Like literally any author who ever lived, Wacky Whapsody was not my first book. In this section, you'll learn all about what I was up to pre W.W.
In the year of our lord, approximatley 2016, in 4th grade, I began my first ever comic series "Stickman Paradise." Starring my first ever original character "Stickdude." A fairly run-of-the-mill superhero who lived on a floating island along with the rest of the comics characters. plotlines consisted of characters going to outer space to getting into violent brawls on a school playground. (Stickdude's age was VERY MUCH up in the air.) Unfortunatley, All of the issues of Stickman Paradise are lost forever due to unknowingly throwing them all in the garbage when I was cleaning my bedroom, around 11 or 12 issues were made along with a standalone spinoff issue called "Stickman Paradies issue #2" that I gave to a classmate of mine, Izayah Richards.
Well, who's this Bug-eyed Bomb-pop? this here is what came directly after Stickman Paradise. No, you are not looking at Sonic the Hedgehog, you are looking at Mr. Needlemouse, a parody version of Sonic that hated the actually real fandom group known as "Furries" so much that he'd kill at least 3 or 4 in every issue. Stories mostly consisted of plotlines lifted directly from the 1990s Sonic the Hedgehog games, except with more bloodshed and stolen characters from a classmate of mine, Lilly Jewell Lewis.
Yes sir, like Nestle stealing water from dying folks in Africa, I'd take all her characters and use them in my bootleg Sonic comics. I didn't really have any characters of my own at the time and I didn't wanna parody ALL of the Sonic characters, so in popped characters like Paintbrush the Cat (though she more resembled a grey wolf) Jake Wolf, a mutant dog thing with a million eyes (covered by a bandana, yes, all of them so he's always bashing into telephone poles I imagine.) Yin-Yang, A dual-tailed fox what dressed up like one of them emo-types, hair parted over one of her eyes and everything.
Now, I could go on forever about what all I took, but to cut a steak into a hamburger, She made a big scene in 5th grade and got me yelled at by the highest authority a harlot could access; Mr. Kevin Bush, our school teacher in 5th grade. I never did directly steal another one of her characters again, and regrets are held about my decision as Miss Lewis went through an untold amount of grief about the use and depictions of her characters.
Lets get into something a little more recognizable shall we? This is what Cotton-Ball Billy started out as; A little adventurous pom-pom, reminiscent of those key-chain things you'll sometimes see on womens purses or bookbags. Created in 2018, "Fuzzy" as he was known as at the time, went on fantasy filled adventures.
Ranging from saving his mother from evil knitting needles in a world full of arts and crafts, to crossing different realities to stop larger-than-life beasts. At this time, Fuzzy's Big Adventures were different than both Stickman Paradise and Mr. Needlemouse, as these stories were told in a similar fashion to a traditional novel, where the only illustrations were on the cover. The series lasted for 3 years, and spanned 15 volumes, though I'd be lying if I claimed Fuzzy was a wholly original idea.
No, unlike 95% of the characters in Mr. Needlemouse, Fuzzy was not a stolen character, though he was heavily inspired by another character from a classmate of mine; Pub the Lozenge by Bela Kamicka. Pub was admittedly a fairly basic character with a sort of "crackhead" personality. When I first saw Pub, since he was made by a friend of mine I wanted a character just like it. So I got to brainstorming right then and there. I originally wanted Fuzzy to be blue, not because I was copying Bela, but because blue was my favorite color. but I couldn't find my blue colored pencil, and so, Fuzzy remained white.
Pub himself even appeared in a few Fuzzy books as Fuzzy's friend. But when Fuzzy became Cotton-Ball Billy several years later since the last FBA book in 2021, Pub did not become "Sore-Throat-Sweet Simon" as, Since Pub is still technically owned by Bela Kamicka, I have no legal right to use his character in my publications. And so, Cotton-Ball Billy is accompanied by Tish-Tash, which if you think about it, is a copy of a character starring along side the main character which in it of itself if a copy. (crazy how reality can contort like that, huh?)
My, what crude drawings, but judging aside, these characters are what came about after Fuzzy's Big Adventure. From left to right is Balloon-Man: Now without Nuts, Balloon-Man 2: The Electric Innuendo, Balloon-Man 3: Space Cephalopod Blowout (Cephalopod being mis-spelt as 'cepholopod') Balloon-Man 4: The Miracle of Life & Balloon-Man 5: Humphrey gets Kidnapped. all of which starring who else, but Michael Jordon from Space Jam.
But in all reality, Balloon-Man was the star, and when I say HIS adventures were more uncouth than Fuzzy's, I mean it. In his debut issue, Balloon-Man conjures up an ethereal figure with the power of unintentional witchcraft that goes by the name of Octopus' Garden. (named after the Beatles song) and immediately gets crammed into a can of whoop-ass because Balloon-Man believed he was a Pokemon (Octopus remains halfway stuck in the can for the rest of the comic's run, sort of like how the genie from Disney's Aladdin is until he's freed.) in the second issue, Balloon-Man literally jerks off to porn only to then meet Dulcy the Narwhal, the lady he just yanked it to, and in the 3rd issue, he gets married to and then has a child with her in the 4th.
