COOL! A NEW ISSUE!

Sup again everyone. So the other day I was looking through my closet just to do it, no real apparent reason, and I came across this manila folder you see here. Just by the terrible bubble lettering, I already knew what this was and what era it was from my life...Elementary School.

The contents of this folder are just as precious and treasured as those found in my GAIN memory box from a previous post. In fact, if there ever was some odd situation where I only have time to save/rescue one of these things, I would probably go forth and save this manila folder. What's the reason? Let's find out by taking a look inside.

Wow.....a bunch of hand-drawn, wrinkled comics on badly damaged, wrinkled, and yellowing paper. So why is this so important? Well, these here comics were highly influential on the artistic/drawing ability that I have held onto to this present day and age. It all started in the 2nd grade when I replicated the cover art of this Spider-Man comic I had, and I gave it to my teacher Mr. Cloke as a gift. He came up to me and was like "Don you didn't draw this, you traced it didn't you?! Shocked and appalled, I backed myself up and said "No Mr. Cloke, I really drew it. I just copied it from the actual comic but I didn't trace it." And then the next words from him fueled my drawing passion: "Wow Don! You are a really good drawer. You are a great artist!" So during 1997 Christmas/New Years (to 1998) break, I went to the Philippines with my family. During the New Years celebration, the wait of the countdown was taking forever and I was bored. I picked up this gaming magazine and flipped through it. I saw this awesome looking character called Bomberman, and I decided to kill some time by drawing him on paper. Eventually, this drawing session turned into the very 1st issue of my most successful series of elementary school comics.

When we returned from break, I immediately showed my best friend Joseph and he was hooked and wanted me to make more issues, as well as sparking him to create an original character of his own, Jesterman, and he created a series of comics as well. From my 2nd issue onwards, I ended up implementing Joseph's Jesterman into my series with his permission, as well as the addition of another popular video game character Kirby, the fat pink blob that eats a bunch of food and swallows his enemies to steal their powers. From time to time, issues would feature cameos of other characters, such as Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer...cuz uh..yeah...me and Joseph were overly obsessed with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Anyways, the comic evolved from "The Adventures of Bomberman" into "The Adventures of Bomberman, Jesterman, and Kirby."

The full line of the Bomberman series comics, issues #1 - 11

As time went by, I was making more and more issues, working on them any chance I can. From the bus rides to and from school, in class, during recess, and free time on the weekends. It used to be pretty much exclusive to me and Joseph, but eventually word of my comics spread and a lot of my classmates got into them as well. A lot of people were reading my comics and I just felt really good and cool, especially after another teacher's input. But this event kinda happened very differently than Mr. Cloke's spark of inspiration. Take a look at the issue below...

The infamous Issue #5, The Funeral of Jesterman

Yes, I was very serious about this warning label

So here's the rundown. During free reading time, me and about 7 of my friends gathered around in front of the classroom, sat on the grass Indian-style in a circle, and had a group read-around of the comics I had put out, issue #5 being the latest one. This issue was a complete turn around for the series, it was the after events after the death of Joseph's character. PRETTY BIG IMPACTING ISSUE....especially because, I put so much expletives in it. Like most of us, as a yound kid, I knew every swear word, and about sex and all that "bad stuff" and I implemented that side of me in the comics by putting a bunch of swear words in this issue. My teacher Mrs. Wathen, saw us all snickering and giggling outside, and she screamed and asked us what we were reading. Now, my dumbass with my big mouth replied "COMICS!" Thing was, comics were not allowed at school! So she immediately started walking out while saying "Don! Give me those comics, you know comics aren't allowed in school! I will have to confiscate them!" So here I am, freaking the fuck out, because my teacher is about to take away my comics, and I'm obviously shitting bricks at the fact that if she actually goes through these comics (which she most likely would do), she would see my CUSS-WORD-JAMPACKED ISSUE, and I would be pretty much fucked. So with my quick thinking, I folded issue #5 and quickly tucked it into the back of my pants. She didn't see, and so she confiscated the rest. A little while later in class, she called me up. I thought I was busted, instead, she apologized. She said something along the lines of, "I'm so sorry Don. I did not know that these comics were made by you. These are fine to have in school. I read them, and they are actually pretty fun and entertaining! You should make more comics. You are a great artist! Keep it up!" So there it is, even though it was one of the scariest moments in my wee years, I came out of it with more inspiration than I've ever had before. I just wonder how different it would have been if she got her hands on issue #5. haha.

A page from issue #5, all them F bombs LOL

In the back page of every issue, I had stupid ass ad's haha

Eventually, I took a new route in my elementary comic drawing career by dropping the Bomberman/Jesterman/Kirby series to start up new series of comics. Just like Bomberman, I did not create and original character, instead, I made comics from well known mascots or characters. Although I had fun with new series, there weren't as satisfying or as fun or adventurous as my Bomberman series, and they fell short and did not last too long.

"The Adventures of Spot" series (5 issues), you know him as the 7up mascot

Me and Joseph's cameos in the Spot series

The 1 and only issue of "The Many Deaths of Kenny" series, you know him from South Park

Incomplete projects that really never saw the light of day

Inspiration overload: the final newspaper publication of PEANUTS

As I grew older, I did not abandon my comic career. For Griffith's Middle School, I was on the newspaper staff writing editorials and doing the comic strip (which unfortunately I can't find the copies I saved of them). Some of you may remember if you read them back in the day, but they were pretty action packed, and highly influenced by Dragonball Z.

In high school too, I continued drawing comics (just quick classroom drawn doodles, not very serious), not for the newspaper, but to entertain my friends, just as I meant for all my other comics to do. I really loved my friends and stuff getting into my comics, laughing, wondering what was gonna happen next, and wishing for more. It was all done for the sake of their enjoyment, and feeling proud that I was the one who supplied it for them. Well, this has been probably my longest post, but I hope you enjoyed it somewhat. I'll stop now.

Snippet of a Spider-Man parody from Junior year of high school