally where the comic ended, Andy finds out he's on a magazine cover and it turns out to be Messy Eater Magazine. That's really funny! At least I think so. But I felt like I had to pack more into the comic than SET UP/PUNCHLINE and added the SECOND reveal of him being on the cover NOT because HE'S the Messy Eater, but he's being Messily Eaten! That's also very funny, but it steals the other joke's thunder. Also, the first panel was supposed to be a reference to "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past." Originally I hand-drew the box, but it just didn't come across as being ANYTHING recognizable, so I redid it using computer technology. Also see how it's written? I actually KINDA agonized over it being written perfectly, like how it ends with a period instead of an exclamation mark? Did you notice that? Like, it was just breezed past in the translation stages from Japanese to English when this video game was being made. Enough attention was paid to make it sound like perfect English (this is a professional operation, after all), but its completely forgiven to overlook that an exclamation mark should go where a period is. It's still grammatically okay, but not as right as it could be. It's shit like that that makes me wish people could go inside my brain and realize how much of genius I am. I remember this really creepy music video for some gloomy song that was around in the mid-to-late ninties. It was on MTV late at night, anyway, I don't even remember the artist or song or anything. I couldn't even hum a few bars. But I do remember the video was basically this waifish girl (the artist - and no, it was NOT Fiona Apple), alone in this giant, creepy house just singing at the camera. She wasn't particularly scared or anything, she coulda been anywhere really, but she happened to be in this creepy house. It was the middle of the night, and the video just cut to different takes of her in different rooms lip-syncing. I think she was in a greenhouse at one point, or maybe it was a sun room. The closest she was to not being alone is one room had a TV on, but it was just snow. Anyway, I thought of that when I drew this. This was always gonna be the end of Andy August. Andy plainly stating that everyone is gone. I meant for it to actually be drawn and released IN August, but I got tied up. The close-up of the hands was a last-minute idea. I just wanted to see if I could draw realistic hands. I'm really bad at drawing hands a lot of the time, so I basically just wanted to concentrate and see if I could pull it off. Not bad, for me anyway. Also that's supposed to be hair, not shadow. ALSO, I drew it really subtly and small, but his fingers are slightly, SLIGHTLY webbed. I did not expect anybody to see that and think "oh his fingers are webbed." I'm not even sure if it looks like webbing at all. It was an afterthought, anyway. I basically got done with the drawing and tried to add it in. Hey, if you think this is funny, we should be friends. Because goddamn it, this is so senseless, it's easy to understand a person who sees it and says "this is not anything." I can't even say anything about how my mind came to it. I think I just have a love of getting things wrong. Don't we all? Holy shit! I managed to get to get another YOUR LA** joke in there! How do I do it! By torturing myself, that's how. So yeah, I basically made it my business to somehow have the phrase "your laid" be written out in a comic and have it belong somehow. Also, I love that I figured out how to draw the shower water. It's perfectly simple and cartoony. I coulda fucked it up easily! The last comic I drew before the DRY SPELL. Wayne's Wedding is really slow going. Why? Well, because there's a path you're traveling on. From the moment Garth proposed to Wayne, we are hurtling towards a very specific event: A wedding. And what's more, specific things happen before you get to a wedding, in somewhat of a specific order. Let’s say I begin writing about the ceremony and realize OH SHIT! I just thought of a perfect joke for their Bachelor Party. The opportunity has passed, and I can't do it. So basically I get nervous that I'll blow a potential joke if I go forward. This was an idea I had for a long time and I didn't use it for such a long time for that reason. Anyway, the joke here is that Garth got a stripper that looks just like Wayne and Wayne got a stripper that looks just like Garth. Because they love each other that much. Or maybe Wayne got the Wayne stripper and Garth got the Garth stripper. It occurred to me some people might like it that way better, so I didn't draw anyone together. Also confusing: Wayne and Garth chose to have a heterosexual bachelor party? What? Huh? WHAT!So after a two month dry spell, I return to Early Conan with a bang: I emptied out my notebook of Early Conan ideas I had fully sketched out (including some new ones I came up with the day before, I think this is one of them). Why the dry spell? Well, I moved back home to Redding after a lack-luster and future-less stint in Chico, CA. And I promised, PROMISED myself that I wouldn't do anything creative or personally fulfilling until I got a job. It was sort of a motivational thing. Apparently there's a financial crisis going on, so it didn't happen (I'm typing this on Christmas day, long after I decided to give up until 2009). I sold a bunch of DVDs on eBay and my parents are nice and give me money when I run out. This and the following eight comics were a result of me saying "FUCK IT" (there's a lot of me saying "fuck it" in my life, isn't there?) and spending the entire day drawing the comics I should've been drawing all along. I dreaded the idea of doling these out over the course of a few weeks or whatever, so I released them all on the same day. Where does this comic come from? Well, I'll tell you. It's a recycled joke Mark came up with long ago for something else, but I felt like I was LIVING it so I used it for the comic. I also felt like it was a good way to come back from a long hiatus. He doesn't even remember it, but it's based on a conversation we and a couple other people (I remember Kon specifically being involved) had where we casted a live-action stage-performance of The Simpsons. I envisioned it being a like "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" but