Back in the year 2001 I was burning out on webcomics. Alot of the comics out there were just geek fare, and not particularly well written geek fare. Artistic ability was, well, a bit rough for most strips. I had never heard of most of the real good ones that had come out at around that time. And I was only 18 so I was at a particularly annoying age. I was ready to give up on the medium in general, move on to other things. Like Vampire: The Masquerade. Annoying age, remember.
A comic managed to pull me back in though. It was Shaw Island. For those of you who don't know, Shaw Island is about two guys who live on the titled island in Washington state, and their Slackers-esque musings on their lives. Oh, and there were these talking hamsters and a gamer Jesus. It was fresh and original. It opened me up too a whole new world of comics. it spoke to where I was in my life at that time. Even helped me make a few important decisions.
And looking back on it I have no idea why. Don't get me wrong. Shaw Island was not a bad strip. But it was nothing revolutionary. It fits pretty well in line with the whole college buddies strip thing that was so popular back then, with a heeping helpin' of cute but mean rodents, also popular. I am reading the archives and I cannot for the life of me understand what convinced me that this comic was "It".
Which leads to my point. The "best strips" are the ones that speak to us where we are in our lives at that moment. So any strip, large or small, can really be important to somebody. Change there life. That is alot of power in your hands, creators. Use it well.
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