#TENPAM!!

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TEN YEARS

Thank you everyone for all your support over the years 😭😭😭🍕🍕🍕

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TENPAM Celebration!!

That's right, folks! NPAM is turning 10! I can hardly believe it! This week, we'll get to see some deep cut NPAM history!

My first comics were Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. I had the Peanuts Golden Celebration Treasury, and Revenge of the Baby-sat. I could probably recite many of those comics from memory. Next, I got into Garfield. Those little half-size volumes were so easy to find on the library shelf! 

I was already drawing a lot by 2001...

... and I was making comics by 2003! This one was probably drawn from life about the glamorous process of losing a tooth.

Plus some 2003 doodles of Garfield (anyone else remember Pet Force? I was in love with Starlena’s sleeve flap thingies)

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The Jelica & Jam comics are very reminiscent of the Calvin and Hobbes Sunday comics involving grand flights of fancy. I only did a handful around September 2007.

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The comics of 2006, PART TWO

Wordplay! This one probably worked better with just four panels because the plot sort of wanders. 6-14-06.

I think I was imagining a waterpark-style place, but specifically for cooling down (even if the girl is not impressed). I was channeling that feeling of walking into a grocery store with a/c. 8-28-06.

We had a flight attendant barbie outfit and I just loved the style. I drew a lot of characters in that blue aesthetic, including that particular pair of blue barbie shoes. They had a strap with a little bow printed on. 10-19-06.

We'd listen to the oldies station in the car, and I enjoyed the raindrops song. But for some reason, in my mind I attached it to Ned with the too short bed from Dr. Seuss. Anyway, I'm quite the inventor. Look at that thermos-shaped waterproof lanyard music player. Hmmm. These old comics are really revealing some of the strange things I assumed were real or normal as a kid. 11-1-06.

Salt needs salt. It was a real thing my friend said. I always thought those green noodles in the third panel looked delicious. 11-8-06.

Do not hire me to make frosting. I still think Adora would be a nice name. 1-5-07.

I had just learned all the sentence types in school and felt compelled to comic it up! 8-22-09.

Those last two comics are from 2007 and 2009, respectively. I'm including them here because they're the only standalone comics I found from those years. But that's not to say I wasn't drawing comics... stay tuned!

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 For our last celebratory TENPAM anniversary post, I thought I'd do some character history. As you've seen, Lily's been around the longest, and I got Savvy worked out in math class the year before I started NPAM. Besides Lily's sporadically appearing parents, the first character I came up with for the strip was actually the Grub Guy.

A greasy looking fellow who has the monopoly on all pop-up shops, typically selling Grub but also seen slinging coffee, sweets, squid, stuff, and milkshakes, among other things. Over the years, we've learned that his name is Mike, he has a twin (or perhaps any number of identical siblings all with one-syllable M names), and his mom is the manager of the local grocery store. She looks just like him but with a bit more hair. Though the Grub Guy doesn't show up in the comic too often, I still think his totally blank face and superhuman franchise abilities are hilarious. The Grub guy debuted on July 13, 2013.

Just after Mike the Grub guy, Champ arrives on the scene! Everyone in his family is named after plants (his given name is Basil). When I was designing him, I was trying to go for a breezy, casual beach style. I accidentally completely designed (the yet-unnamed) Tyler, but it wasn't the right look for Champ. I pivoted at the last moment, adding the trademark hat and worn out jeans. You can see it on the far right above. Funnily enough, year later when I went back to figure out Champ's real hair, it looks a lot like those swoopy ones I started out with on the left! Champ debuted on July 23, 2013

Another side character, Bike Shorts Guy, showed up a month later! I think he's really funny in a very bizarre and inexplicable way. His main traits are his good posture and his hobby of hunting wild pastries. He has never been seen on a bike. I don't think he's been featured recently, but he always makes me laugh. Bike Shorts Guy debuted on August 31, 2013

Tyler came next. That early Champ design stayed in my mind, and so our sensitive artist showed up on the scene. He and Savvy became unlikely friends. Imagine, he could've been named Hamlet.

