Afterword (1)

I’m not quite sure what to write that won’t come off as an inappropriately sentimental and self-aggrandizing, being as this comic has pretty much been an extended excuse to make terrible puns, use lots of sound effects (160 of those, give or take a dozen if you count “whappita whappita whappita” as one effect or three), and imply terrible things about common kitchen utensils.

The best compliment I ever inadvertently got was when somebody commented that the comic read like a Bugs Bunny short. If so, I have in some measure succeeded. If vampires were vulnerable to falling anvils, believe me. There would’ve been one.

But, regardless of the fact that Bite Me is not Anna Karenina, it’s been quite a task. It has annoyed the hell out of me, given me rotten wrist pain, kept me from going outside on sunny days, dealt me a permanent graphite stain, forced me to haul enormous binders on transcontinental flights, and cost me hundreds of dollars in Prismacolor Cool Grey markers (20%-90% darkness, $2.75 per).

It has also gained me a full deck of wonderful friends, mentors, and supporters, and by gum, if I can gain friends, mentors and supporters with something I made up at lunch period in high school, I’m not doing too badly.

I’m quite aware that the “plot” of this story was essentially a flimsy excuse to play with the characters, and have no doubt that Our Intrepid Antiheroes could trundle their merry way through many another page. At some point they might do so again, because I do love them terribly, but for right now I’m more interested in challenging my abilities as a comics artist beyond the (admittedly delicate) process of timing a weekly punchline.

To that end, my next comics project will serve as my senior university thesis here at Wesleyan. It will not be so much of a crowd pleaser, and will be hopelessly introspective and autobiographical all that indie comics nonsense, but hopefully it will also involve lots of hot chicks wearing battle armor and a devastatingly honest depiction of my childhood haircut. It will be due in early April, so you can expect to hear some word of it by early summer 2005.

As for Bite Me’s future, for the time being it will remain in archive status here on Girlamatic. In the next few months I’ll be putting together a publication package, and with some luck I will find a home for it at a print publisher sometime in the next year.

Rest assured, though. There will be a print edition. I TOTALLY SWEAR. When news on that front emerges, it will be well-announced.

For those of you who can’t wait until then, I commend you into the arms of Vera Brosgol, Ariel Childers and John Allison, whose respective webcomics, Return to Sender, All Undone, and Scary Go Round, possess various elements in good harmony with Bite Me-type loonery. All three of them annoy me with their oppressive talent, but unfortunately they’re all really nice people and I’d probably feel bad about garroting them in their sleep.

To conclude: thank you to everybody who’s subscribed, e-mailed, posted, encouraged, heckled, giggled, cosplayed, thrown gift art at me, hosted data, send me large checks, edited me, made me dinner, let me pet their wheatgrass, and everything else.

You’ve been lovely, and I’ve been fortunate.