with the citizens of Springfield. The conversation was started by Kon mocking an anime nerd for referring to a scene from the Simpsons as a "sketch." Kon then rewrote an old SNL sketch where Homer assumes the role of Chevy Chase begging Lorne Michaels (Matt Groening) to not make him do the fall that week. "It's Saturday Night Live! Staring! Bart Simpson! Homer Simpson! Lisa Simpson!" So in our casting, we cast Nelson Muntz as being played by Chevy Chase, and Milhouse being played by Paul Simon, so they could reprise their "Call Me Al" video as the Simpsons characters. Mark suggested the performance would be cut short by Chevy melting down and just screaming at the audience "WHAT ARE WE DOING? WHAT ARE WE ALL DOING?" and there'd be a long silence while he stared intensely at the stage light, sweating profusely. That's where this came from. My dear friend Ami Jones, who I love and miss dearly, suggested that I draw an umbrella in Early Conan. Because she has a website where she posts art and pictures and stuff that has umbrellas in them. In speaking to her I came up with this simple idea where Conan gets launched, which is one of my favorite Comedy ideas: Non-consensual launchings. Anyway, I think a lot of people don't understand what's really going on: In panel two Conan is crashing through the ceiling of the NBC building, perhaps crashing up through several floors. The last panel he is in the sky, which I think is obvious. When I went to visit Ami before she moved I presented a hi-res copy of this strip, framed, and then we hugged for 65 minutes. Bye Ami, I'll see you if we're ever in the same city again. Please hurry up and get internet so we can watch Home Alone together on MSN like we agreed. A monster gives Harrison Ford (sorry to those of you who didn't know who this was, I didn't leave myself enough room to identify him using text, and furthermore I forgot to draw his stupid earring) a joint right before he goes out for his interview. This is meant to be an explanation as to why he's such a terrible talk show guest. That's it! NOVEMBER 15, 2008I have a memory that I either saw or was told about a time (maybe more) where they "unmasked" the masturbating bear and it was a celebrity. That's all I remember, and it might not have even happened, but it seems like a thing that would happen right? My mind almost always goes to skeletons when it comes to surprises, but this isn't just a skeleton, friend. It's the skeleton of Dave Seville (aka Ross Bagdasarian). You can tell, because he's singing the Alvin and the Chipmunks theme and is wearing a piano tie. The piano tie is because he was in Rear Window, the songwriter sitting at the piano? That's Dave Seville. I know that for a really specific reason. The first person to guess how I know this trivia I will send an autographed sketch of Early Conan! I'll even pay for postage! I wrestled what he should be singing: Simon? Theodore? ALVIN!!! (the sequence of names from the Chipmunks Christmas song), or what I wound up using, from the 80's show. I figured the Skelton Dave Seville would have a BONE to pick with the new series and is targeting everyone in the media by scaring them to death and singing it at them. This is more-or-less word for word what London Arbuckle wrote! I think he phrased it better than I did though. It wasn't a "Muppet-themed" "Fine Young Cannibals" music video. Rather it was a "Fine Young Cannibals-themed" Muppet music video. Oh yeah, I should explain this for people who don't know what this is. Conan does a bit called "The Year 2000" where he predicts outlandish things for... uh, the year 2000. He still does it, despite the year 2000 having passed, which I fucking love that he still does it and doesn't even act like it's a joke. In 1994, Conan did indeed star in a Muppet music video. You can watch it here. Isn't your life much richer now that you know more stuff? I know the Muppet video shows John Landis being the director. But that's just fiction. Kermit actually directed the video. Also, I wrote this one while I was trying to remember London's contribution (he actually sent it to me a long time ago). I fell in love with the gag of Kermit sitting at the director's chair I almost forgot about London's comic completely! I had to go back into my email and find his suggestion because all I remembered was it had to do with the Muppet video and that it was funny. Double-thanks to London, since I got TWO comics out of the deal, basically. ...Make that TRIPLE THANKS!! I have actually eaten a banana while driving. Which is insane. Not as insane as this: I once saw SOMEBODY ELSE do it, and I mocked them. TO MYSELF. Knowing full well this is something I've done, more than once. What am I, an asshole? This is another one of those mash-ups between two half-baked ideas. I had the company car gag in the back pocket since the earliest days. But it seemed like not enough to have that be the punch line. I also had the "YOU'RE LAKE" gag in my head for ages. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how Conan could go to the lake and not have it result in a new series of strips of him being at the lake. Like in my opinion the “You’re Lake” joke wasn’t a big enough pay-off, but if it were the first in a series of strips, that’d be fine. Luckily I could beef it up with the Desk Drive gag. Oh yeah, if you don't know, this is based on a sketch Conan does where he puts a green screen behind his desk, pulls up a steering wheel, and pretends to drive his desk around the city. The Lake Father (Formerly Lake Son) gag is almost impossible to get at face value. It's a pun. The idea is that people would refer to it in print as "Lake Father/Lake Son" which sounds like "Like Father, Like Son." As an afterthought I thought maybe this lake is a notorious hang out for children to go and do drugs. So basically there's three jokes in this, a three-panel comic. That's way more than most three-panel comics give you, like triple! You should all feel so lucky to be reading this shit. This is another hold-over from the old AIM Chat I refer to frequently. This comic requires explanation, no question about it. You see, Paul Schafer laid eggs in Conan's desk before the Letterman Show left the studio. That's the idea. I couldn't figure out any way to explain that within the comic without flat-out