Anyway, I was super-nervous about meeting Jeff. I wanted to say how much I'd enjoyed reading his comics over the years and how nice he'd been the few times we'd communicated and how much that meant to me. I wanted to say all those things, but I also didn't want to seem, you know, creepy. As a result, I didn't really say much of anything.
I started drawing this comic on the train home from SPX, but it got shuffled to the back of my notebook, as things do; and then onto the bookshelf when I started a new notebook; but I never really forgot about it.
Lately, I've been pushing myself to draw more, and to upload what I draw on a regular basis. When I don't have any ideas, I draw things from podcasts I've listened to, or fan art for comics I like. I think that's what jogged my memory about this unfinished comic. So I dug out my notebook from SPX, re-drew the panels (because the whole point of all this is to practice drawing more), scanned everything in, and finished it all off in the Gimp.
About this strip: Panel 1 is more or less a verbatim transcript of what Jeff later told me via Twitter our exchange might have been. Panel 2 is also pretty much a verbatim transcript. I really did ask them what Andrew W.K. was like, and they really did seem, well, resigned about the fact that he is, always, a party. (Tallahassee also stated that he was "the best at Twitter," and so he is. You can find out for yourself if you follow him.) Panel 3 is actually how I expect most of my interactions with people to go. And I really was afraid I'd try to walk away without paying for the books I bought.
I'm really glad I finally finished this comic and posted it. Not only for the practice it gave me at drawing and editing on the computer, but also because it reminds me that things are usually never as bad as you fear, and sometimes they might have been even better than you'd hoped.
If you're reading this, Jeffrey, I hope you got a smile from the comic. I promise to try to tell you who I am if we meet up again somewhere.
