I started doing strips for what became Men’s Feelings back when we were still doing Injury in the twenty-teens. They were short little vignettes that would rattle around in my head until they took enough shape to be able to share. A lot of them were stuff I thought was super funny but I wasn’t sure if others would feel the same. And some of them were challenging in getting the comedy down on paper.
Eventually I wound up with enough of them to stitch into a book. I knew I wanted to do a long form story for my next project so I figured doing a collection of short strips would give me an opportunity to experiment with a more stripped down style that I could crank out quickly. That did not last long! Pretty soon I was back to doing my usual more labored style. One drawback I had not reckoned with was that every strip had it’s own set of characters. So for each one I had to design new people. Maybe that’s why Osamu Tezuka utilized a rotating cast of characters in his early stories. But in retrospect, doing that might have ruined the vibe.
Speaking of vibes, my preferred presentation of these strips is in the books themselves. I feel like the stories are best read in print and as a unit. But the books have been in print for a while now and I think this stuff can stand on its own online. If you haven’t read these before and like what you see, I’d encourage you to purchase the books from my shop. They’re pretty cheap! Oh, and BTW, any color versions I post are online exclusives. The printed books are all glorious black and white. Click here to check out some of the comics.