In The Beginning...

About a year ago, in the Other section of the discussion forum I frequent, dvdtalk.com, someone posted a link to a website called wittycomics.com, where you could make your own comic strips using pre-designed characters and backgrounds, and you could make them say pretty much anything you wanted to. I say "pretty much" because if you opt to register with Witty Comics you can save your comics right on their site, where they're subject to potential, shall we say, moderation. It's a form of censorship, but hey, it's their site, and they can choose to host whatever they like. No problem. I simply got around the moderation by doing a Print Screen into Paint, cropping out the comic, and saving it into my Photobucket account. That way I can leave in all the language and subject matter without fear of being turned in to whatever powers that be.

Anyhoo...several people in Other made a few strips that were mostly inside jokes, taking shots at other users and whatnot, and I eventually jumped in myself. I like doing things of a creative nature, especially where it comes to displaying my quirky sense of humor, and making people laugh. For the most part, I don't care if someone else thinks I'm funny or not, because this was something I wanted to do for myself, and if I can make myself laugh, well, that's all the entertainment I need.

Several of the characters in the strip-maker on the Witty Comics site are everyday-type characters that you can put into whatever situations, and several more have drinks in their hands, for some reason, like they're party-goers or something. For my very first strip, the one that started it all, I latched onto a cocky-looking character who I thought had potential. In the strip itself, I gave him the first name of "Steve":

Further Drink-Man posts only continued for a few days, mainly because people lose interest fairly quickly around there, and I'm no exception. I'll show the rest of the DM comics from last year, and give descriptions or explanations where necessary:

This second strip was the first to make use of the name "Drink-Man":

In this strip, Steve, aka "Drink-Man", begins showing us his womanizing ways:

This strip is a big inside joke that probably only people from DVD Talk will get:

And that pretty much does it for the Drink-Man strips from the Witty Comics thread from last year. It more or less establishes the character as a habitual drinker, a self-styled ladies' man, and a laid-back jokester who seems to continually deal with whatever his brain is telling him he's seeing. Drink-Man didn't go over very big, mainly because lots of people were making all kinds of different strips, and using the same character (among others) in their own strips. Drink-Man was just another face in the crowd...a clever joke amongst other clever jokes. I utilized the strips in a couple other situations for a short time afterward in other threads:

When the creator of comic strip "B.C.", Johnny Hart, passed away:

And in another thread where someone told a certain story:

The Lost Drink-Man Strips

Logging into my Witty Comics account recently, I had totally forgotten that I had created some other strips using Steve, aka "Drink-Man", as well as another strip with different characters. I didn't post these in the DVD Talk thread last year, so nobody has seen these (to my knowledge).

"Drink-Man contemplates" (borrowing from an Eddie Murphy joke)

"Drink-Man, alcohol and jokes"

"Drink-Man on the moon"

"The handshake"

Drink-Man, the Next Year

Last month, DVD Talk user "Mrs. Danger" started a new thread labeled "The Return of Witty Comics", and began showing her autobiographical strips depicting herself and members of her family in amusing situations. Funny stuff. It reminded me of the strips I had done from last year, so, being inspired again, I picked it up and resurrected Steve, the Drink-Man. He wasted no time in showing his true colors right out of the box:

When I made the above strip to reintroduce Drink-Man, I didn't even remember that I had already done the "Drink-Man in space" bit the previous year in one of the "lost" strips. Oh well. :)

While I was making more of the following strips, I noticed people were responding more and more positively to them with each one I posted, so I just kept on making them to entertain everyone.

One user remarked that he didn't think the strips were "witty", as the thread title promised, so I responded:

This is somewhat of an inside joke. DVD Talk used to have an Adult section, containing discussion threads pertaining to you-can-imagine-what. A short while back, DVD Talk apparently changed ownership or something, and removed Adult from DVD Talk and started a whole new website called "X Critic". They transferred all the existing Adult threads there, and everyone was automatically a member of the new site, whether they wanted to be or not. It hasn't gone over very well, and only a small handful of the faithful Adult posters have shown even the slightest hint of giving a rat's ass at xcritic.com. This was my initial take on it:

Here, in the first 6-panel strip, I established the recurring character of Baby Mama, a product of Steve's "wicked ways":

By now, several people were seemingly going nuts about Drink-Man, and even making their own strips featuring Steve. It was flattering, but others were quick to point out that I seemed to be handling the character best. One strip created by another user even featured "me" (my user name on DVD Talk is "The Infidel"):

That last panel was an inside joke even I didn't get. ;)

Of course, I had to respond. I established myself as the "white rabbit" character from the strip-maker:

At this point, a certain user who goes by "nickdawgy" made a couple posts simply saying he didn't think Drink-Man was funny. He was either ignored, or certain other users made sure to let him know that he was in the minority. I took a little jab at him:

And I simply continued. In the midst of all the "going nuts", someone even suggested doing a blog to showcase the strips:

But, I just kind of blew it off, being satisfied just posting them in the forum and entertaining the small group of people.

