Stickguy

Author notes

#001 - Pirate Jim

driver16

on Jan. 6, 2006

Utterly stupid.

That’s what I was going for when I created this strip back in 1992.

You see, I had been trying to get my first strip syndicated for years, but with no success. It had a good weekly run in the local papers, but the syndicates didn’t need a comic about sarcastic forest dwellers and, judging from the number of rejection slips I received over the years, it was looking like they never would.

So I created Stickguy. Just to spite them.

Yes, I would create a strip so pointless and stupid, so void of any redeeming characters that they would have to reject it! And it would be their loss! Because it would actually be kind of funny! But due to its pointlessness, stupidity, and lack of any redeeming characters, it would: “not fit our needs at this time”.
Ha! Take that, syndicates!

So anyway, they rejected it. I stuck the fifty or so strips I had done into a cardboard box in my coat closet and took up painting for the next decade.

Now it’s 2005, an epic thirteen years later. And I got to thinking. Utter stupidity shouldn’t be hidden in a cardboard box. It should be shared with the world! So here it is.

And if you’re wondering what this strip is doing on a website called RandomPirateComics.com, well, just read the first strip which features a character called “that mean Pirate Jim”. And what’s more, the second strip points out that Stickguy was abducted by aliens! All he needs now is a wacky robot neighbor and he’ll be right at home in the random pirate family! Which reminds me: if you like the strip, I’ll make more, bringing the characters into the 21st century. If you don’t, I’ll probably stick it back in the cardboard box to marinate for the next thirteen years. Either way, thanks for reading.