dedicating a panel to just text that lays out the explanation to you. But that's what this is for, right? Right. As mentioned before, Mark Riddles came up with this concept of "Current Ferguson." This actually isn't THAT current. I don't think Ferguson does the "What Will We Learn" bit anymore. He used to do it at the top of his show. I know because I used to TiVo Letterman and I'd always get the last bit of Ferguson as an added bonus. I'll explain it, because who the fuck even watches Craig Ferguson? Basically there is a title card with some footage of an owl hooting around on a tree branch like he's Desi Arnez. There's a jingle sang by lady voices that go "What Will We Learnn ooon the Showtonight Craaaig?" and it cuts to Craig who jabbers in his native accent about what's gonna be on the show. And almost always, he says "Good Evening" or whatever and the audience laughs. They laugh at a greeting! That's how bananas people go for the Ferg! It's a shame no one watches. He must be delightful! I thought of the "(Scottish Accent)" joke too late to use in the first Current Ferguson comic, but I maintain that maybe Craig was speaking in an American accent in that particular moment. Another difference between the pilot and the rest of the series: STRAIGHT LINES for the panels! I don't know if anyone's noticed this or not, but I always use a ruler to draw the panels for Current Ferguson strips (except the first one), but ALWAYS draw them freehand for Early Conan (Actually I draw in pencil with a ruler, then trace it freehand, if you must know). Okay, so this was a joke I had since September or so. I was working in the box office of the short-lived movie theater job I had in Chico. I drew basically just that DVD cover titled "A DUMB MOVIE" with a big thing on the front making a big deal about Kevin Smith's guest commentary. I was about to scan it at home when I realized I should just turn it into a Current Ferguson strip some time down the road (at that point it was nothing more than a gleam in Mark Riddle's eye). Hidden joke: The Zack and Miri shirt Kevin is wearing on the DVD Box is blurred out. Uh, other stuff: I wanted to draw Kevin Smith as being HUGE, like a giant. I'm not sure if it came across that well. Also, do I need to explain the joke here? About Kevin Smith and how he's been on guest commentaries for Road House and Donnie Darko and he just seems to be the quintessential GUEST COMMENTATOR type guy for dumb movies. Basically, he’d say yes to blathering on about any movie if you paid him. Ever heard his commentary for Road House? No joke, he printed out CHUCK NORRIS FACTS and replaced CHUCK NORRIS with DALTON. And the way he gives credit is so irresponsible, like when a guy breaks out a guitar and sings Steven Lynch songs at a party and then at the end goes "haha, that guy's genius!" and that's the extent of him giving credit to Steven Lynch. But really, he's just breezing past it to cover his ass in front of the people who know what it's from, letting it slide when people misunderstand and think normal guy Joe is actually behind the funny parody song. In other words, he doesn't exactly make it absolutely clear and dwell on the fact that he's just repeating some one else's "brilliance." Boo to that! (PS: I'm thinking of one specific guy with the Steven Lynch thing, and it was on one occasion, and he MIGHT actually be reading this. Sorry, but you really need to not do that). This is another idea I had for a really long time before I started doing Current Ferguson. I think we were all obsessed with the Go-Phone Commercial where Meatloaf sings to his fat son. Not long ago I actually sang it to a friend. It's been fucking months since it's been on TV, and I still have it memorized. Tommy was a big proponent of it, and told us tales of the kid in the commercial's myspace page and how he's ultra-conservative. Maybe I should be linking to his commercial? Here it is. I made Meatloaf so fucking huge to compensate for my failure to make Kevin as big as I wanted. Also, at this point I decided to have Craig ONLY interview fat people. I abandoned that pretty quick. This is a joke I made on AIM I think everyone ignored. See, commercials and stuff will often have TITLES, but you don't know what they are from watching them or anything; you may see them archived on a website or on a resume. Then you'll get to see what the title is. So I had this idea that Meatloaf finds out the name of his commercial is FAT FAMILY VER. A, and just how all the blood would drain out of your face upon finding this out. Like, you'd probably have to sit down immediately and keep yourself from hyperventilating. What a horrible feeling! Now we all know from viewing the long version that the name of the commercial is actually "Paradise by the GoPhone Light" but on TV it's cut to 30 seconds long and doesn't have the closing credit sequence. What a shame. Man I have never seen a comic I drew get so little response as this one did. It's a total downer, but I guess if you don't take anything seriously (like me) it's funny. I kinda was trying to go for some pretentious dreamy quality that like a David Lynch movie would have. Like when Laura Palmer's mom is in bed and she's all drugged up and is hallucinating horses in her bedroom? I basically picture Andy going through that every night. This is actually a much milder dream than he usually has. Andy knows that some day his partnership with Conan will have to end, and he dreads this day more than anything. Poor little guy. Kon asked me if Fergie only interviewed fatties. I said yes, he did. Mark replied with: "so no luck for a strip where luke wilson is sitting during one of Ferg's long ancedotes that don't concern the guest (a trademark) and hearing the words NEEDLE IN THE HAYYYYYY and looking at his wrists and seeing owen's face on his wrist going 'NEEDLLLE IN THE HAYYYYY'" Maybe one of the funniest fucking things I've ever read. But I honestly thought Owen Wilson was an undeserving target. Not that we're explicitly out to get him for trying to commit suicide; we are just young dudes who go out of our minds with boredom and make fun of everything, whether its right or wrong or fair or unfair. Maybe it's a character flaw, but that's all it is. This idea made me laugh continually for... Jesus, a couple of weeks maybe. I’m