Writing used to be a large passion of mine, but in recent months my passion for writing and thus the quality of my writing have taken a backseat to my single-minded fixation on my comics. So this documentation of my artistic progress may not be as thoroughly readable as, say, an autobiography by Larry the Cable Guy. But boy, what could compete with that??!

So, in the beginning, at age 5, I remember we had this assignment in kindergarten where we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a train engineer, because I thought blowing the whistle on the train was the surest mark of success. As I sat there drawing my picture of me in a train crossing the tracks while cars waited for me to pass (this was before I understood perspective, so everything was flattened) I realized I was having more fun drawing the picture than I probably would blowing a train whistle. So from a few days after that onward I wanted to draw pictures for a living.

A few of very important influences entered my life at this time, to which I owe a great debt, I’m sure.

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- The humor and inventiveness of this television show captivated my imagination. Call me lame, but I think a surprising amount of the original television series has held up well over time. I spent many boy-hours drawing the Ninja Turtles in my youth.

2. Super Mario Brothers- My dad’s friend brought his Nintendo over one day and hooked it up to our giant floor-model Zenith. After playing Robbie the Robot for a while he put in the Mario Brothers, which enthralled me completely. Drawing Mario and Luigi in various lame settings was my hobby for a while.

3. The Simpsons- My father, brother and I came home one evening and my father turned on the TV to drown out the voices of his annoying children. The very first episode of the Simpsons was just coming on, the Christmas episode. I’d say that my largest influence in life has been the Simpsons, both in terms of humor and artistic sensibility, but I will not say that, because it’s not cool.

4. Peanuts- Unlike the rest of my influences, I cannot pin-point the moment Peanuts entered my life, because it’s been with me since time immemorial. It’s as if I grew up with a love for Peanuts written into my genetic code. When I was five, my mother took my brother and I to Knotts Berry farm, where the Snoopy-centric atmosphere made me misplace my marbles. There’s a picture of us with a guy in a Snoopy costume and I’m grinning like an idiot because I was the happiest I’d ever been.

So 1990 was the year drawing took over my imagination. School assignments where we got to draw were my favorite. Though I don’t really remember the competition I had from the other students at that time (in later years I imagined competition everywhere) I remember being pleased with my skill. I used to draw memories from field trips to the zoo or weekend hijinx.

This is a picture of me in my backyard. I’m holding (I actually remember) an action figure of Donatello dressed up in a trench-coat. A year or so after I drew this I went back and defaced it, adding long hair. This is because my father had my brother and I grow out our hair in the back. I essentially had a mullet during these years, and the girls in my class would pull it and say “Ding, dong!” as if tolling a bell. I hated it. But that’s not related to art.

This one’s probably self-explanatory. Check out the grade I got. Holla.

I had given drawing a shot and it totally consumed me. The coming years would represent an exponential increase in productivity and a young child’s inability to cope with obsession.

To be continued.