The Library Desk

This is the very first Canned Laughter I wrote, way back when I was 18. It's different from pretty much every other one I did, for a number of reasons. For a start, it was the only time that I really tried any social commentary, and the only time that I wrote a strip specifically targeted at Otago students. (Back then, the desks in the central library were often covered in barely coherent racist graffiti - nice!)

It also looks a lot, well, shittier than later comics. Partly because I was still trying to find the right pen (we've all been there, right folks?!) and partly because I just had no idea what I was doing. You'll probably also notice from these early strips that I clearly learned to draw cartoons by studying Simpsons comics. I once ran into a guy who told me that "Matt Groening would have me over a barrel" if he ever saw my cartoons, a charming line that still echoes in my head whenever I look at these old strips. Thankfully my style did evolve (a little) as the years went on.

At this early stage I was still patiently waiting for one of the Critic cartoonists to call it a day so that my stuff could actually be published in the magazine (back then they only had room for two strips, apparently). For the time being, though, I was happy enough to have my comics posted onto their website. Even if only a handful of people were reading them, I was part of the team! Boo-yah! 

This strip did eventually make it into the magazine one week in 2006 when I was too sick from food poisoning to write a new one (no, not from the time I ate raw chicken on purpose, another time), though it was an annotated version alerting readers that it was not quite the slick, professional and amazingly hilarious comic they were used to.

Well, that's enough self-important rambling for now. I'm out.

P.S. This marks the first and last time I wrote anything under the pseudonym 'Doctor Dangerous'. Thank god.