telling you, this idea got me bad. I just had to draw it. Oh, if you don't know, it's a reference to not only Owen Wilson's real-life suicide attempt, but it's also a reference to Luke Wilson's role in The Royal Tenenbaums, where he has a scene where he attempts (suicide alert!) spoiler. Anyway, this is a weird situation to be in. I feel bad about it, but I didn't write it, so I'm always insulting Mark if I apologize for it, but I honestly think it's easily one of the funniest comics ever.... but I can't really take credit for THAT either, because like I said, Mark wrote it. This comic really is a hotbed for double-edged swordedness! A double edged sword that I can use to slice both my wrists at once, because I'm Owen Wilson. I'm so sorry. The Original punch line for this was simply Andy falling into hell. Then I decided I should do a Christmas comic. I actually started writing/drawing what WOULD be a big long Early Conan adventure, but the only problem was that it was the 24th and there'd be NO WAY I'd be able to finish it in time for Christmas. But boy, do I have a half-baked story idea for next year (it truly was, I had no idea where I was going with it)! Also, when I refer to the Early Conan staff, I'm actually picturing the picture of the PAWS INC staff that's in one of my GARFIELD books from childhood. I remember being a kid and seeing it and being like "What? It takes 20 people to make Garfield? What the fuck?" The first Early Conan of 2009! I actually made my New Years Resolution to update this on a regular basis. Tuesdays and Fridays, specifically. Lets see if that takes. There's not much to say about this one. Actually, yes there is. When I was a young one (I'm thinking 7th/8th grade here) I used to draw my own comic books. I created this character named "Reckless Randy," sort of based off my cousin who either skateboarded, or I like to imagine him skateboarding. I thought he was so cool, for some reason? I guess dressing like the bad kids in "The Wizard" will do that for an impressionable boy like me. Anyway, he had a straight spiky black hair because that's easy to draw, and he had a friend who pretty much had Beavis' haircut but he was kind of a stuck-up sissy who disapproved of things, and another friend with long hair that hid his face. He just was comically dumb, and that's it. This was like 1996/7, I was anywhere between 12 and 14 years old. So anyway, the second comic book adventure featured them getting a computer. As they put it together, they let the dumb guy read the instructions out loud. He did, but he'd read the steps in English, then French, then Spanish. They get online and Randy instantly goes to get some cyber tail. Cyber Sex was a new concept at the time, why not explore the comic possibilities of it? Like, hahaha, it cuts to the other person and it's not a hot girl at all! It's a fat dude or something! Gross! Anyway, I don't even think I was that clever in my comic. It ended with Randy excitedly telling the guys about having cyber sex. The dumb guy goes "CYBER SEX??" and then runs to the computer to go HAVE SOME. He instantly gets a virus and the computer blows up their house. I was thinking of that, then turned it into this. Kon gave me this idea: "any way there can be an early conan flashback where kermit vomits on the set of the fine young cannibals video". I figured out a way to make it not be a flashback! Also, Kermit is friends with that creepy old guy, for some reason. There's a lot to find baffling in this comic. Firstly, it's a sequel to these comics: #59, #60, #61. Those comics are based on this video (2:33, 3:30, 3:55, 5:10). It's also based on a character on character on Conan: Vomiting Kermit. This is based on a real fear I used to have as a kid: A fiery hand that comes out of the toilet when you flush it. So I used to run from every toilet flush, even when I was too old to be doing stuff like that. I recently found out that when you flush the toilet with the lid up that a cloud of shit bacteria basically flies up and settles slowly, and if your toothbrush isn’t more than 6 feet away from the toilet when this happens, you’re basically dousing it in crap every time you flush. So now I flush with the lid down. Where did I find this out? MANSWERS! Which is literally the worst show that I like. This is an idea I had kicking around for a really long time. Wasn't sure if I was ready to jump into the wedding ceremony yet. But here we are. Anyway Phil showing up and reversing the line "If you're gonna spew, spew into this" on Garth (If you haven't seen the movie, these comics are completely useless to you) was an idea I came up with really early on, and it's a pretty obvious place for one's mind to go. But I needed another twist on it. I don't know why but Phil joining the Army just seemed so right. This strip suggests that there was some question as to weather Phil would show up or not. This is a very emotional time for Garth. I really wrestled with getting Phil's look right. He doesn't have that much of a distinct look without his ratty denim jacket and sick look on his face. I hope people get that that IS the same Phil from the movie, and not some other Phil, and that THAT is the "punchline." Maybe I'm over-thinking things! This is an old idea that I put off for a long, long time. This comes from one of the earliest brain-storming sessions between me and Mark Riddles on AIM. I've actually made many attempts to draw Joel Goddard, Late Night Announcer. I wanted to draw him in a simpler, cartoony way so he could be a regular character. But since only one in 75 comics I've drawn have actually called for him, I think it's time to give up on that idea. Lately when I look at my notebook of ideas, the thing that makes me pick an idea over another is which one is hardest to draw. I make an effort to draw the strip that I haven't quite figured out yet. When I start running out of ideas it'll be a good consolation that the ones I have left are ones that are easier to draw. More time to think of new ideas, right? What else? This is actually the third draft or so of the script. Mark's original pitch was Joel simply melting, which is very funny. I rewrote it many months later with him coming back inexplicably from being melted and going "HEY JUST KIDDING!" When I sat down to draw it I decided to take