In college, I continued to create original characters, most notably with my friend Brent Otey as K.O. Comix. I think a K.O. Comix retrospective on this blog is way overdue, especially since some of those old characters will appear in the upcoming Amazing Arizona Comics #10, but I digress. My solo efforts in my late teens/early 20s included stabs at slice-of-life strips, and, since a big part of my life was singing karaoke, these pages from my sketchbook are heavily inspired by that.
At one point, I tried to develop a series featuring "the Karma Chameleon," a wandering singer that adapted the traits of whatever '80s pop tune he crooned. (I didn't know then that Boy George shared a birthday with Sheriff Joe Arpaio! I was already drawing the Agents of F.L.A.G. Day!) That turned into this:
Carrie O'Key, the adventuring bartendress that eventually appeared in Karaoke Comics #2! (Joe was my barber from Yorba Linda, California, who claimed to cut Richard Nixon's hair when the former Prez was just a kid!)
This page features real people, most notably one of my best buddies Konrad, one of my favorite karaoke jockeys Bill (from the Kopa Room in Anaheim), and some other characters I met there over the years.
Eventually, I began dabbling in drawing my perspectives on current events, and while I was still the center of attention, you can see the seeds of Amazing Arizona Comics starting to bloom:
To be continued!
