Then and Now

This is "Mates," my comic strip about a gay group of friends - it used to be "Out House," the first gay comic strip in a college newspaper in the entire country, running from 1998 to 2000 in the University of Arizona's Wildcat.

What I want to do here is take a long trip down memory lane, not only about where these jokes came from, but how unbelievably bad my cartooning used to be (which is why I included a version I did today, to prove defensively that I can actually kinda sorta draw). I was at a very weird point in my coming out process when I did this strip - openly gay but completely terrified of it, as I think the strip shows: I can't believe how many jokes revolve around Tad, my main character, overreacting or freaking out about being gay.

Thanks for taking a look - and your compassionate mercy as you wait for my drawing to get slowly better.