out the "Just Kidding!" I guess to make it more menacing and weird. Joel is a creep. No commentary. Imagine if there was such a person! HAHA! Willie sent me this idea a long time ago! But he basically just sent me the idea for the comic within the comic! I guess I just wanted to put my own spin on it. I just wanted to point out I totally could've made this two different comics. The first comic coulda just been the SWIRLY CONAN COMIC and then this would be the follow up. JUST POINTING THAT OUT. I originally conceived this as a video, but realized it worked perfectly as a "comic." It's a parody of any "How to Draw" thing that's connected to almost any comic strip or cartoon thing that ever existed. But the very specific reference at the end is to Matt Groening, who "hides" his initials in drawings of Homer Simpson when he draws Homer for fans: His hair above his ear is an "M" and the inside of the ear is a "G." This is another really old idea. I think I wrote it just trying to think of a lame fan-fictiony type thing to write, but it occurred to me this is a lot like those Spiderman strips. When me and my friend Andrew lived together we’d go to Denny’s a lot and grab a paper and we’d take turns reading the comics to each other and assign a star rating. We’d almost always give the Spiderman strip a four star rating, just because it would be senseless and taken out of context. Mark Trail is a good one for that, too. So it’s a little of all those ideas. Sorry I blew Early Conan off last Friday. So this comic comes from a very specific place. I used to like the movie Fight Club. In fact, I would say there was a time I lived my entire life based on it and it's pretentious teachings. I didn't start a fight club or dress like Tyler Durden or anything; I mostly just enjoyed the anti-corporate anti-materialistic philosophy behind it. I covered my sweatshirt's logo with duct tape. I started an anti-social club called the UFDC that was kind of just an excuse for me and my friends to pull pranks (it was half tongue-in-cheek though, so don't think I was THAT pathetic). I intended for the initials to stand for "The UnFunny Diarreah Club" (a mis-quote from the movie "Shakes the Clown") but when my fellow gang-members rejected it my argument was that the initials of UFDC sound great. They agreed, and I based on that I suggested that we just call ourselves the UFDC and have the initials not actually stand for anything. Oh, I should say right now, this is high school we're talking about. At the same time I drew a comic called ZOONIE AND MARCUS, which was a highly-conceptual anti-comedy type thing based on me being mad at newspaper comics (we had a thing in one of my classes where we read the paper and had to pick an article to talk about, but I'd spend most of my time reading comics and finding stuff to make fun of with my friends). The entire concept was this: Zoonie is a nice, well-drawn cartoon guy who approaches Marcus, a badly drawn stick-like figure with the same expression on his face in every comic. Zoonie would say something that resembled a set-up to a punch line, and in the last panel Marcus would just insult or ignore him, in such a way that had absolutely nothing to do with what Zoonie said. That’s how it started, anyway. I eventually deviated from that formula, but it was still MOSTLY that. I was actually quite proud of them, and find they hold up remarkably well for something that I wrote in high school and SHOULD be embarrassed about. ...Except for ONE particular installment. And oh god, I don’t know if I can bear to discuss it. I actually put off writing this commentary for it because I blush just thinking about it. I almost didn’t draw this Early Conan comic because I didn’t want to have to talk about this. But here it goes. One Zoonie and Marcus featured Zoonie excitedly telling Marcus about his brand new shoes that cost him an arm and a leg. Zoonie tells Marcus to be careful around him, because he doesn’t want them getting dirty. Marcus then shoots Zoonie dead. Covered in blood, Marcus says “the shoes are fine.” And in the corner of the comic, oh fucking god, I can’t stand myself for this... I wrote “IN TYLER WE TRUST.” AND I MEANT IT. So basically this comic came out of me reminiscing about Zoonie and Marcus and thinking maybe I should put them all online, or maybe I should remake it and just use the really strong ones, and then thinking about that one particular comic and feeling ashamed. I actually had this thought of “maybe I should just put it up and claim I was being ironic?” And then I thought about trying to turn it into an Early Conan comic and somehow it wound up like this. I hope it was worth it to all you for me to go through this. I was on the verge of blowing Early Conan off. First of all there was my dad's 68th birthday party. Then the resulting sugar shits from birthday cake ate up some time. And then I couldn’t find my notebook of ideas and sketches... this whole thing was going to hell, basically. When I found my notebook, I was still feeling crappy and headachy and I won’t lie to you folks, my stomach is still giving me trouble even as I write this. I couldn’t find any of my ideas that I was truly excited about or could figure out how to make better or even just HOW to draw them. Some of these comics honestly do require me sitting down and solving like a math problem, and I wanted to go easy on myself. There was a half-baked comic I wrote down from that AIM chat Mark Riddles and I had long ago that I reference now and again in these commentaries. He had an idea for a comic called “Future Letterman.” This was many months before the election, but Mark wrote it as Future Letterman making fun of President McCain. I thought of doing that and re-titling it “Alternate Universe Letterman.” (which I probably will do eventually, so if you’re reading this in the future and this is old news to you, fucking... think harder about chronological context you jerks) But there was a joke Mark said that I didn’t write down and couldn’t remember. So I ran a search for “early conan” on my computer in hopes to find that chat (which was printed out at one point, but I lost track of it). I came across a .txt file called “early conan ideas” from May 16, 2008. Nearly 9 months old, this idea was, and it’s been sitting there. I completely