Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills


Friday, December 11, 2009

Old School Geek

Here's an oddity from my files. About six or seven years back I was considering creating another online comic, but unlike Femme Noir, Perils On Planet X and Gravedigger, I thought I'd try my hand at a humor strip instead of serialized adventure.

Since "geek"/gaming humor seemed (and continues) to be the most popular genre for humor webcomics, I thought I'd write a strip about my high school days in the early 80's and what passed for geek culture back then. The original Dungeons & Dragons and other classic RPGs, TRS-80 computers, Atari 2600 game consoles, cable TV, and whatever science fiction and fantasy fiction I remembered being particularly popular at the time among my peer group.

I called it "Old School Geek" - shortened here to "Old School" before I saw that awful Will Farrell movie - and asked my friend Chuck Bordell, an artist I'd worked with in the past, to draw it. It was actually based on a comic strip I had drawn back when I was in my 20s for the amusement of my old high school buddies, and like that strip, used my former classmates as the main characters. The goofball above with the curly hair, sideburns and glasses is a caricature of yours truly, circa 1982.

I'm pretty sure we only produced two finished strips, and this is the only one I can find. I decided that this kind of writing wasn't really my forte, and felt that the jokes (if you can call them that) were too "inside."

Anyway, I stumbled across this tonight and thought it would be interesting to post it here. Click on the image for a more readable size.

8 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I think it's pretty funny myself, but that might not be a good sign. I don't have a normal sense of humor.

Jay Watson said...

Me too! I really liked it Christopher, but then I was (maybe still am) a big Zelazny/Amber geek myself.
Love your last line about Corwin!
best,
r/e

Unknown said...

Wow, your youthful tastes were right up my alley. I agree with the last panel wholeheartedly, and feel exactly the same about my collection as younger you does in the first panel.

El Vox said...

I haven't read the Amber series, but really?

Christopher Mills said...

Well, when I was in High School, I thought so.

And I haven't read anything since that would change my opinion....

Martin Powell said...

I remember this! Thought it was funny. Still do. Great idea for a humor strip.

Jay said...

Speakin' of Planet X, any chance you'll bring that one back online? It's still on my list should it ever hit stands. :)

Anonymous said...

I have that second strip in my files somewhere - I'll see if I can dig it up.

Chuck