First Published: October 17, 2007
This is the exact text from an actual reader e-mail I received recently. I may have abridged it a bit to fit into the panels, but all the words and the order of these words have been copied verbatim from the original e-mail.
Frankly, reading that message made my little heart both jump with joy (every reader e-mail does this) and sink in despair. It seems I have created a comic which is suitable for reading, but not one people tell others about.
THIS IS ME seems to share the fate of a dirty joke in polite society: Many want to hear it, nobody wants to be the one who tells it.
Good dirty jokes somehow manage to spread anyway. I fear that my strip won't. It's unlikely that after consuming a couple of high-octane drinks, somebody will suddenly blurt out the URL for this comic. "wahwahwah dot thisisme, in one word, dash comic dot com" isn't something that easily rolls off an inebriated tongue.
Based on the evidence, it looks as if my poor little strip will share the fate of all *bad* dirty jokes – disdain and eventual oblivion. Excuse me while I go off into my little dark corner and feel sorry for myself.
Drawing the keyboard was a real b*tch. Have you ever tried drawing a keyboard? With 102 keys and all?
It's one of those things where preparation pays off in spades. You either get yourself photo reference (I didn't), you try to draw your own keyboard (I didn't) or you diligently lay out the darned thing with a ruler, a vanishing point and an eye on how many rows and keys you have to plan for. Loved the result, hated the process.