Way back in the year 2010, as I have mentioned before, I used to be a contributing member of OMGJeremy dot com. It was a “humor site” in the style of the early 2000s so by today’s standards, the material now seems harsh and dangerous — very caustic. We still use that content on sneer campaign, but we do clean it up thoroughly. One thing does remain UNCHANGED: these real-chat convo comics that you see all over the place.
An OMGJ Reader contacted me and asked why it was that I did not make a webcomic. I didn’t read comics much at all, although I occasionally made some ON PAPER (that I might make nicer and put on here some day). Anyway, that guy challenged me to at least try. I jokingly suggested that if I drew extremely quickly in MS Paint and just used snippets of chats between myself and my friends, it would still be “better” than what was out there. While that is certainly up for debate, I made one, and then I made like seventy more over the years!
There are many still in storage. They involve friends who are less relevant to this site you are reading now. I will probably inevitably post them, too, because who doesn’t love easy content?? Not me! I don’t not love it. I crave it.
As I mentioned somewhat recently, the first “Dumb AIM Comic,” as they were originally known, was of Kevin owning his typo at me. I keep having this weird sneaking suspicion that I have already written the History of Chat Comics for sneer campaign, by the way, so if I have and I had forgotten… well, I hope this one is better. I’m on ten thousand caffeine today, so I imagine it absolutely will have to be.
Once upon a time, when the world was young, I drew these little gems using the clunkiest mouse on earth. I had a long and proud tradition of drawing somewhat well with a mouse using a simplistic program that was mostly meant to be a place where you can make masterpieces of scribbles and the paintcan tool. Then, MS Paint allegedly improved, and I don’t like it as much, and I have a drawing tablet and art programs that allow me to use as many layers as I please. As a result, my simple comics became a little less simple, and instead of taking a half an hour, they take multiple hours. I miss those big old bmp pixels. Instead of making the most of my old technique of deftly using the copy/paste feature and just changing arms and faces, I sometimes even draw whole new figures for every panel. I have only myself to blame.
You would think that maybe after nearly ten years of making these, I would have a consistent style hammered out — but THINK AGAIN! Apparently, conversation comics are not unlike my handwriting: held hostage to the whims of my emotional state. Everyone is recognizable, thanks in part to the fact that I usually draw us all wearing the same outfits all the time, but some days we are round and dumb looking. Other days, we are pointy and dumb looking! Sure, I could just keep a permanent file containing transparent instances of our forms for easy pasting every time, but what is the fun in that? I’m not a factory production line!
The true consistency lies in the faces. Look at them. Two dots and a line is all I need to convey a complicated series of human emotions. Sometimes there is a nose, but never are there beards (except for Billy who is defined by facial hair). I try very hard to capture the hairstyle current at the time of posting. An occasional eyebrow or two is thrown out if they need to show being arched or furrowed, which is frequent!
I’m not satisfied with merely “sad” or “angry.” I want you to experience the betrayal, being livid, confusion, distrust, and simplistic joy along with me and my friends. I want you, the viewer, to live the dream of reading a comic rendition of an online chat between two geographically distant people as if they were in the same physical room. Experience it. You can’t help but to, imvho.
Do you ever sit around, sighing over the fact that you haven’t been in one of these comics? Have you noticed that you chat with me, and we have rollicking good banter, and I actually say that I have obtained snippets of our best conversational moments — that I have “put them in the file” — and yet you still have not seen yourself in these while cchris is featured a dozen times in a row? Well, I’M SORRY. I swear I’m getting around to it.
As I carry on with my endless, ongoing streams of chats every single day like an addict, each one is a fully animated cartoon in my mind. Now you understand why I am hooked to convo. If something arises that makes me laugh pretty hard, I save it to a file. There was about five or seven years when I was pretty lax on that — whoops! But I have so many more to go. And the odds are pretty strong that YOU will be in one one day, Friend.
Especially if I ever get the technology where an art can spring fully formed from my brain!