Todd the Blog #1

Hi, it’s Greg, author of this strip and “prophet of Todd.” Thank you to those who have been following along and enjoying Todd’s adventures.

This comic is the first leg of a four-pronged approach, I’m calling my “Year of Creativity” initiative. I’m working on a comic, a series of short films, composing some songs, and trying to make a big dent in my second novel (all in my spare time). If you’d like to know more about that, read my Year of Creativity intro blog post.

Some of you may be wondering about my inspiration for Todd. I was mainly inspired by two comics.

First is David Wilborn’s “Urban Jungle”. I used to follow David’s comic regularly and was surprised when he gave us readers a peek into his process and showed how he rigged his characters like puppets so he could re-arrange them instead of re-drawing them for every strip. I’m not good at drawing the same thing twice, much less the same thing from different angles. But still, it made me think I could possibly do a comic.

Second is Dinosaur Comics. There Ryan North uses the same dinosaur illustrations over and over again, varying the text to keep it entertaining.

I came up with Todd as a concept where I would only ever have this unchanging rock on screen and craft conversations and situations that are entertaining, similar to Ryan’s method. But for a little more visual interest and to use David’s posing inspiration, Todd has two sets and moves around within them from strip to strip. Plus we have mebbles.

After our first month of Todd (well, 4 weeks), I wanted to share a few notes before we continue on with Todd’s adventures.

1: I have Todd scripted out through at least early May. Todd’s going to have an uncomfortable conversation with his manager, the mebbles will fall in love, and I will spend three strips working up to a terrible pun. Honestly, it’s the first punch line that made my wife groan, so I think that’s a good thing.

2: This is a “side hustle” and work’s going to get BUSY. On top of and as part of my day job, I’ll be writing 3/4 of a book on cybersecurity in the space of 5-6 weeks… seriously. I do not intend to miss the strip schedule, but I may skip a “Hammer of the Week” here or there in the next 6-7 weeks.

3: I have a couple of “Ask Todd” strips mapped out. If you’d like to ask Todd a question about love, life, money, or tools, send your question to asktodd at toddthegod dot com.

Thanks for reading so far. I’ll keep trying to reward the time you share with me by continuing to make it fun.

— Greg