In the 5th and final mainline issue of Balloon-Man, we get to see Balloon-Man's daughter Humphrey, Who, despite being born in the previous issue, is now 17 due to a time-skip of 16 years (which would mean Humphrey was 1 year old at the time of her birth in 2022, making her 22 in 2025.) Humphrey goes to high-school, and gets into conflict with another classmate, Nolan Footpenis (being a crude reference to the name "John Hancock") Nolan, being a tad nutty, decides the only way to settle the conflict that seemingly spanned a majority of their lives, is to kidnap her for the sole purpose of killing her, and its up to Balloon-Man, Dulcy, Octopus' Garden and the Balloonia Police Department to rescue Humphrey.
Overtime, as I got older and wiser, I came to the conclusion that Balloon-Man's stories, despite having interesting plot lines as "Balloon-Man stops Dreamworks' Shrek from causing a second September 11th terrorist attack" or "Balloon-Man climbs a mountain to brawl a threating evildoer" It was all the bunk. Every story had some kind of lewd and bawdy content that I may have enjoyed as a 14 year old boy, I wouldn't so much as an adult who has conduct to uphold in the storytelling world. which only meant that Balloon-Man was ready for refinements.
In 2024, I had the idea to contact Image Comics, publishers of Spawn and Invincible to be the publishers of Balloon-Man Comics, so I quickly got to work in remaking Balloon-Man to be less grotesque and more like something someone would actually want to buy once puberty was complete. the book spanned 9 pages, however was never published as Image never received it. Mostly due to me getting up to other things and making animated cartoons for Youtube.
Even with the updates, I soon realized I plain didn't like Balloon-Man as a whole anymore. I had outgrown his locker-room antics, even if they were watered down for Image. So I decided, yet again, to update Balloon-Man, this time to something not tailor made for others, but tailor made for me and my new interests. For Christmas, I got copies of the Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse comics, specifically the ones from the very early days of that strip. Balloon-Man from the beginning was loosely modeled after characters from that time period, but was limited by my drawing skills at the time. So, I really studied all sorts of model sheets, comics and animated cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s, and gradually Balloon-Man, once a slur spewing, hormone fueled fratboy, became Quincy the Air-Head, a happy-go-lucky minstrel who's perpetual smiling was of genuine joy and not of cheek after crashing a helicopter or comically killing a man.
Those two being Nudnik & Hobnails and Sammy & Fritz, Specifically for an animated series on Youtube called E.Cun and Friends (E.Cun being pronounced as E dot Coon) made by my former friend, Ewan Steven Cundill.
Nudnik the Armadillo (Formerly named Arnie Armadillo) was initially created as a Woody Woodpecker style character who'd go around terrorizing people, however Arnie never made an appearance due to E.Cun & Friends ceasing production after 4 episodes. So, due to me being to owner of Arnie, I decided to do something with him myself. I gave him a unique set of friends and foes to bounce off of and heckle, eventually Arnie's world resembled that of a Looney-Tunes fantasy world where Arnie and his new friend Hobnails the Capybara were always out-smarting Bumfuzzle the Bobcat and HIS posse.
By happenstance, I caught a rerun of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on my family's Roku, and if you know anything about that particular Sonic cartoon, you'd know that it was made during a time where the first Sonic the Hedgehog video game was released only 3 or so years ago, and with the speedy blue pincushion being so popular and so new, the SEGA company not only licensed Sonic out to companies for a multitude of products and media, but also let the licensee's have their way with him. thus leading to the aforementioned Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog show having very little in common with the 2 video games it was based on save for a few related characters. (There WERE other Sonic games at the time, though these were only released in Japan.)
Seeing Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, like other characters and junk I've made, I wanted to make my OWN adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and Arnie & Hobnails fit the bill perfectly to be just what I wanted. To make sure people understood that Arnie & Hobnails were parodies of Sonic & Tails, I changed Arnie's name to Nudnik, not just because it looks similar to the word "Sonic" but also because it was a strange word that fit the naming conventions of other Arnie & Hobnails characters (I.E Bumfuzzle, Rash, Dunderhead, etc.) And so, Nudnik & Hobnails became what it is today.
Sammy & Fritz were also supposed to be apart of E.Cun & Friends before to went belly-up. The cat & mouse were originally both male and, like in Wacky Whapsody today, both businessmen, except in E.Cun & Friends they were more conmen than hapless hirelings. long after me and Ewan Cundill had our falling out, I took Sammy & Fritz and my other characters I made with me, and when I needed a 4th comic story for Wacky Whapsody, I used Sammy & Fritz, but to make things a little more unique, I made Sammy a girl.
And that is the story of how I made all my characters for my public domain comic magazine... which, I bet your wondering: Why is this comic magazine public domain? well, if you click here
you'll find out why.But assuming you don't read it, that is how all my characters came to be! Thanks for reading!