Tyler debuted on September 10, 2013

In eighth and ninth grade I went to school online. Eventually, every school subject had a main representative character, a sport/hobby, and a sidekick. (That's what happens when you spend two years at home and it's just you and your gel pens and workbooks). Zo was my science girl, with a bonus human, Nelly the assistant. Their pet friend was a plain cat named Kitty. Looks familiar…

(The lines under their eyes are safety goggles. My mom thought they were mustaches.)

Though I risked following the formula of every ensemble-cast comic, NPAM got its own fluffy friend, the precocious cat Herriman! He's named for George Herriman, creator of the historically iconic Krazy Kat comic. I fooled around with markings, whiskers, and noses, but ultimately made him very plain, just like Kitty. Herriman debuted January 6, 2014

I tossed out an anti-joke right around the time I was graduating high school. It was intentionally unfunny. I figured it was just a silly one-off sort of thing. I was... very wrong. Early on, I returned to the Slug every Saturday because they were an easy way to whip out that last comic as I drew them in sets of six week to week. To this day, the Slug is definitely my most popular character. The Slug debuted May 29, 2014

I had plenty of characters, so I didn't feel moved to make another until over a year later. I developed Sera Sophia and Dart at the same time, knowing they'd be best buddies, but Sera Sophia snuck into the comic a bit earlier. I wanted her to have that sort of earthy hippy fairy look. (It's pretty common around where I grew up.) Though this was way before I decided to literally make her part fairy! Sera Sophia debuted on July 6, 2015

I posit that Dart was always around the NPAM world, living his merboy life happily unobserved by the NPAM audience. Savvy, who knows all the living creatures on land and sea, has known him for ages. But she's very discreet, and never told any of the humans about him. Dart and Sera Sophia hit it off instantly, as Sera Sophia is very accepting of unusual (magical) phenomena. Dart debuted July 27, 2015

And that's our main cast! Savvy retired in 2020, and other characters have come and gone (anyone remember Kai, the Japanese fish?). This concludes our TENPAM celebration. I'd like to thank all of YOU, readers, for your continued support and kind words. I'm glad that this silly ol' comic can brighten your days. Ever onward we go!

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 At last we reach 2012-2013! This school year in my trig/pre-cal notebook, we get some honest-to-goodness primordial NPAM comics! I had nailed down the idea of a regular girl and her feral friend. I just kept on using Lily from my previous comics. You can see Savvy's hair changes a lot as I tried to figure out what looked right.

These are hard to read so I put in some alt text.

Having learned from Silly and Frilly, I knew if I wanted to start a comic for real, I'd have to share it on the internet. So in the summer of 2013, I scribbled out the first week of NPAM in my trusty purple notebook. On July 1, the first one went up... and the rest is history!!

Here's what my drafting looked like for the first week. Pardon the scan quality. I wrote out all the words and then figured out panel composition. 

If you were around back then, you may remember that my first comic got weirdly cropped and you couldn't even read the whole joke. We've come a long way!

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My next attempt at a recurring comic went a little better. Unfortunately, I didn't scan the notebook where it first started, but I assure you it was in purple glitter gel pen ink. Again there were TONS of characters. This time they were thinly disguised caricatures of all my friends at school. Except their names were different. And their personalities. And some of their physical traits. Nevertheless, there was still a slight resemblance. And at the heart of it all were two BFFs... Mia and Lily!

It started out as "The Floof and the Goof" with an "opposites attract" theme, since Lily was kind of prissy and Mia was more chaotic. I based them on two of my good friends, one of whom I affectionately called "Lilypod."

The comic strip evolved into "Silly and Frilly." I remember thinking to myself, "Once I start making these, I have to make one every day." That didn't last very long because I wasn't sharing them outside my family--I had no accountability. My jokes are starting to make a bit more sense, though it was before I realized that I can't really actually draw dogs.

This one is still ripping off a Calvin and Hobbes comic.

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By 2008/2009, I knew I wanted to try a regular comic with recurring characters. Heavy on the characters. One idea, "Kowz cant speL" never got much further than a character sheet (plus random appearances in my doodles). I was busy reading B.C. by Johnny Hart at the time, and the cows reflected a lot of his characters. "Stripes" was a definite knockoff of the sarcastic BC character Curls. Smiley Jack was my sister's horse pillow pet.

