First of all, thank you to everybody who pitched in to extend my premium subscription another two and a half years. You guys are the greatest

But on the down side, my technological woes aren't over yet. Firefox still crashes every time I try to upload artwork. I don't know what's brought this on, but there's no way to fix it because my operating system is so out of date. So this means two things: 1.) I need to go to the computer lab every time I want to upload stuff now, and 2.) I need a new computer.

Obviously, that second part isn't going to happen any time soon - as I previously stated, I only make enough money to pay my bills; no play money whatsoever. So until I manage to get that promotion (which may not even happen, it's pretty much up to the managers), looks like it's back to visiting the computer lab on a semi-regular basis. Damn.

After several years of premium membership-hood gracefully bestowed upon me by benevolent friends like and (thank you very much, by the way), my subscription has finally expired. And unfortunately, this new development is wreaking hell with my antiquated computer. The Flash- and Java-based ads are too much for my Flash- and Java-free version of Firefox to handle (remember, I can't upgrade because my operating system is ten years out of date), and it slows all of DeviantArt to a crawl. And here's a new development - now when I try to upload new artwork (which usually involves a lot of finagling with Sta.sh because my computer can't display the upload page properly), Firefox just crashes altogether. I don't know if that's a result of my premium membership expiring or just my computer wonking out on me or what, but it's never happened before.

I think at this point, I might just have to switch back to going to the community college computer lab every day, with its high-speed virus-protected Windows 7 PCs. Saving up for a new computer for myself is out of the question right now, because I don't make enough money to do anything other than pay my bills and keep myself alive. (My car needs brake work, right on schedule for this vehicle since it's been three months since the last time something went wrong with it, but I sure as hell can't get it fixed anytime soon.) And given recent events, I think I can forget about using my artwork as a source of income for the time being.

Instead, I need to focus on getting a higher-paying position at Walmart. The SuperCenter construction should be done in a few months, and I'll have the opportunity to apply for a promotion then. So hopefully, if the universe aligns itself just right, I won't have to worry about things like this anymore. But until then, I could really use a boost. If nothing else, at least a premium membership. Is anyone able to hook me up? I'd really appreciate it.

's newest independent cartoon, "Kassandra: Goddess of Awesome", is finally here! Go check it out!

[link]

I took some time off from accepting new commissions while I played catch-up on the ones I had. But in that time, my wallet took another pounding from the annual January-to-February slump at Walmart. So I'm opening the gates again - but this time I'm doing things a little differently.

Following the business model set by , this drive is going to be exclusively for black-and-white single character drawings. Each one is a mere $15; additional characters will raise the price by $5 each. And I'll be e-mailing you the original digital file, for you to color at your leisure if you so please

Since these shouldn't take me as long to finish, I'm opening up 15 available slots instead of my usual 10. As always, I accept checks or PayPal - note me for payment details, and don't forget to include your own e-mail address so I can send you the finished product. Let's begin!

1. Joel and Michelle re-enacting "Paperman"
2. His OCs Fudgy and Shieva in a boxing ring
3. His OCs Taylor, Tommy, and Emily
4. Joel and Aaron in drag
5. His DC Comics fan-character E.M.P.
6. "T.U.F.F. Puppy": Kitty Katswell as a librarian
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With the DVD release mere days away, I thought it'd be fitting to write a full-length review of the movie I've been joyously geeking out over for the past four months.

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In November 1995, when I was a mere 8 years old, my mom took me to see a little animated film called Toy Story. After I left the theater that night, my head was spinning with exhilaration over the cinematic event I'd just borne witness to. The story was inventive and gripping, the characters were all fully realized and lovable, and technologically, it was unlike anything ever done in feature animation before. I became a devoted Toy Story fan instantly, and remain so to this day. No other film I had seen in my life at that point had been so epically great.

In the years since, a select few films have left me with that same feeling, as if I had just gone on some incredible adventure that I never wanted to end. The Iron Giant. Toy Story 2. Monsters, Inc. Lilo and Stitch. The Incredibles. Wall-E. Coraline. And now, we can add another title to that hallowed list - Wreck-It Ralph, Walt Disney Pictures' most recent animated opus, and in my humble opinion, one of the finest films they've ever made.

