The Entirety of "Serious Business"

My first comic for the Daily Texan was a comedic serial strip called "Serious Business." Having parents who are both die-hard UT fanatics, I wanted to make an over-the-top parody of that brand of bleeding-orange school spirit. Little did I know that "PsychoBevo" was already doing that, only better.

I decided to do two strips per day in order to complete the comic in one semester, which -- not surprisingly -- turned out to be a lot of work (I also think the comic was resented a bit for taking up a bit too much page real estate). I'm still proud of the fact that I could do it, and it turned out to be one of the few comic stories I've ever completed. At the same time, nobody really liked it very much. As a result, I switched to one-shot gag-a-day comics for my second semester, which I'm told I'm much better at.

I still think this one is pretty funny.

Obligatory Twilight joke.

The creator of "PsychoBevo" pointed out that I drew the "Hook 'Em" gesture wrong; the thumb should be gripping the middle fingers. And he'd know better than anybody.

I took a fencing class and thought it'd be funny to make a comic about how impractical fencing would be in self-defense.

Obligatory Snuggie joke.

Good Lord, did I get wordy in this strip. I should have named it "TL;DR."

I thought this one was pretty funny.

This one too.

Another absurdly wordy one. And it seems like the panels are getting longer.

Jess is pretty much an idiot.

Owned.

Emooooooo.

 

I still love these two strips.

This was before "Color Fridays." The powers that be spontaneously decided that the comics would run in color today.

I think these two are kind of hilarious. But what do I know?

A little jab at all you meat-eaters out there!

"Best picture we could find"

What a half-assed ending. But at least it's over. Jess' last words are a paraphrasing of all the signs around the turtle pond.

Since the story was over but the semester wasn't, I had to make some filler strips.

I did this entirely in Photoshop, instead of drawing the characters in pencil and scanning them. Observe how much better it looks.

Lampshading and fourth-wall breakage, hiyooooo

Reading through these again, I think "Serious Business" is a lot funnier than I remember. Still, I can understand why nobody wants to follow an epic storyline in a college newspaper.

Now, on to my one-shot strips.