forgot about it. I don’t know what inspired it or where it came from. Actually thinking back I can remember a kid wearing a jersey in my high school of Looney Tunes characters and it said TEAM LOONEY on it, and my friend Galen making fun of it by simply reading it out loud in mock enthusiasm (“Team Looney!”). So it probably came from that. A while back I auctioned off my collection of Seinfeld Magazines. Yeah, I had a collection of Seinfeld Magazines left over from 1998, when the final episode was about to air. I actually bought up every magazine I could that had Seinfeld on the cover, and all these crappy fly-by-night single-issue magazines that speculated what the last episode's plot was gonna be. One claimed to actually know for sure. Here's the actual article. I forgot about the details of the article untill one day when I posted an image of the cover of the magazine. Cliff Steele reminded me of it's existence by asking me: "In the final episode revealed, does it end with them moving to LA and Newman slowly creeping up in his mail truck?" The memories of the article came flooding back to me and it inspired me to make this comic. It took me a while to get around to it, because it was a comic I really had to "figure out," and the last-minute decision to draw Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer based on their TV Guide covers didn't help matters. But somehow it got done, and after a paragraph of explanation, it pays off. Kon asked if I was going to do a special comic to commemorate Conan's final night as Late Night host. I completely forgot about his final show being tonight (It's actually on as I type this. No spoilers! I'm TiVoing it!). So I racked my brain and tried to come up with something. I was tossing ideas around with Mark on AIM when he informed me that Socks, the Clinton's cat, had died today. I was genuinely bummed. He looked like a nice kitty cat! I remember when I was a kid we were making a time capsule to burry under a playground that was being built. Our teachers said one day when they are building a rocket pad there, people from the future will find it. Kind of a bleak vision of the future if they really do think there's going to be so many rockets being launched to get off this fucked-up planet that there's a sporting chance that a playground will become the future site of a launch pad. I remember being a topical kid (I would be ten, maybe?) and I suggested we put Socks in the capsule. Some girl looked at me all shitty and said "MY cat's named Socks TOO" as if I were insulting her by making a ten-year-old's version of a political joke. I actually was so mad about it I refused to be in the picture with her that was going to go in the Time Capsule. I did donate an Iron Man Comic Book, though. So I guess the joke here is instead of doing a special comic about Conan's final Late Night, I did a comic about Socks dying. Funny, right? London Arbuckle made a thread on my message board about terrible comics in his college paper, and that was basically the inspiration behind this. Kind of a sequel to my fake 1998 high school comic. So many college paper comics are available online and have some kind of blog attached to it. There’s so much to find lame about that. Also, no college humor is funny. I hate all of it. I hate college! College is as easy as life gets in a lot of ways. Unless you’re me, surrounded by people you can’t relate to having zero ability to take it seriously. But any relishing of college experience is just automatically lame to me. I’m actually gearing up to go back, because turns out you’re not allowed to be a grown-up unless you have a college degree. Come on, society. Just let me be a grown-up. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. FEBRUARY 27, 2009I thought this one up this morning while I was daring myself to get out of bed, despite having any reason to. I was also recovering from some nutso dreams, including one where I was maliciously driving my car through Best Buy, and as I drove out the exit the greeter at the door asked me if I wanted to sign the sheet to check up on my job application. Yeesh. During the Oscars this year me and some pals were chatting on AIM and I kept mentioning how different movie monsters were showing up on the red carpet to get interviewed (Pinhead was my favorite) and I was probably thinking about that. Also, Conan actually did have a monster on his show once. He did a show with an all-kid audience on at least one occasion and they had a monster in the hallway that would come out if the show got too boring, so the idea was the kids had to pretend to find the show entertaining during intentionally boring moments. I remember specifically being mad because Dave Foley was a guest and my Kids in the Hall fandom was probably at it's height, and they "wasted" him by having him come out to do purposely boring shtick talking about history or something, and when the kids started booing it cut to the monster in the hall lurching towards the studio doors. So yeah, this strip probably started with me imagining Pinhead being a guest on the Conan Show, remembering the monster on his kid-friendly episode, and then it became this. MARCH 6, 2009I really apologize for blowing off Early Conan last Tuesday. My excuse, I got way too hardcore into working on THIS. Also, I had to comfort my dog during a thunderstorm. The reference here is the Wayne's World NES game. This is the specific video I used for reference. I guess it's funny that I'm suggesting that the events in the shit NES game fall into the Wayne's World canon. Kinda like how Goonies 2 for NES was meant to be a direct follow-up to the movie and not a re-hashy spin-off like most games are. But when I was drawing this, I was a little doubtful. Just the night before I was reminiscing about the game SkiFree after a friend of mine linked me to the OFFICIAL SkiFree Home Page. I said something like "hey, has Robot Chicken referenced SkiFree yet?" I hypothesized what the Robot Chicken SkiFree sketch would be. A skier skis up to the foreground, and begins pompously celebrating. The monster then shows up and gobbles him up. He screams profanity and there's blood. That'd be it. See, because Robot Chicken is awful. I just wanted to make THAT clear. I kept thinking to myself, how is this really different