On the surface, it seems like just another buddy picture, utilizing the Pixar-inspired conceit of showing the audience something they're familiar with but in a way they've never seen it before. After hours at a video game arcade, the game characters abandon their "roles" and socialize with one another, traveling through the electrical wiring and congregating in the power strip that links their consoles together. The good-natured bad guy Wreck-It Ralph and the glitchy smart-mouthed kart racer Vanellope Von Schweetz cross paths on their respective journeys to achieve a better life, and despite some early friction, they become fast friends. Sure, it sounds familiar. So what sets this movie apart? The emotional core, that's what.

Hands down, this has got to be the geekiest movie Disney has ever made. Cameos from the likes of Bowser, Q-Bert, and Sonic the Hedgehog abound throughout the film. The in-jokes include references to the Konami Code, the Diet Coke and Mentos trick, and the Pac-Man kill screen. One of the songs over the ending credits is by J-pop group AKB48. But most importantly, at its heart, this movie speaks to geeks everywhere, by directly channeling what it's like to be an outsider. Who among us hasn't been in Ralph's predicament, shunned by his peers and turned away from social gatherings just because he's misunderstood? Who doesn't relate to Vanellope's unfair lot in life, teased and tormented by the other kids just 'cause she's a little bit different in ways she can't help? This movie struck a deep chord with me, because it echoed my own experiences in a way that few other films have ever done.

On top of that, the story is so expertly constructed that even after multiple viewings, there's still stuff to appreciate. The logic of Game Central Station and how characters from different video games interact with each other makes perfect sense, and lends credibility and weight to every move the characters make. Each individual game world is an awesome environment, from the blocky 8-bit high-rise of Fix-It Felix Jr. to the desolate and deadly alien planet of Hero's Duty and the bright mouth-watering candy landscapes of Sugar Rush. Felix and Calhoun's journey to bring Ralph back is a delightful subplot, deepening both of their characters and deconstructing their roles as video game heroes. And King Candy has got to be one of the greatest Disney villains ever conceived, with a mysterious motive that's unveiled in a mind-blowing twist at the end. You start out laughing at this guy's over-the-top flustering and end up hating his manipulative digital guts - and loving every minute of it.

I'm sure there's some folks out there who saw the trailers and thought "Oh, I'm not that big of a video game fan, this probably isn't a movie I'll enjoy." Please don't be fooled. Gamer or not, in all respects, Wreck-It Ralph is an incredibly entertaining film. The concept is unique and innovative. The story is bursting at the seams with creativity. The characters are a joy to behold, brought to life by a mix of top-notch animation and immensely talented voice work (who would have ever guessed that John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman would play the lovable heroes of a Disney movie?). It made me laugh, cry, gasp, and think - all things a truly amazing film should do. And much like the other animated movies I listed above, something tells me it'll continue to resonate with me for years to come.

Just want to clear that angsty journal from a few days ago off the front page. I'm feeling better now, thanks to everybody's comments and advice. Much gratitude to all of you for taking the time to offer your words of encouragement

(Warning: Here there be angst.)

So a couple of days ago, this cute girl came through my line at Walmart. She was friendly, really chatty, always smiling, seemed like the kind of girl I'd like to get to know better. (I've let countless girls like this walk in and out of my life over the past year and a half, but this time I decided to do something about it.) She mentioned where she works, so I went there the next day and saw her again. Then she mentioned that her birthday was coming up, so I thought I'd draw her a nice card. I gave it to her a few days later (she seemed to really like it), and I asked if she was on Facebook. She is, so I looked her up and sent her a friend request. She hasn't accepted it yet, but all things considered, this looks like it's going pretty well, right?

Well, I sure don't think so. Because throughout all of this, I carried myself with all the dignity, confidence, and composure of a large-mouthed bass attempting to ride a unicycle. I didn't even remember to tell her my own name until the third time we met. I became lost for words so often, you'd think I'd just learned English last week.