And apparently I just really like the name Lily.

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Welcome to the Ripoff Roundup! I did a lot of copying back in the day. These are all funky sized, so click to see the full images, etc.

Alien language from Calvin and Hobbes...

Questionable flirting practices from Garfield... plus source 2

This next comic was so long, I had to tape on some extra paper!

I always liked wish-granting stories and magical realism. I believe I got it from this Calvin and Hobbes comic. (Plus the general sled and wagon mayhem). Reading that comic now though, it seems I totally missed the joke.

100% Peanuts ripoff!

I stole the image of fluffy Garfield. However, I added the monologue. And I think this is actually where I figured out how to use the word "outcome."

Classic Underwear gag...

Plus tossing a crumpled paper. I actually had to ask one of my parents what this meant because I didn't understand that the scribble in the air by Calvin was a crumpled up paper. Once I learned, I used paper wads like a pro. Though I added sound effects for clarity.

Then there's Woodstock's sweet setup from "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown." Right down to those pins in the headphones! I probably only saw that animated special once but I was in love with those headphones.

I stole the soda blast from a few different Garfield comics (here and here), but I pioneered this... very direct approach.

Thankfully I've gotten better at creating original ideas. But sometimes, I still steal things… from myself!

This has been the Ripoff Roundup! Tune in next time to finally see the real origin of NPAM revealed!!

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Here are "Voll-E Ball Comix" from 2006 & 2007! We played a lot of volleyball in PE around that time. The original comics were allegorical about my friend and this boy in our class who was annoying. However, I didn't draw them to look like the real people at all, and the characters soon took on a life of their own. This was also during the time I thought huge square glasses were soooo cool.

The truth is, I just spelled volley wrong. But I blamed it on my buffoon character. 6-26-06

I drew his hair with those specks in the first panel to copy the bully Moe from Calvin and Hobbes. Also: "aide," another word I couldn't spell. In subsequent comics I think I continued doing it wrong on purpose because I thought it was funny. 6-26-06.

6-26-06

That "PE BOSS" is kind of scary. Of course, you fix nets with net tape. 6-26-06

I either made a lot of these in one day (very possible), or I forgot to change the date when I was scanning these. 6-26-06

This might have been around when I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Thus, holding up the helmet faceplate. Here you can see I needed an extra panel in the bottom row. Crayola markers don't stay on white-out very well. 6-28-06

Good comedic timing on this one! 3-2-07

The joke is that she knew if she left him alone, he'd tell the audience his secret defense--which in this case was... nose reinforcements. Then she dashed back and doofed him before he could put it back on. She's a meta-fictional mastermind. 3-3-07

His plan was to simply make any noise besides "doof." 4-8-07

I really worked hard to make those grapes the right color. I might have busted out my other marker set. 4-8-07

I was so close to correctly spelling "although." Althoguh, I still got it wrong. 4-8-07

4-9-07

The kid volleyballs we used in school were pretty soft. I never tried to cut a hole into one though, so I don't know how they'd be as boxing gloves. 5-26-07

I had this  habit of spelling out super weird speech patterns that made sense in my head, and perhaps might have worked out loud, but look pretty weird on paper. 7-10-07

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The comics of 2006, PART ONE. I did a lot of one-off comics this year. You can see they are becoming a bit more understandable, though many still lack a real punch line. I really start to lean into that standard nine-panel grid.

Hey, this one's pretty good!

We were learning about idioms in school, which is where I learned "it's all Greek to me." The girl's assignment is about philosophy to tie into the Greek theme. I spelled everything wrong on purpose for the character. I knew nothing about philosophy. The joke is that she's having such a hard time because she didn't do any research.

I think, for some reason, either I or my sister wound up saying, "You can't break a ham!" and I worked up a comic because it sounded funny. I also like the line, "I ain't got no mutton."

I took the time to draw each mini panel in the center panel. The blue girl's hair I was definitely copying from something, but I can't remember what. Possibly Elastigirl. 3-12-06.

