One of the most fun enterprises I've ever been a part of was the short-lived gaming magazine Shred. One of the reasons it was so much fun was that at a time when my entire work life, my entire creative output, was focused on writing (often technical writing) or management Shred gave me a reason to take a break and put some effort into cartooning.

My commitment to the magazine was to do a cover and two cartoons per issue. The first cartoon, the one I desperately needed to draw, was Dr. Symm. But try as I might, I couldn't convince the others that two pages of the world's smartest monkey would be the best thing for the magazine. No, they insisted that I create a second strip ... for diversity's sake. (Well, that and the fact that half of them were having trouble picturing readers enjoying a simian weird science strip.)

Whatever the reasons, I agreed to think of something else—something more directly related to hobby gaming. So I thought ... and thought ... and thought ................ and thought! Nothing! Well, that's not exactly true. I thought up some GREAT ideas. Unfortunately, they were ideas that came from strips written and drawn other, better cartoonists. I had something that was clearly derivative of Phil Foglio's What's New, something else that was a pale imitation of Jolly Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table, and a third concept that matched John Kovalik's Dork Tower step for step.

Now, I'm all for stealing ... errrrr ... building on the ideas of others, but like many cartoonists I like to bring ideas from other media or industries and use them to take a fresh look at my own world. I needed a really great cartoon about something other than games ... something focussed on some different industry or hobby through whose eyes I could take a look at gaming and gamers.

My first thought was Dilbert. I mean, the one thing I have that none of the other gaming cartoonists do is experience working as a game designer (for the biggest company in the industry). I could do a satirical, cynical strip about what it's like to MAKE the games everyone plays. It could be biting, it could be hilarious ... it could get me punched in the nose by every person in the WotC office. Any satirist will tell you, never take aim at the people you have to live with. (Perhaps one day after I leave the world of game design I can do a strip about the experience ... but as long as I have to go into that office every morning, I'm keeping my distance from that particular subject.)

Then it hit me .... Dateline: @!!?# ... Fred Hembeck's AMAZING comic about the comic book industry. Or, more correctly, about comic book characters. Every month Hembeck's cartoon alter ego would interview characters from Marvel, DC, and small press comics—interview them as though they were real people. Why not do that for the gaming industry? Interview the new D&D iconic characters, Great Cthulhu, and the other characters who served as the "front men" for their games. And to separate myself from Hembeck, whose interviewer was unfailingly polite (if often a bit too much of a "fanboy" for his own good), I could have my strip star a really obnoxious jerk ... the hyper-opinionated, know-it-all, rules lawyer of a gamer that we all know and hope we never have to share an event with again. Two parts Jerry Springer, one part Gilbert Godfrey, and a healthy dose of John Wick.

Great idea, if I do say so myself.

As it turns out, I pretty much failed utterly to keep to that simple concept. I let the strip wander into self-indulgent story telling rather than sticking to the theme. Still, I did get a few good strips out of it ... at least I think so. Maybe one day I'll get the urge to try this sort of thing again ... but I somehow doubt it. Even though I think the idea is solid, I never really felt comfortable being mean spirited about the characters and games I love.

Oh well.

But the Cthulhu strip STILL cracks me up. Maybe I'll make a t-shirt out of it one day!