from THAT? I'm still a little stumped, to be honest. This comic was many months in the making, actually. I wanted to reference the video game somehow, because it's so awful and absurd. I mean, Garth is the badass? He jumps like crazy and wields a GUN! Wayne does these wimpy, awkward-looking kicks. My first idea, that I knew stunk, was that they'd be rehearsing for their first dance as husband and wife, and Wayne's dancing style would be to do those wimp kicks. But man, that's even more esoteric. At least this way I think even if you haven't played the Wayne's World game you can just GUESS from how it looks that that's what's being referenced. Is this enough commentary? Yes? Good. MARCH 10, 2009This is an old, old idea. Pre-Early-Conan, even. Originally it was just gonna be a non-descript guy saying "DOG GERMS!" (not related to anybody's fear, he was just a jolly guy happy to show off his dog germs sample) and it zooms into that microscopic view and it would be a bunch of happy-looking golden retriever heads overlapping each other. It was drawn in MS-Paint and I copy and pasted a bunch of dog heads into the image, but my computer crashed when I was in the middle of making it and I didn't save it during the tedious photo-editing process so I never finished it. I was actually going to do another comic I had in my head, but when I went to grab an Early Conan comic I already had drawn so I could trace the panels. It just so happened the one I grabbed was This one. Somehow I had the dog germs comic on my mind and THAT IS THE REST OF THE STORY (RIP PAUL HARVEY) MARCH 13, 2009I thought of this idea after I drew the first Andy-runs-away comic, but I wasn’t sure if I REALLY wanted to make the Andy-runs-away comic a whole story arc. So I did Wayne’s Wedding while I was deciding. Then I thought the “dog germs” comic was going to cover this idea, but it was still sortra non-canon enough that I could continue the Andy-runs-away idea IF I WANTED. It wasn’t until I decided to cast the dog from My Crazy Dad! in the role of the dog that scares Andy that I decided it was worth doing. So yeah, a cameo got me off the fence. I just think it’s neat to tie the two comics together is all. MARCH 17, 2009This strip came shortly after the last one in the writing of it. I thought about making both strips a single six-panel strip, but I like dragging things out. That’s the flaming hand making it’s second appearance (here’s the first). I always felt I drew it really bad the first time around, and tried to fix it this time out. It still doesn’t look right. Oh well. MARCH 20, 2009I’m not sure if commentary is really necessary for this. It’s about as close to a straight-forward a joke as I get with Early Conan. But just in case I drew it like shit and don’t know it, that’s Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. MARCH 24, 2009Click here. MARCH 27, 2009This comic seems like one I would’ve done a long time ago. Like it would literally be a comic I did in the first month of Early Conan’s existence. I just have an affinity for humor that involves people melting for real! I actually got a new job recently that I actually kinda have to STUDY for. I’m a tour guide for a Lake Shasta Caverns. As I’m writing this I completed my second ever day of work, which so far has involved shadowing a few tours and trying to pick up the information necessary to conduct the tour myself, and a few moments of manual labor, but it’s manual labor with a beautiful lake view, so it’s still pretty sweet. Did I mention my job involves riding a boat every day? So my usual ritual of being unemployed and going out to lunch at Red Robin by myself even though I can’t really afford it with my notebook of ideas so I can sit there and over-think which strip to draw and which strip to hold off on drawing while I wait for my delicious Red Robin hamburger is out the window because I have a steady job now. Imagine that! So this was just one of my waiting-to-draw ideas that I happened to remember at the time I had to sit down and bang out Early Conan. So does the fact that I under-thought this installment explain anything about this comic? Probably not. But I like it when my commentaries have a higher word count. Seriously, before you read this, didn’t it just LOOK insightful? APRIL 1, 2009God, I was so fucking lucky that I came up with this ON April Fools day. I basically thought of the first two panels, realized the chronology didn’t work, and ALMOST scrapped it, when I realized I could write-it off as an intentionally-lame April Fools joke. Sometimes I am furious with the fact that I can’t draw as good as I actually can. See, because I had this PERFECT, SIMPLE drawing of McCully Culkin in my head that I for the life of me I could not reproduce on paper. Also failed at: Finding a visual reference for McCully Culkin in the coffin in the movie “My Girl.” I had to kinda wing it with what he was wearing, because I don’t remember the wardrobe. I was THIS CLOSE to putting him in early 60s children clothes and the beehive tucked under his arm. I’m willing to bet a screencap exists online somewhere, like some snarky pop-culture blog used it to juxtapose some recent troubles he was having or some bullshit. I was also sure as shit that the VHS for the movie was in my parent’s house somewhere, but my sister must’ve taken it when she moved out. Man, why don’t I own that movie? If “Now and Then” is good enough for my DVD collection, this fucking should be. APRIL 4, 2009This happened a few days ago. At the end of my long day of giving tours at Lake Shasta Caverns, after getting off the boat that takes me and the other tour guides and bus drivers over from the cavern side of the lake to the gift shop side of the lake (where my car and the rest of civilization exists), I get on to the rickety old school bus that at one time was an official Lake Shasta Caverns tour bus, which before that was a retired school bus, which before that was a non-retired school bus, which is now an all-purpose transport vehicle for the staff on the civilization side of the lake. I get on, and two coworkers are sitting across from each other. As I walk past them, they have this exchange: 1: Do you like Stevie Wonder?