The joke is... um, that a force of nature can... write its name? By blowing a pencil around? 4-24-06.

I did not watch tv growing up. I didn't know how it worked. Apparently I thought they aired "time-fillers" which just... filled any random spaces they had between programs? 4-28-06.

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The following is a bunch of comics from "late 2004 probably" as my notes indicate. My mom had this gorgeous pack of skinny markers and I was allowed to draw with them after we watched a movie (the tv was in the same room as the markers, not in the living room with my general art supplies).

We had gotten a kid's pottery wheel. I thought it was so cool. In this comic, the cat gets spun around on it, but ultimately takes the clay to use on its own little cat-sized pottery wheel.

A flower cleans up her act but all she gets is transplanted. If you overwater plants, they go "blot."

Ah yes, "Murpup," a totally normal name for a dog. Our Christmas tree was a norfolk pine and the branches were pokey.

My standard comic setup was a grid of nine, but sometimes I did twelve. Or, if I needed more space, I'd cut one of the original panels into smaller boxes. I loved ice skating and drew it a lot.

Everything they do on tv happens for real. It's not special effects they really just hire a mountain lion to bite you for tv. So I thought, I guess. This poor guys gets dumped in a river, slammed into a cactus, embarrassed by his heart underwear, kicked by his horse, and bit by a mountain lion creature, and calls for his mommy. The life of an actor is tough.

This one doesn't really make sense but you can see I'm already fooling around with meta humor. She turns on her lightbulb to get an idea, the foot from a higher panel bonks her, and when she throws her head back to laugh she sees her past in the panels above. Not sure where the surfing on the usa came from.

My mom liked how dynamic the mom was calling "dinner" while leaning out through the window. The joke is that the girl is disappointed that she "only" made 8,929 jumps before having to stop.

When I finished my homework, I would dance around, singing, "I'm done with all my homework, cha! cha!" This girl stepped it up with silly glasses, and while my family expected it, this girl did it for her own amusement.

Ah, the old cyclical punchline. The cat will once again join the jump roper, until another sneeze inevitably tangles them up in a cloud of dust.

I think my attempted punchline was that the butterfly looked like it was on a hill of grass, but it turns out to be the baby's ice cream.

So we begin and end with a Christmas comic. I knew the tree had to be overpriced, but I didn't have a clear idea of what a Christmas tree actually cost. I overshot a little, but, after all, a good $9,688 is worth it.

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Whoops, I'm out of chronological order. Firmly in my Garfield era by 2005, I started Tuna and Squeak!

At the time I thought purple eyeshadow with green eyes was very pretty. I got it backwards on the title pic here. Tuna's cheek fluff is derivative of Garfield's mom, who I also thought was really pretty.

I would just add a hyphen when I accidentally left gaps in the middle of words. I can still imagine, very clearly, Chow saying, "Mouse plus carrot equals eaten carrot." Though that may be hard to discern. You can see the garfield-ness of that very first arm, but Chow is modeled after Snoopy's brother. 4-10-05.

I liked to draw Tuna pointing, but she only had three fingers, and someone told me her gesture was a little bit rude. So I had to go back and add in a fourth finger. 4-11-05.

Don't hide in a washing machine. 4-11-05.

I messed up the moose drawing the first attempt, but look at that fancy panel 3 cherry! Look at the nose and hooves sticking out! I didn't know what mousse was. 5-7-05.

I had a giant foam puzzle with a bunch of fish. It had a zebra-turkey-lion-fish or whatever they're called. I think they're pretty cool.

I had a giant foam puzzle with a bunch of fish. It had a zebra-turkey-lion-fish or whatever they're called. I think they're pretty cool.

This may actually be incomprehensible. So they're both reading. Tuna flops down backwards and the wind blows all the pages of Squeak over on him. They both absentmindedly say something related to what they're reading, and startle each other. 6-7-05.

I hadn't yet learned about arranging speech bubbles from right to left. 7-10-05

A year later, I decide to make one more Tuna and Squeak comic in which they actually hike. So I did in fact draw him in a pair of his hiking shorts. Pink, green, and gray camo. 11-3-06.