Putting myself in this girl's shoes, I sure as hell wouldn't want to go out with me. Some gangly mop-headed geek you barely even know starts showing up at your workplace trying to chat you up, tripping over his own tongue half the time and staring awkwardly at the walls the other half, and what are you supposed to think?

Why do I have no confidence when it comes to women? Is it because I was teased mercilessly for twelve straight years as part of my public schooling experience? Is it because nearly every relationship I've borne witness to in my life has come to a spectacular screaming end, including that of my own parents? Is it because I've never successfully asked a girl out, based on my belief that my interests are too esoteric and I have nothing interesting to say to anyone? Or is it because the one time I opened my heart and tried to explain my feelings of anxiety and insecurity to a girl, she slapped me in the face and told me to "man the fuck up"?

Insecurity is not attractive. People don't like people who aren't sure of themselves. Hell, I'm probably pissing off a couple of you right now just by talking about it. So the more I try to work out my feelings, the less likely I am to attract people. The more I turn it over in my head, I keep coming back to the same thought: "Who in their right mind would want to spend time with somebody who has all these issues?" Ultimately, I'm insecure because I don't have a girlfriend, and I don't have a girlfriend because I'm insecure.

So what's the next step? Because I just went through all this shit last June when I had my panic attack, and here we are eight months later and I've still got all the same problems. How am I supposed to get rid of them?

A little bit of inside dirt on Forever 16, for those who were curious about what goes into the making of this strip.

- Forever 16 began in 2006 as an attempt to reboot my old Jesse and Elyse comics from high school. Originally, I was just going to use myself and the people I knew as characters again, but I decided it'd be more interesting to create my own characters who I could have more creative freedom with.

- I originally intended the tone of the strip to be a cross between "FoxTrot" and "Bloom County" - an ordinary American family to whom outrageously ridiculous things keep happening, most of it drawn from current events. As I kept toying around with the characters, though, the universe they live in became less cartoony and much more down-to-earth, to the point where I now take every effort to make it look like the real world. I feel it adds to the characters' believability when the reader can feel like they really exist out there somewhere.

- The Maxwell family is loosely based on my own family. Joel and Katy are two years apart, just like me and my sister. Katy is a caricature of what my sister was like at age 14, hopping on whatever was trendy at the time and fawning over her favorite celebrities. Tina is an exaggeration of the way my mother kept a sharp eye on what my sister and I could watch on TV when we were kids. William is a sleepy-eyed deadpan snarker, much like my own dad.

- Aaron began as a caricature of a fellow named Josh who I shared a dorm room with at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was really into frisbee and skateboarding, which Aaron was also into when I first began sketching the strip. As he evolved and became more of his own character, the resemblance to Josh gradually disappeared.

- The only reason I introduced Steve to the strip was because Westworld needed a drummer. When I drew him looking kind of sleepy and disinterested, I knew exactly what I wanted his personality to be.

- Jocelyn's character design was inspired by a girl I saw at the mall one day. I didn't speak to her, but her platinum blond hair, facial piercings, thigh-high boots, and fishnet stockings all seemed to suggest a great new character.

- Most of the main characters have some aspect of my own personality in them. Joel has my observational sense of humor, Steve has my encyclopedic knowledge of geek culture, Jocelyn has my general distrust of high-ranking authority figures, Kendra has my passion for art, and so on.

- Other characters are based on people I knew in high school. Ashleigh is basically all my sister's childhood friends rolled into one, Vince is a caricature of a very thuggish guy who sat next to me in Economics, and Lindsay is very heavily inspired by several girls I knew who were just nasty to me all the time for no apparent reason.

- Some characters are "aspirations"; others are "realizations". Joel, for instance, is basically the type of kid I wish I could have been in high school (quick-witted, social, guitar player in a garage band), and Michelle is essentially the embodiment of the type of girl I find attractive (smart, kindly, creative, ambitious, and cute as hell). Abby, on the other hand, is much closer to how I actually was in high school (shy, awkward, bullied, and plagued by anxiety), and Aaron's frequent misfortunes with the opposite sex are an illustration of what I always figured would happen if I ever tried to talk to a girl.

