Spotlight: The Never-Ending Comic

I have always, always loved to draw. I don't think there's a memory early enough that I don't remember doodling. My mom has little drawings in my scrapbook that she says I drew when I was two. In 5th Grade, a number of influences (the most influential was Digimon: Digital Monsters) inspired me to begin writing a comic about me and two best friends at the time, Dustin and Nathan. I worked on the comic at school during my free time, reading it with my two friends on the bus ride home each day. It was quite the attention-catcher for my classmates, though I don't remember how much of the story was read by them. I remember bragging that the comic was called the "Never-Ending Comic" or "N.E.C.," and that I would never stop drawing the story until I "got a job" (presumably, this indicated a commitment of roughly 6 years or so). This, of course, did not happen; I think I got bored as soon as summer vacation rolled around.

More likely a cause than my boredom, however, was the story's premise. It was never really going anywhere. It starts off rather excellently, initiating a quest for my character with conflicts along the way. However, eventually the story becomes swollen with characters and unexplained events, and most of all, battle after battle with implausibly hostile monsters. Furthermore, my age-old obsession with food spoiled the urgency and conflict of the story when the characters would spend several pages preparing a meaningless feast and eating it.

Nevertheless, I have recently reread the comic after at least a five-year break, and have been immensely impressed the illustrations and humor of my fifth-grade self. The story becomes mundane after a point, but before this point it is engaging and full of good ideas. It is something that I seem to have grown out of—creative ideas—and something I wish I could recapture.

I anticipate scanning the Never-Ending Comic (aptly named, however ironically) in the near future and releasing it publicly for the first time. Provided with each page will be commentary, and I hope that you will all enjoy an impressively prodigious accomplishment I am extremely proud of.
Stay tuned!