Author notes

Strip XVI: Levana's New Self

J_Scarbrough

on Oct. 5, 2022

Hope you enjoyed this week's very special VAMPIRE GIRL strip.

I know what you're thinking: Levana looks like a totally different person as a mortal . . . well, when you think about it, when you really think about it, she doesn't . . . she's just expressing herself differently now. Sure, she has more color in her skin now that she has an actual blood stream, she's pulling her hair back a little now, and wears new clothing that reflects how she feels about her new life . . . oh yeah, and no more fangs! She's still Levana though . . . a happier Levana, who can begin to enjoy her life now - something that will be explored a little more from both sides when VAMPIRE GIRL: THE SECOND SEASON begins in two weeks.

Now then, I realize the other characters in the fourth panel are going to require some explanation as to who they are, so let's get down to it. Obviously, Steve D'Monster needs no explanation, you know where to find him (cough)my YouTube channel(cough), but the others are really old cartoon characters I developed back when I was a wee-lad.


The orange slug in the center is one half of a cartoon duo I created in the late 90s known as Walter and Slug Head. As you can probably imagine, Walter J. Duck and Slug Head J. Baxter were your typical anthropormorphic cartoon animal duo, with Walter being the straightman and brains of the outfit to Slug Head's somewhat dimwitted foil, and yet, they were the best of friends, and went through all kinds of surreal comedy adventures together. As a kid, I figured they'd probably have their own Cartoon Network show in the future. Heh.

The boy on the far left in the red ball cap is Joseph Armstrong . . . yes, I named a cartoon character after myself. He was the title character of THE JOSEPH COMICS, which was a comic strip series I did from 2003 to 2008, and basically saw Joseph go through a series of serialized fantasy adventures that most teenagers never experience. In other words, I just completely ripped off Rocky and Bullwinkle - right down to the inclusion of a Lemony Narrator. I never even tried to hide the fact. So, yeah, you could say I was ripping off Rocky and Bullwinkle long before Chris Savino tried to make it cool.



The businessman on the far right originated as a supporting character in THE JOSEPH COMICS, and his name was . . . are you ready for this? Mr. Huggy Wuggy. Yes, that was actually his name: Mr. Huggy Wuggy. Since THE JOSEPH COMICS rarely featured any parents, or other reasonable adult figures, Mr. Huggy Wuggy somehow fulfilled that role whenever Joseph needed it. Eventually, I had planned on giving Mr. Huggy Wuggy his own comic spinoff that would've been about his work life (this was before THE OFFICE), and I even considered doing an animated pilot for him when I took an animation course during my high school years: back when Flash was still exclusively for web animation, and had yet to become an industry standard. Thankfully, neither of these projects ever happened.

But, enough about all of that. You're not here for any of those bums anyway; you're here to follow Levana's story.

[right]Next week: is it still called a "Vampire Diary" if it's no longer written by a vampire?[/right]