- The use of popular culture as a source of humor and story situations stems from one of my guilty pleasures - VH1's long-forgotten "I Love the (decade)" shows. Specifically, "I Love the '90s" and "I Love the '90s Part Deux". Watching those made me realize how much ridiculous stuff happened in the decade I grew up in that I never paid attention to when it was going on. I wanted a chance to lampoon the events of the 1990s, and setting the strip there seemed like the perfect opportunity to do it. Likewise, when VH1 did "I Love the New Millennium", I decided to extend the strip to the 2000s as well. The 2000s, of course, were more frustrating than ridiculous, so a lot of the stories I write for that decade tend to be more cynical.

- I recently made the decision to cut off the strip at the end of 2009, giving it a good solid 20 year run. For a while, I was outlining stories that lampooned the current events from 2010 to 2012, but it was getting harder and harder to come up with fresh ideas, and I decided I can't keep outlining more and more stuff that I'll probably never write or draw - I've got to end it somewhere. That means that the strips I posted daily in my gallery between October 2010 and April 2011 aren't considered canon anymore. But folks can still enjoy 'em if they want.

So after a year of living on my own, I finally got an Internet connection in my apartment. No more having to drive to the community college computer lab every day to upload my artwork and connect with my friends, right?

...Well, I'm not sure. Because in the twelve months that my home computer remained disconnected from the Internet, I'd forgotten just how out-of-date it was. I currently run Mac OS X 10.4 on a 733 megahertz PowerPC G4 processor, and I don't know much about computers, but I can guess that this machine is pretty obsolete because nobody makes anything for it anymore. I can't upgrade to the newest version of Firefox or install another browser like Google Chrome 'cause this operating system doesn't support either one of them, and more than half my Internet plugins don't work right, including Adobe Flash, which means I can't view streaming video on sites like YouTube. Facebook also takes an eternity to load.

But the biggest problem is the new DeviantArt submission page. It moves at a snail's pace and doesn't show my work being uploaded - the progress bar just hovers at 0%. I don't know how I got "Mick and Musashi" uploaded the other day, I just futzed around in Sta.sh for a while until I found it. (Worse still, Photobucket uses a similar upload process, and I can't get that to work at all.) I really don't want to have to jump through hoops every time I want to post a simple drawing. And since posting drawings to the Internet is kind of the key element of the career I want to have, obviously I've got an issue here. Sure, I could go back to uploading at the college - but the whole reason I got my home Internet connection was so I wouldn't have to do that anymore.

So to all you folks out there more tech-savvy than I am, what would you recommend for my dilemma? Keep in mind that cost is an issue - I'm dirt poor, and the only reason I have Internet at all is because my dad is paying for it. Is there hardware I can buy that will improve the performance of the machine I've got? Or do I need to bite the bullet and save up two grand for a new Mac? (I'd really like to avoid going back to a PC if I can help it; I've had enough issues with viruses to last me a lifetime.) What do I do?

Posted by . I don't often do this journal-sharing thing, but I'm willing to make an exception this time because I know exactly how this feels.

"Did you know the people that are the strongest are usually the most sensitive?

Did you know the people who exhibit the most kindness are the first to get mistreated?

Did you know the one who takes care of others all the time, are usually the ones who need it the most?

Did you know the three hardest things to say are - I love you, I'm sorry, and Help me!

Sometimes just because a person looks happy, you have to look past their smile and see how much pain they may be in. To all my friends who are going through some issues right now--Let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don't see your name, I'll understand.

May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares."

Keep an eye on , the clever mind behind Conroy Cat and Toons These Days. He's got a new series in the works, Kassandra: Goddess of Awesome, and he wants to ensure it reaches a wide audience. I'm always willing to get the word out for a friend with a project in the pipeline, so go check out his stuff!

Being on DeviantArt for almost six and a half years now, and having gone through a lot of artistic "movements", I'm beginning to look at a lot of the stuff in my gallery (both here and on my account) and thinking "You know, a lot of this stuff doesn't really represent me as an artist anymore." Some of it is fanart for stuff I don't really care for anymore, others are early versions of concepts that ended up evolving into something else, whereas others are just embarrassing things I created when I was in some kind of funk. So I'm thinking maybe I ought to clear out some of those pieces and put them in storage, and whittle down my gallery to just the stuff that I think shows off my talents at their best. What do you think?

