My career in comics began by doing single-panel gag-strips, basically ripping off The Far Side. It would be kinder to call it an “homage”.
Toward the end of High School I decided I wanted to move away from single gags so I could tell stories. The result was my first venture into comic strips. At the time Bill Waterson was my idol and I was very taken with the idea of becoming a newspaper cartoonist (which is at times painfully clear while looking through some of this older material).
Blue Grass Pond
The name I settled on for the strip was Blue Grass Pond. I worked on it on and off for almost two years. I confess that I was not really that productive during this time period and, if I had been taking my art as seriously as I pretended to, I would have a lot more of this comic strip then I do now. Nevertheless, I came away from that period in my life with a better understanding of how easily you can get into trouble with a recurring storyline and about seventy comic strips which my Mom still tells me are awesome.
I have collected the entirety of Blue Grass Pond here for your viewing pleasure. I hope you enjoy.
When I was at Chicago Comic Convention back in August, I did a brief interview with the guys from RadioactiveNerd.com. It was pretty cool to have the opportunity to share my book with more folks and I was eagerly anticipating when they would get the interview posted on their site. I wound up moving right after the Chicago show and in the hustle and bustle of everything, I almost forgot about it.
As I am now settling back into my routine, I’ve been going through my convention-stack of business cards and knick-knacks and it reminded me to check their site again and there it was!
I’d like to extend a belated thanks to the guys at RadioactiveNerd.com and hopefully we’ll run into each-other again at another show!
You may have noticed that I haven’t updated my site recently. In fact I haven’t updated my site since the Chicago Comic Convention. There is a reason for that (and a long story), most of which I will skip.
In a bizarre turn of events, an unauthorized third party made some allegations about my work to the creator of (what turns out to be) the original Drafted, Mark Powers. The result was that my first contact with Mark was in regard to intellectual property infringement.
This was really a shame, and under different circumstances, I’d like to think things might have turned out differently. Nevertheless, given the manner of our introduction, there really wasn’t much that could be done for either of us other than for me to change the title of my book. Mark has been great about the whole thing, and once we got past the initial awkwardness of the situation, we were able to conduct the whole affair pretty amiably. I wish Mark, and Drafted, the best of success and I look forward to our moving ahead with our respective books with all this behind us.
For my book, I’ve settled on the new title: LAST TOUR. I feel it captures that military grit that is essential to the ethic of the story while emphasizing the finality of the events contained therein.
As you look around the site, you will notice (or may have already noticed) that the name change is in full-swing. The one exception to this is the store, because I have not yet had a chance to re-cover my issues of stock, although this is in the cards very soon. For those of you who are collectors, this is an opportunity to pick up a copy of what is sure to be a rare and valuable “misprint” before the chance is gone forever!
Till next time,
- e. w. lynch
(”Starship Troopers” was a close runner up for the new title. That would have been a great one too.)
