Well, you've stumbled upon my little nook, just for me, where I get to escape Sam and Zeke and just be me. Be warned, I like to ramble. Also, I'm aware most of you aren't interested in my life story--I've always wondered why people like knowing about authors...I like it, too (I know Kurt Vonnegut's life story by heart), but I don't understand why.
So, for the basic rundown: my name is Robs. I was born on December 30th, back in the 1980s. I've lived in the same little place my whole life, Fairbanks, Alaska. The only times in my life I ever moved were when I switched to a different bedroom in my parents' house, when I was about 14, and when I "moved out" to the dorms when I was 17 (I hardly moved out, in truth--if you go to my bedroom at my parents' house, it definately is still mine...all mine).
I'm a fairly boring person. I went to the same elementary school for K-6, the same middle school for 7 and 8, and the same high school until I dropped out my junior year--I got too impatient with the system and said screw it and left. I got my GED and went to college a year early. I'm majoring in social work, emphasis in clinical social work (a long-winded way of saying 'I wanna be a therapist').
The story behind Little Dude is kind of mixed. I took a comic and cartoon design class in summer of '05, and the advanced version of the same class with the same teacher in '06. The first time around, I was totally lost, so I would happily take a match to all that CRAP I passed off as comics (except maybe my infamous "Deep Throat Generation Gap" political cartoon--just think about it for a second and I'm sure it'll dawn on you...summer of '05 was when that whole mess came back to life, and we teens knew jack shit about it for the most part...so what else do we think about when we hear 'deep throat'...I bet you're already there, cuz you're just such a smart reader!). So the second time I took the class, I was told that it would be not that different at all--mastery of concepts instead of general grasp. But otherwise, the only difference...I had to put together a 24 page zine. You know those little homemade comic books some comic stores (in my opinion, ANY RESPECTABLE COMIC STORE) sell? That's what I had to do.
So I thought up a story. But it wasn't Little Dude. Nope, I went for a more serious, dark route. It was a story about a young girl, Cassie, who died. I'll put the story up somewhere, sometime, and link to it. She was guided into the start of the afterlife by a spirit who used to be alive. I got 4 or 5 pages of that done and I burned out. I wasn't into it. I don't know how it happened, but somehow, I got the idea to do Little Dude. I admit to having the guilty pleasure of children's TV shows, and George Shrinks on PBS is one I enjoy having on, especially as background noise if I'm playing games on my computer or doing homework or such. Well, I think it came down to a long and drawn out brainstorming session, and voila, I came up with the brilliant question, "What would college be like if you're only 6 inches tall?" I took an old sketch I did of a random cartoon guy and he became Sam, once I added the goofy orange and purple baseball cap. I sat down and promptly did what every good college kid does: procrastinate. The zine was due in 6 weeks (that's how long the entire class was...ouch, I know), so I let it slide. And slide. And slide. Until it was 4 days before deadline. Shit.
I penciled almost every single page of Little Dude in 10 hours, maybe more (Thankfully, Cassie had already been finished, so I didn't have to worry about doing those few pages, and I cheated and used table of contents and about the author--both with no artwork--and a spot illustration to help me make the length quota). The next day, I inked in all of it in about 15 hours total. Two days left until deadline (counting day of deadline...it's a night class, I had until 6pm to finish it on the last day). I scanned everything in (including Cassie, and the filler pages) on the last full day, taking about 18 hours. My scanner's a piece of crap that came free with my computer, and decided to unscan half my work, so I had to do it twice. I did the computer editing in about 10 hours, split between that day and the following--due date. After I got the little tweaks done (and gods did it suck, I didn't take enough time on it--it's why I went back and redid everything from the scan on for the webcomic version--I'd saved the original scans on my computer, thankfully), I had to figure out how the hell to do the layout. Took me an hour, maybe two, to figure out the layout and print all the pages. Then down to the xerox machine. Ran off 35 copies of it (after a couple trial-and-error processes to make sure the double-sided feature did what I wanted it to do). Ran to the copy store and got 35 hard cardstock covers, then my mom and I furiously folded and stapled (I am not above asking help when I need it...) until suddenly, with literally minutes to spare, it was done. It was a huge hit in the class. The other advanced student interpreted the assignment differently than I did and did a compilation of things she'd done in the class in '06 and '05. So, thankfully, my extra effort to have a completely original zine boosted my grade to an A (I did crappy work for the last class assignment because I was stressing about my zine--I ALSO had to turn in a three page vignette...which ended up being a two page shadow puppet show...).
And that's the makings of the original Little Dude Goes to College. Wait, wasn't this page supposed to be about ME? You know, where I ESCAPE from Sam and Zeke?
Actually, another little side note, Zeke was not planned out beforehand. I did the first real page (second day), and I liked the look and instant character of the guy on the left of the bottom frame. He became a main character. Besides, every good comic needs a character without eyes! Plus, with some of Zeke's hobbies, he likes his eyes not being seen (disclaimer: the author does not condone the use of illegal drugs--the comic world is different--you don't have your health when you're a two-dimensional set of lines).
Back to Index
Little Dude is hosted on ComicGenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.