After years of daydreaming about making comics—and fearing I wasn’t good enough—I finally put on my big boy pants and started making them. I had experimented with a few concepts over time, but nothing seemed to stick. That is, until SCREAMish.
SCREAMish was a parody of the horror genre, a spin on Scream starring my masked killer, Murder Face. Not the lispy metalhead from Metalocalypse, though—this Ghostface had a therapist and attended a Slasher’s Support Group filled with other parody killers, like Pleatherface. I drew these awful comics in a composition notebook with a brush pen, and they sucked, but that didn’t matter. I was having fun making comics.
I also created a strip called TOOLZ, inspired by my job in a maintenance shop on a military base. Unlike SCREAMish, TOOLZ was shared only with friends and coworkers who would get it. After creating over 80 composition comics, I decided to take the leap and go digital. I bought an iPad, planning to bring SCREAMish back in full color. That… never happened.
Instead, I wanted to try something new. I remembered these cartoon skater characters I had drawn throughout high school and finally gave them life. That’s how Spider Barks was born—an obnoxious comic about Mike and Jason, two skaters navigating the absurdities of the world. The name nods to my smart-ass nature and love of dick and fart jokes. The skaters themselves don’t define the comic—it’s about the humor and the chaos, not skateboarding.
Eventually, I brought elements of SCREAMish and TOOLZ into Spider Barks, including Murder Face, his therapist, the support group, and Mike’s workplace. Over time, Spider Barks evolved from a four-panel strip into a full-page comic. I gave Mike and Jason a mild facelift, added a few new characters, and shifted from gag-focused strips to longer storylines.
Spider Barks’ current rendition is the result of experimentation, mistakes, and learning as I went. It’s a comic about friendship, absurdity, and the nonsense we all encounter—filtered through my particular brand of humor. It’s messy, it’s silly, and it’s finally a comic I can call my own.