I Fought the Law

It Begins

If a language is a dialect with an army, an online comic strip is a blog with a private security firm. In addition to nearly bankrupting the VHS porn industry, the Internet has brought forth a shining new era of vanity publishing. No longer must ambitious yet talentless writers and artists pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for a giant box of unsellable books to rot away in their joyless garages and attics. The glorious Internet allows anyone with a computer - well, access to a computer at least - the wherewithal to publish their efforts for all the world to see. The precious delusions of grandeur created by this trend of online publishing - the ability to become convinced that millions of people are accessing our articles when in reality the only eyes that ever see these things belong to hapless wanderers who click out of curiosity after searching Google for the word "Balls" - are crucial to those of us who fancy ourselves important enough to be heard. That being said, welcome to my nightmare.

So what's this all about? I Fought the Law is a comic strip, an online comic strip, based on the lives of a handful of fictional law students. You'll notice as we get started that the first few strips have very little to do with law school. This is because a number of them were created in the summer before my first year as a law student, when I didn't know anything about law school. But they should be funny nonetheless.

You'll also notice as we get started that I've gone ahead and put up an Archive page despite there being only one actually published strip to work with. This is just a way for me to avoid having to build one in the future, and in the meantime I've posted a handful of draft strips that didn't make the final cut. Feel free to peruse them at your leisure to see what kind of humor not to expect in future postings.

As for the Log page, which you're currently reading, it will most likely be updated more often that the strip itself, which will come along once a week (every Monday). Hence the blog with a security firm comment before. I'll try to stay true to the spirit of the strip and post comments that are at least tangentially law- or law-school related, such as commentaries on current events in the court systems, but don't be surprised if you bring this page up one day and find a lengthy diatribe about the silverfish in my apartment.

Back to the Archive. I'd like to offer a few words about why each Out-take strip was taken out. Out-take 01 is, in fact, a true story that was funny when it happened but doesn't translate well to panels. Out-take 02 is a shameful piece of cartooning, an obvious gag devoid of content, and poorly drawn even by my standards. It was the second I Fought the Law strip I drew, and at that point I was so excited about my new diversion that I was willing to forsake quality. My apologies. Out-take 03 is actually one that I like, but test audience reactions were less than encouraging. Out-take 04 is beyond comment.

I think that's all I have to say for now. Here's hoping that law school doesn't consume my life to the point where I can't entertain the handful of friends who'll actually be reading this thing. Posted by hb at August 19, 2002 02:03 PM