Of course, "nickdawgy" had to come back again to let us know how unfunny he thought it all was. This time I portrayed him accordingly:

An inside joke in reference to a certain DVD Talk user:



And a response to compliments from DVD Talk user "das Monkey":

Naturally, I was just kidding around. ;)

And the fun continued...















Seeing that things weren't changing for the better at xcritic.com, Steve had to provide a take on it:

After seeing the "nickdawgy" and "das Monkey" strips, other users even started choosing who would be which character for subsequent strips, all the while "battling" over whose strips were funny:

One user started doing a line of strips based on the sci-fi movie "Colossus: The Forbin Project", and the strips would feature a super-computer with aspirations to take over the world. It interacted at first with Dr. Forbin, then with other characters. I threw Drink-Man in to "deal" with him:

I decided at this point to give Drink-Man a semi-regular "chick" to hit on...someone who seemed by her appearance that she would make a good match for him.

But we can't forget the Baby Mama:



Just killing some "Time" with this one:

Still keeping in mind the suggestion to have several supporting characters in the strips, I wanted to have a little fun with Michael Okuda, who does a lot of the technical design work on the various Star Trek series. It was the perfect chance to use the Asian character from the strip-maker:

Someone posted in another thread about an auction running on eBay, in which the high bidder would win a brief "meet and greet" with Scarlett Johansson at the premier of her newest film (emphasis was placed on "brief"). The bidding at that point was around $20K. Being the knock-out Scarlett is, Drink-Man naturally had to get in on the action:

Of course, "nickdawgy" had to come back for another round:

I decided to take a couple days off to refresh, then came back to focus on Drink-Man's new "love interest". Plus, Steve now has a last name!

And the fun continued yet again, this time trying to utilize some little-used characters...

I even took a little jab at the moderators of the forum, for doing absolutely nothing to stop a certain someone from "threadcrapping", which is someone simply coming in to offer nothing constructive, and just crap on whatever is being discussed or presented. Most people, if they don't agree with something or just don't like it in general, will simply leave and not click on it again. I was getting a little frustrated with the inaction:

And this is the response I got from one of the moderators:

I appreciated the compliments contained within, as well as the attempt at humor, but at the same time it showed that if you possess a certain status within the forum, you're almost completely immune from reprimands from the moderators. I've been a member of the forum for a good while, but since I don't live in the forum 24-7 and make 30 posts a day, I don't carry the same status as "Legend Threadcrapper", so I can tell you for a fact that if I were to do what he did in someone's thread, I would have been jumped on in a heartbeat, and possibly suspended. But instead, I make one private complaint, and it publicly gets turned around on me for just not letting someone have a difference of opinion. What-the fuck-ever. At that point, I honestly lost any desire to do any further strips, and decided to hang it up for awhile:

I never said it was "my" thread, as he implied, and even though someone at some point added "The Drink-Man Chronicles" to the thread title, it was never my intention to steal the spotlight from anyone else contributing strips for everyone else's entertainment. I enjoyed seeing everyone else's work...even "Colossus 'N' Pals".

Regardless, I took a small break to get my head right again, and I quickly realized, as I mentioned before, that I was mostly doing this to entertain myself. It doesn't matter what other people think or do. As long as I'm making myself happy, that's what matters the most. And besides, several people expressed slight dismay at not being able to follow Drink-Man's adventures anymore, while others just simply thanked me for making the strips.

And so, Steve "Drink-Man" Long returned, as only he could:



And the adventures continued one more time...

And now, as I predicted a while back, people were starting to get bored with the thread, and responding less and less to the strips...which is fine, because attention spans around there tend to be short, myself included, even with things that are popular for a while. I even noticed "Colossus 'N' Pals" hadn't been around lately...

...and that's as far as the Drink-Man strips have gone for now. "Case closed", indeed. I may feel like doing them again later, or someone may ask for more, but, as of this writing, the Witty Comics/Drink-Man Chronicles thread has slipped into Page Two Obscurity, and falling fast. Every new subject-of-the-moment tucks him away ever further into "remember that one thing?" status, where he lies in wait, sipping his ever-present drink, thinking occasionally of his far-away son, but mostly about his next move with his new, still-nameless female conquest.

Once again, I appreciate the nice words and support of everyone who enjoyed the strips I made, and if I didn't before, I want to thank the Witty Comics site for supplying what has been an enjoyable tool for expressing myself through a character that has become a small but permanent part of me.