Posts Tagged Twenty years holy crap

Twenty years?? It really only feels like 18!

Back before KRZQ went alternative!


Twenty years ago on this exact date, the FIRST Cool Jerk was published in the Reno Gazette-Journal! That’s a true fact, Chester! Many things have changed in 20 years (Armpit’s hair, no more hand lettering or Zip-a-Tone) but many more things have stayed the same (four-panel format, the logo, my sense of “humor”). I talk much more about Cool Jerk’s genesis and early days in Cool Jerk Vol. 1: Hodabeast, so if you have your copy, bust it out and thrill in the tale!

Click it to broadsheet-size it!


As you can see, I still have the tearsheet. (I’m like that— I have tearsheets and clips of everything I’ve had published since junior high school. Serious.) Some time capsule-y stuff from June 15, 1991: “City Slickers” was in the theaters, the most-popular songs in Reno were “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. and “Seeing Things” by the Black Crowes, and Sparks opened up a paintball park.

Click it to get right in there!


The first published Cool Jerk is different from the one online and collected in Hodabeast; I remastered all the older Cool Jerks with my font Hornopolis, and I made some slight changes/fixes in the process.

You’ll also see that Cool Jerk ran vertically. THAT JUST KILLED ME! Paste-up would cut the velox of my strip and arrange it vertically down the right-hand column. This happened for several months until I redesigned the page to accommodate Cool Jerk in its intended horizontal format.

So yeah. Twenty years! To commemorate this event, I revisited the other five characters who appeared with The Kid Who Would Eventually Become Armpit, none of whom we’ve seen since the first Cool Jerk strip. I also decided to give them names, which will be convenient when action figures are made of them.



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