EDIT: Since I do want to be considerate to the folks who enjoy my older work, I decided to take 's advice and just removed all the stuff I don't like from the "Featured" part of my gallery. So everything is technically still there, and if you faved something years ago, it'll still exist. Everyone wins.

[link]

's self-published entertainment paper BANG! (to which I currently submit Forever 16) isn't just a Portland, Oregon exclusive - you can also buy digital copies too! And they're only $1.99 each! Considering each issue is packed to the brim with reader submitted cartoons and stories, I'd say that's a fair price for so much entertainment! Why not check it out and download an issue today?

Wow, what a whirlwind of a holiday week I've had! I finally saw Wreck-It Ralph (amazing, btw), served Thanksgiving dinners for the less fortunate, watched a ton of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as part of my own personal Turkey Day marathon, survived working Black Friday at Walmart for the fourth year in a row, spent Saturday in New Hampshire visiting my mother, and somehow, between all this, I managed to produce a whopping seven new drawings for my DA gallery! Something about this time of year fills me all full of artistic inspiration, I suppose!

Here's hoping everyone else had a happy and safe holiday weekend too! Thank you all for your support and commissions - you guys are what make my time on DeviantArt fun!

So let's recap the lovely week I've had. My car decided to stop working again for the second time in three months, so that's $800 down the tubes for repairs. Then I find out my registration's expired, so that's another $225 out of my pocket. And on top of all that, I have another $650 rent check due, plus a $50 student loan payment. All told, that's $1725 I just lost in seven days. Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the Walmart I draw my regular paycheck from is losing business like a motherfucker, thanks to the mound of construction work going on right outside the front entrance that forces everyone to come in and out through the mall. That's a much longer walk than before, and if there's one thing the average Walmart customer hates, it's walking. So my hours are slashed and they're not going to get better until the construction ends. In September 2013.

In other words, I am literally a starving artist right now. I can barely even afford to go to the Rhode Island Comic Con and shop my portfolio around in an effort to get a real job. So until I somehow manage to become slightly less underemployed, it's time for another round of commissions. Just be warned, though, that it's going to take me a long time to finish these. I still have my Forever 16 stories to write and draw for BANG, and until my car gets fixed, I'm borrowing my grandmother's car, which she needs to drive too, so I'm staying at her place and thus have limited access to my computer and scanner. I'm in a really tight spot and I need money badly.

Ten slots available. Flat $30 rate. No character limit per se, but be reasonable.

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In light of the news that Warner Bros. is working on a third live action/animated movie starring the Looney Tunes, where the characters will be CGI this time instead of traditionally animated, I wrote a little essay detailing the events of the last two decades that landed the Looney Tunes in the rather sorry state they're in now. Figured I'd share it with my fellow artists.

Everything's Gettin' Dark:
How Warner Bros. Almost Killed Bugs Bunny
By Jesse J. Barboza

1940 was a busy year, to say the least. America was just clawing its way out from the Great Depression, and world war loomed on the horizon. The oppressive Axis powers were gaining force in Europe, and within one short year, the United States would be pulled into the vicious fray. The nation needed a hero, a figure who could rally the population with strength, wit, and nerve, who could give us hope as well as make us laugh during tough times. Fortunately, this figure arrived on July 27. 1940. And he happened to be a rabbit.

Bugs Bunny first appeared on movie screens in Tex Avery's Merrie Melodie "A Wild Hare", squaring off against dim-bulb hunter Elmer Fudd for the first of what would be many memorable return visits. In an age awash with childlike cartoon stars who didn't do much more than look precocious and give audiences the warm fuzzies, Bugs Bunny was the animated equivalent of a swift kick in the pants. The rabbit behaved like an adult, and a phenomenally clever one at that. When faced with a hunter armed with a shotgun, a situation that would send most woodland critters fleeing for the hills, Bugs casually pulls out his carrot for a quick munch and inquires "What's up, Doc?" He's always in control, even with a rifle barrel in his chest. Bugs knows that there's danger out there, but he's confident enough to take it, and his cool, playful method of madness would be the undoing of countless hunters, cowboys, monsters, martians, raging bulls, and pretentious opera singers for decades to come. He was more than just fall-down funny; he was inspiring too. At a time when danger lurked in all corners of the globe, America had fallen in love with a wascally wabbit who didn't take no guff from anyone.

