001 “The Hard Line”

Welcome to Sexy Losers or the THIN H LINE, depending on when you started reading it. The old site was languishing so here is a new site that should be easier on the eyes. I’m also putting in all the old commentaries and adding new ones, and also some extra stuff I’ve been finding as I’ve been going through the archives. I hope you enjoy this, even though a lot of it is a product of its time and there are many strips I wouldn’t consider doing and many things I wouldn’t say now. But who knows, there still may be a chuckle in here somewhere for you. Please enjoy!

The first strip ever, and of course I have to give a lot more commentary because of it.  The idea started in my head when I first read Heartbroken Angels by Kikuni Masahito, an incredibly funny four-panel comic translated into English by VIZ comics.  Here was adult humour the way it was meant to be — not with sex as the punchline, but sex as the medium to which explore what makes sex and all its weird little quirks funny.  This was something I wanted to do, because I never saw it tackled before in an English comic.  Generally adult humour in America is childish and really lacking in any kind of cleverness.  I wanted to do an adult comic that was a little more interesting than juvenile.

This strip was inspired by some IRC chats I had at the time.  A fellow adult artist (who shall remain nameless) had a thing for another female artist (again, nameless) who secretly did adult work.  We all came to the conclusion that any woman who draws smut must be amazing in bed.  Well, when I actually *thought about it*, I realized that it’s a pretty weird conclusion, and saw the humour potential in making such a foundationless assumption.  This strip originally appeared in the monthly comic drawing contest Monthly Online Manga in April 1999.  The comic was then called “the THIN H LINE”.  The title was inspired by the title of the then-hit-movie “The Thin Red Line.” (The story of why the title eventually changed should be explained in the commentary to #99, when I get to that.)

How I did this strip is typical of how I handle guest strips.  I did the basic layout using blue pencil (where the figures are, who the figures are, and what the figures are saying), and the guest artist chooses a panel of his/her liking, and pencils in the figures in his/her own style.  Afterwards, I ink and write in the dialogue.  This strip was done while I was a member of OFU (Ontario Fanartists Unite), a band of anime artists who used to take up space in coffee shops and children’s hospitals and draw jam comics and jam pics, as well as talk about things anime.  They were an important part of my life at the time, so I’m glad to have this strip, even though I don’t hear from any of those people any more.