Let me set the stage. The year is 2009, a black man was just elected president, And I was in the 7th or 8th grade... I forget. I was a very pubescent... boy And I wanted to impress this girl who was a huge fan of Twilight. Remember when Twilight was still a thing? So the second Twilight movie, New Moon, was not out yet. But the trailer was. And in the trailer, there's this scene where Bella... "NO EDWARD, DON'T!" ...is running through a fountain. So, with my hormone-filled brain, I decided to draw this girl a comic. About New Moon. To impress her. And little did I know, That would be the very first comic That would start a long chain of events That lead to where I am today. That's actually not true. The first comic I drew was this fan-made Garfield comic That I did when I was like, nine. This is the Garfield comic that came out when I was 1. Okay, back to Twilight. So I had to do some deep digging, but I found it. The very first comic that I'm counting as doing. Let me read it to you. This guy is sitting in a movie theater Surrounded by girls with heart eyes. The guy says, "This movie doesn't make any sense!" The girl says, "Wait, what?" "It doesn't make any sense!" "How?" "Well, first off, why doesn't Bella just call Edward?" "He has a cellphone!" "Call him about what?" "Are you even watching the movie?!" "Well, I'm watching Robert Patterson shirtless." Which I have been informed, R. Pats is not the person people are watching shirtless, It was actually this fellow. I mean this fellow. So then the girl says, "Look there he goes!" (girly screams) "He's about to go in the sun." "Why is Bella running through a fountain?" So that was the end of the comic. So I showed it to this girl and she was obviously swooning. So later I get bored in class, And I decided to redraw that Twilight comic and show it to my friends. Which I actually lied to you (again) This is not the actual comic, This is the redraw that I showed my friends. I gave the original comic to the girl. I don't know if she kept it... But if you're watching this And you do have the original... Can I have it back? You know who you are. So I get bored in class AGAIN Can you believe it? And I start doodling on my page And I think, "Wouldn't it be funny if I drew like, more comics?" "Like what if I just made that my thing?" So for the next two and a half years, I started drawing six comics on one blank sheet of paper. Three on each side. They were just little stick figures, And I kept EVERY SINGLE PAGE of them. And doing that really taught me a lot about the basics of making a comic. But... A lot of them weren't that funny. So I guess I didn't learn that much. Anyway, when I was around 15 years old, I wanted to put my comics on (echo) THE INTERNET. This is when I started talking to a lot of art kids at my school. And I met this one girl named Tiffany And she drew on a tablet. So, okay, cool. I wanted to do that. I asked my parents for a tablet on my 16th birthday. And that's when I started putting my comics on a little website called Tumblr. Let's look at my Facebook profile picture. Uh... not that one. This was a public picture that anyone could see. HUHLLLLEHHH What's going on with the scribbles in the hair? Now what happened was was that I had the contrast on my computer screen turned all the way up. Now if we turn the contrast on this image, You can kinda see what I was going for. And it's also sad that I probably spend a LONG time working on this. So we go back to my Tumblr page, We see the first comic I ever posted. But that was not actually the first comic I made on the computer. The first comic I made was like, An introduction to all the characters. And at the end it would say, "OH!" "We forgot the punch line!" haha... so funny... But even back then, I realized that this first comic I made was going to be super important. A lot of times when I'm looking at other people's comics, I like to click first, you know? To see how much they've improved. So I knew the importance of a first comic. It was gonna be the one that everyone looks at. So I scrapped the introductory one, And me and my friend, TJ, were the only people to ever see it. And it's probably long gone. So I wanted my first comic to be good and funny. So I cracked out this one. And here's a little tip for anyone starting a comic: Make sure it's readable. Okay, so Tumblr automatically resizes your picture Into, like, this rectangle shape. Which is why a lot of cartoonists on Tumblr post their comics vertically. You know, I wish I could say, "Oh, I was like twelve when I made this, guys." But nope, I was sixteen. HUHLEEHHHHHHHHH So, let me read this to you. I bet a lot of people who liked this can't even read it. Okay. "Arizona is always hot, but Oregon is always wet." See, look at that. I was talking about Arizona way back then. And I used to live there, in case you didn't know that. And we see orange shirt looking out the window, And it's supposed to be raining outside. So orange shirt says to blue shirt, "What's your favorite state?" Blue shirt says, "Solid, but I think being a liquid could be fun." "Nevermind." (laugh track) "But actually, now that I think about it, being a gas can have its perks." (louder laugh track and credits music) But as embarassing as this picture was, Look at the description I wrote. "Heeeey everyone I'm creating a web-comic!" "MHMMM." (BOOOO!) "It's about a modern family with three sons." You see, with my stick figure comics I did on paper, I actually had characters with personalities, and I wanted to put them into theodd1sout. "There's Justin in the orange shirt who's about 14 years (old)" (BOOOOOOO) "Jake in the blue shirt, he's 11." "HE SUUCKS!" "And the oldest is Kevin." "He's not in this strip, but he'll appear in the next!" (BOOO THIS IS TERRIBLE!) Okay, here's what the character lineup was: We had a mom, Who actually still looks a lot like my mom character today, Then the dad (not important), And then three kids, Jake, Justin, and Kevin. And each kid had a "friend" character. Braxton, Max and Anthony. I don't know if I ever said their names in the comic, But I chose these names because, They were actually based off real people who were my friends in preparatory school. But wait, there's more! "I'll post strips whenever I can." "If you like the comic, the please follow." "THE PLEASE FOLLOW." "Thanks! ~James." UHHHLEEHHH HOLY CRAP Okay so around August of 2012, I decided to change my style and give my characters necks. Then around January of 2013, I was experimenting with all kinds of different styles. And then I settled on this one. Now, this comic is great. I'm still proud of it to this day. It looks like a real comic. Oh, and these three people at the bottom are actually people I know. And then I kept doing some more in that style, And then I finally said, "SCREW IT!" I'm drawing it like this. Loading Artist and Domics were like, my two biggest inspirations making it this way. And the rest is history. Thanks for watching. (Well, that sucked!)