Oh, the things I don’t have in common with my co-workers! You could fill an interminable book with it! APRIL 13, 2009I blew off Early Conan last week. Work was killing me. But here is the first of five consecutive daily strips to make up for it. I wrote down an idea a long time ago that said “Jon Lovitz promotes Critic webisodes.” The timeline wasn’t QUITE right, though; They premiered in December of 2000, which would be after Andy left, so I had Conan say “next year” to make this strip officially take place in 1999. It’s kinda ridiculous that Lovitz would be promoting them that far in advance, but what are you going to do? Also, that’s the official cut-off for what I consider “Early Conan” in these strips: Anytime before Andy left the show. But honestly, I can remember it being 2000 when Andy was still on the show and longingly reminiscing about “early Conan,” so I try to keep it in the early 90s. Anyway, it became this, based on me making a typo of “good grief” when I was talking to Mark Riddles on AIM. I followed the typo up with the idea of a Goofy cartoon in which Goofy deals with the loss of a young one. Mark added something really funny to it, but that’ll come later. Somehow I figured out to merge the two ideas. Also: I only figured out at the last minute that I needed to somehow communicate that it was the green room, so I wrote a label on the TV monitor. So there’s that. This commentary sucks. APRIL 14, 2009I had this idea a really long time ago. When I told my friend Andrew Campbell about it, he remarked “wow, Waynes Wedding sure does feature Garth crying a lot.” Yes, yes it does. Oh, and Garth’s dad I originally just drew with a bow tie, and then I realized a bollo tie was so much righter, so I erased it in MS Paint and changed it to a bollo. APRIL 15, 2009This is based on my revisiting the conversation me and Mark regarding a previous comic. His original concept included a bit about Gene Siskel that I didn’t include. This is also based on a story Mark Riddles told me about being in some television history class, where a teacher had a multi-media lecture, which included a clip of Gilligan’s island. After it, was as a slide of Bob Denver’s headshot with his birth and death date. “Bob Denver has passed away.” The teacher said. The teacher then moved on to something else completely different. Mark was in hysterics because he said it as if he were breaking the news to the class. It happened 3 years ago at the time. APRIL 16, 2009Here it is. The final installment of Wayne’s Wedding. I knew it would end this way really early on: That they’d get to the part where they have to kiss and they get grossed out. But it didn’t occur to me to do an Achewood parody until fairly recently. I actually wasn’t sure about it, but JUST doing the bottom three panels seemed to not do the series justice. I guess just copying the source material wasn’t enough of a funny twist in my mind (in fact I almost gave Chris Onstad a co-writing credit), but Achewood is a pretty big influence on Early Conan, so it deserves some kind of homage. So yeah, don’t even think of it as a parody, if that makes it better for you. It makes it better for me! Also of note: How Wayne’s hat says “PARTY ON!” on the back of it? I owned a Wayne’s World hat as a young man, and my babysitter did not care for it completely. She didn’t like that it was just a replica of the actual hat from the movie. “It should say something in the back maybe! Like ‘PARTY ON!’” She said. Me and my sister rejected that idea so fast and hard you’d think we were trying to stop an assassination attempt. Man, I wish I still had that hat. And I almost had the minister say "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" because I was having a difficult time figuring out what the minister would actually say in a gay dude wedding. I managed to get the “Spouses for life” line from a google search for “gay marriage ceremony” and “I now pronounce you” THE WAYNE’S WEDDING THAT NEVER WAS: During my dry-spell (in which I was unemployed and decided to play some game with myself where I denied myself the privilege of doing anything personally fulfilling (like Early Conan) until I found a steady job. My big idea was to do a mock-serious, non-cannon strip where Wayne and Garth bemoan the fact that Prop 8 got voted in. “How could California betray our plight?” Garth would say to Wayne. DOESN’T THAT SOUND FUNNY? Yeah, I blew it on that. APRIL 17, 2009This came from an AIM conversation a little while ago, I think it was the same conversation where me and Mark wrote the Socks strip.
Jixby Phillips: I am trying to think of an idea for early Conan to celebrate his final late show but still be an early Conan you know :-(
References for those of you who are completely in the dark: Never Not Funny is a very successful podcast hosted by comedian Jimmy Pardo. I’m genuinely a fan of it, okay? Just to make my feelings known: I enjoy it. The guy seen in panel 3 that isn’t Andy Richter is Matt Belknap, who produces the podcast and sorta co-hosts. His shirt is an intentionally mangled reference to the Never Not Funny Bag O’ corn, friend! t-shirt, which is a reference to a story told on an episode of their show. Monkey Go Lucky.com sponsors the video version of the podcast. In one (maybe more) episode of the podcast, Jimmy Pardo talks about responding to emails, and his habit of answering many of them simply “Thanks! – JP.” Also, the “100 Series” is a reference to Space Ghost Coast to Coast, who at a point stopped numbering their episodes and put that in the corner of the screen during the credits. I don’t even understand why they started doing that, they weren’t on episode 100 or anything. I’m guessing it’s probably some obscure reference to something else, and I’m just an idiot. The joke here, of course, is that Conan goes on to host The Tonight Show, while Andy goes on to appear on a podcast. But between writing the comic and drawing it, it was announced that Andy will actually be the Tonight Show announcer. I went ahead anyway. The joke could be that Andy has an excessively pessimistic idea of where he’ll wind up, yet completely accurate, and also maybe not pessimistic because look at how much happier Andy is in the future! Man, even I can’t figure this one out. Anyway, I will probably take a week off from the comic. I got some other stuff to work on (including some stuff related to Early Conan). Happy anniversary, me. |
