Don Josh

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Don Josh #395: Frank Is A Manly Man's Name, After All.

jercoxthealmighty

on Aug. 1, 2010

Funny thing how the naming of characters winds up working.

Waaaaay back when I was intially designing Don Josh (It was originally titled "The Smiley-tastic Adventures of Josh and His Friends" or something dumb like that), I had intended to name all of the characters after friends, like Final Blasphemy. When I was originally submitting it to the Excalibur, the newspaper for my university, my friend on the staff at said newspaper recommended I rename the characters, and we brainstormed several of them then and there.

When I got to our man Frank, I decided to go with said name because at the time, I mostly had him characterized as a guy who would be very blunt and to the point, and often not very nice in being as such. Hence he was a "frank" person. As luck would have it, the original, un-renamed versions of the first few comics wound up being run due to a screw-up on my part, and rather than pretend it didn't happen, I decided to run with it and made up the "Josh using the wrong names" excuse. It amused me at the time.

As time went on, I and some of my friends had a falling out with the person Frank was based on, and, being a little mad at his falling-out-causing-actions, I took it out on ol' Frank, his comic counterpart. So I wound up making Frank a huge jerk, and giving him strange and sometimes demeaning quirks (my initial intent with making him a crossdresser was to have that be the LEAST of his oddities. Dunno if that worked out how I wanted) and generally making him get into the worst situations and react in the worst ways. From an entertainment standpoint, this was probably good for the comic. It made Frank less bland, and made me start experimenting with giving all the characters a bit more personality.

Then, a little while back I realized that I had an uncle named Frank. I don't think he's seen this comic yet, but if he ever does, I dread the thought of him thinking Comic Frank has anything to with him, because he is, quite FRANKLY (ha ha ha, a master of sophisticated wit I am) the exact opposite of Comic Frank. In fact, my Uncle has contributed the most out of all my relatives to my education and to helping me get through my dad's final days and the aftermath thereof.

So yeah. Thanks Uncle Frank! Don't take your unwitting namesake as any statement about you. You're awesome!

In conclusion, don't read the title of this comic as ironic. Read it in your deepest, superman-est voice! MANLY MAN!