I'm pretty sure I was still in "impress/don't disappoint your parents" mode with that nonsensical-symbol cursing.

NOW you get to truly enjoy the color updates. :) You can check out the original black-and-white strip here!

In yesterday's comments, someone asked about my inking style back then and how it's changed. Great question! The first 145 strips or so were created on 9x12" brisol board, which made for a much smaller final strip size than the 7x17" templates I work on now. This required smaller pens and a bit more patience (and, frankly, it wasn't as fun!), but I still kind of enjoy the outcome, even now that I cringe at some of the things I was doing wrong.

I worked soley in Micron tech pens back then, using the hell out of an 01 until it would become a bit more flexible and give just a little bit of line variation. That said, most of the contrast in line width was created by painstakingly going over and over the original lines, thickening them with the same size Micron pen. This resulted in a less organic, slightly more geometric line, but I wasn't aware of any other pens, and it did the job back then.

Oh, and just to confirm, that is NOT my handwriting. I don't know what that font was called, but I'm pretty sure it's on the hard drive of my college computer from 1999. ;)