Presented here, for the very first time... the entire run of the slightly acclaimed webcomic "Sensational Monotony"!
I started reading webcomics sometime in college. After starting with CRFH!!!, I quickly progressed to some of the other big Keenspot comics and a few other popular ones. I was amazed at how many comics there were to choose from. And when Keenspot introduced Keenspace, their "any idiot can make a webcomic" service, I said "Hey, that sounds like me!" and signed up. Why not? I like to doodle, and people have told me I'm funny, so webcomicry seemed like a great new hobby.
"Monotony" (as those in the know call it) was supposed to be about a twenty-something engineer named Pete, whose generally tedious life was peppered with minor (and not-so-minor) catastrophes. Any resemblance between Pete and the author was entirely inevitable. Rocko was Pete's wacky neighbor and best friend by default.
In February 2004, I realized that I hadn't drawn a comic in over a year and a half and probably wasn't going to start back up any time soon. So, I decided to retire the strip. I still hope to develop my drawing skills and do something creative with them, but a regular webcomic is never going to be it. For those of you who fell in love with the characters (in the three strips they appeared), rest assured that there's always a possibility of a cameo appearance in one of my other projects that I never work on.
And now, without further ado, I present... "The Compleat Annotated Sensational Monotony"
September 5, 2001 - This was the day that, after a couple months of waiting, I finally received word that my Keenspace account was ready. As you can see from my witty checklist, I had already come up with some great ideas for strips. However, I never wrote any of them down, so you'll have to take my word for it.
December 4, 2001 - Already three months have gone by without an update. I decided that, since my drawing wasn't great and I hadn't put much thought into the character designs, I should make a few practice strips as a sort of prologue. Pete looks a bit too chunky in this strip, and Rocko has some sort of pompadour for reasons I can't recall. Note the clever use of self-deprecating humor.
December 7, 2001 - Like wildfire, another drawing springs from my hands in a mere three days. Actually, I only ever spent around 20 minutes drawing these masterpieces, if you can believe that. Pete looks more like he should in this strip, but for some reason I drew Rocko without his trademark random wacky T-shirt and looking basically like me. (Pete looks more like me circa 1996.) The self-deprecating humor makes another brilliant appearance.
February 18, 2002 - This one actually involved some effort. The drawing is relatively good, and I like the general look of the characters. Ironically, this is the last strip they appear in. The intent was to start Chapter One, i.e. the actual comic, with the next strip, but that didn't happen. This strip also marks the final appearance of our good friend, Mr. Self-Deprecating Humor. Unless you count this entire commentary, of course, but the commentary refers to the comic, not itself. Except for this part here where I'm writing about the commentary. Let's move on, shall we?
June 20, 2002 - The final comic. This was a totally unrelated idea that struck me as funny and seemed to be suited for comic form. I actually got a lot of questions on this strip, not about the "Cassandra/prescient" joke like I expected, but about the teacher's reaction in the last panel. This is actually a classic comic technique, known to some as a "flip-take", in which the punchline is so surprising that the straight man is literally thrown to the ground with its comedic force. Many modern-day cartoonists settle for using facial expressions or exclamation points to show this sort of reaction, but in situations like this, only a flip-take will do. For more on this subject, you should really read the analysis by James Lileks, who invented the term "flip-take" and is also a million percent funnier than me.
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this retrospective as much as I enjoyed making it. The "Sensational Monotony" monkey is off my back. I can finally stop feeling bad about neglecting the strip, and concentrate more on neglecting my blog.