So, yeah, I drew this when Tom Hart and I launched Trunktown. Trunktown was really hard to write. It starts out pretty badly, but it gets better, and by the end it’s really good. Tom and I did one year-long storyline. We always meant to do more “seasons” of Trunktown, but we’ve never gotten around to it.

Tom currently teaches classes in cartooning and inspires still more generations of cartoonists.

Most of the autobio Sundays were drawn very quickly without penciling first, so please excuse the general crappiness of the art. I’m sorry; I thought it would seem more natural and stuff.

As you can see in the second panel, although my high-school bedroom was decorated with Sandman pinups, I had not gotten rid of my childhood wallpaper, which had hearts and bluebirds. The effect was pretty unfortunate.

Oh, Big Buddha’s Comics and Sports Cards. You were an oasis in the desert. (Later a burglar broke in and stole all the sports cards, and it became just Big Buddha’s Comics.)

Oh, man, my Derek Kirk Kim Small Stories shirt. I wore that until it got too sweat-stained to be acceptable in polite company.

That’s former Viz (now Dark Horse) manga editor Carl Horn in the third panel. It’s not a very good likeness, but at least it’s not as terrifying as Jason Thompson’s rendition of him in PULP magazine:

Note that I’m still schlepping Hamtaro stuff around.

I still have my Cat and Girl shirt.

“Abe” is Abe: Wrong for All the Right Reasons, by Glenn Dakin. The comic I’m holding is Monica’s Story, Tom’s strangely poignant dramatization of the Starr Report.

The Sands page is hanging over my bed now, along with the Bone sketch I won for naming the baby rat creature and a stained-glass gerbilfly Tiff Hudson made for me. I do have a pretty awesome bedroom. Anyway, Tom Hart helped me a lot as a cartoonist at a time when I was working hard to suck less, and it meant a lot to me that he saw something worthwhile in my comics. Still does. Thanks again and again, Tom!