The Secret Origin of College Follies

Nothing was funny in high school.

 

At least nothing in my comics was. I drew or plotted tons of superhero comics, some science fiction and fantasy concepts, but not one comedy series. Not sure why that was.

 

I did want to do a comedy series. I had an idea for one, a buddy book with two characters inspired by me and my best friend. It was going to be like Wayne's World, but with more action, kinda like Archer and Armstrong or something like that.

 

Before I say the concept's name (and it's a horrible name), let me put it in context.

 

Me and by best bud both read Dark Dominion from Jim Shooter's Defiant Comics, and there's a scene in there where the villain (Chasm) is taunting the hero (Michael Alexander) and calls him "old stick," an odd term that we both thought was hilarious.

 

We also played a Sega CD game called Sewer Shark where you fly a plane through sewers while shooting mutant rats...or something like that. Your commanding officer in the game shows his, um, confidence in your abilities by repeatedly calling you "Dogmeat," which we also found hilarious.

 

So the title of my comedy concept was going to be....Dogmeat and Old Stick (yeah, I know, I'm cringing just writing that). Old Stick would be a long haired blonde guy with glasses who fights with a bo and I'm not even sure if I came up with a look for Dogmeat.

 

The concept went nowhere in my head. As far as I can tell, not a single word about it made it unto paper, nor was any sketch ever done of it. I don't know if I even came up with a single story for it.

 

I've had a few ideas like that that never even made it past the initial conceptual stages, but usually there'll be some nugget or element that'll be developed into something else that works.

 

And thus in college, a combination of the funny things I'd see and experience while living in a dorm, and the animated comedy series I was exposed to there like The Simpsons and the amazing first season of South Park, gave rise to a concept that actually worked. Why not just do comedy about life itself? No action or fantasy element needed. Just a dude in college that stuff happens to. And thus Old Stick became Stickboy and College Follies was born! 

 

So when I was designing Stickboy (which I'll be showing the sketches for in my next post) I already had a fairly concrete concept for his look in my head. And I think I was probably thinking of the initial comedy/action concept when I did this page among the initial sketches:
 

Stickboy's gonna knock you out!

 

Next: Designing Stickboy