Hello, Drawing Book readers! Welcome to a new chapter of the story. In 1997, I started a sketchbook journal series that I called “The Drawing Book,” and I’ve been posting those comics here over the past couple of years. We have reached the autumn of 2001, and the end of my first four sketchbooks.
So, what happens next?
Well, I did continue to write comics in sketchbooks, and I will share them in the weeks ahead. However, in 2001, I also started another project: a web comic.
This was something new! I mean, the web itself was still kind of new! Comics scholars (and comics creators) were all trying to figure out how this format would work online. This was my second attempt at online comics. I’d already tried an experiment the previous year. Some Calgary folks launched a website called “ItsCanadian.com” with the idea of posting local entertainment news, and they asked me to write a comic that would run on their site. I tried creating two-panel comics in a horizontal format, including these ones. The website didn’t really take off, and neither did my attempt at an online comic. (I see that someone still owns the domain for ItsCanadian.com, but there’s nothing there.)
Anyway, in 2001, I tried a new web series - this time, on my OWN brand new website, called (you guessed it), thedrawingbook.com. I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that that website is still around. A lot of the comics that I post in these Substack newsletters, are archived there. But the site is old, clunky, and full of dead links. I built it myself, twenty-five years ago! I really should just take it down! One of these days, I’ll get around to doing that. Meanwhile, if you want to find me online these days, you should look at my current website, the23rdstory.com.
But for now, let’s get back to my attempt at a web comic. Here’s the first one, meant as an introduction to the series. It certainly isn’t designed to be seen on a phone screen. And sorry that the images are a bit blurry. I probably have the original pages somewhere, but I didn’t have time to dig them up and scan them.
Each web comic “episode” had a title page:
After clicking on the title page, you got to the comic.