Flash forward to the 21st century. Once again, the world is in total disarray – a faltering American economy, unrest in the Middle East, and endless bad news about the state of the environment. And where is our long-eared hero? Well, it's become a lot harder to find him in the wake of several bonehead moves on behalf of Bugs' parent company, Warner Bros.

Bugs' star remained the highest in the cartoon sky for the better part of six decades before it suddenly and callously came crashing down around 2003. And indeed, it wasn't just Bugs, but the entire Looney Tunes cast that almost went belly-up. For about seven years, and for the first time since 1960, you couldn't find the classic Looney Tunes cartoons anywhere on American television. Merchandising featuring the characters, once prominent in every store, was now seemingly scarcer than alludium phosdex. And for the first time since the rabbit's creation, if you asked a young child what they thought of Bugs Bunny, you'd most likely get a quizzical expression and a confused reply of "Who?"

This revolting development wasn't intentional, of course, but it was still a disturbing phenomenon. And it has its roots in the 1990s, an age where the Looney Tunes were quite literally everywhere. Warner's theatrical cartoon production had ceased in 1969, but television was now the prime medium for the classic short films to be discovered and enjoyed by every generation of viewer. You had "The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show" on ABC, you had the older shorts from the 1940s on TNT, you had Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon. And of course, you had Cartoon Network, the cable channel that launched with much fanfare in 1992 as the only place where you could find animation 24 hours a day. As a Turner-owned network, it had the broadcast rights to the animated libraries of Hanna-Barbera, MGM, and Warner Bros., making it the ideal place to catch the Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, and Daffy Duck all in one day.

And it wasn't just the classic Looney Tunes either. Their legacy was being kept alive thanks to recent made-for-TV productions like "Tiny Toon Adventures" (1990-1992) and "Animaniacs" (1993-1998), which paid extensive homage to the classic shorts and even featured frequent cameo appearances from familiar faces like Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn, and dozens of others. Indeed, it's a wonder how many kids in the 1990s would have even known about Bosko, Warner's first black-and-white cartoon star from 1930, if he hadn't been featured in a "Tiny Toons" episode. And 1991 saw the premiere of "Taz-Mania", starring the Tasmanian Devil – the first wholly original half-hour animated series to feature a classic Looney Tunes character in a starring role (later productions in this vein included "The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries" (1995-1997) and "Duck Dodgers" (2003-2006)). The Looney Tunes spirit was alive and well on TV, to be sure.

The Looney Tunes found yet another home in 1995, when Warner Bros. joined the broadcast network race and launched the WB. The fledgling little network could barely compete against giants like NBC and FOX in its early years, but it still plugged away, and it devoted its afternoons and Saturday mornings to a children's block called Kids' WB! (exclamation point included). The ideal home for "Animaniacs" and its spinoff "Pinky and the Brain" (1995-1998), Kids' WB! also featured a compilation of classic Looney Tunes entitled "The Bugs 'N Daffy Show". Bugs Bunny's reign as the king of the cartoon castle was just as secure as it had ever been.

And then things started to wobble. There had always been talk at Warner Bros. of somehow getting the Looney Tunes back on movie theater screens, and indeed, several short theatrical cartoons had been made throughout the late '80s and '90s that were shown before selected features. (This author knows that he wouldn't have gone to see the dull-as-dishwater 1994 film Richie Rich if it hadn't been paired with Chuck Jones' brand-new Road Runner short "Chariots of Fur".) But in 1996, the previously unthinkable was finally achieved – a full-length feature film starring the entire Looney Tunes cast. Based on a highly successful series of Nike advertisements from the early part of the decade, Space Jam starred NBA legend Michael Jordan alongside Bugs Bunny and company in a no-holds-barred animated basketball game against a fleet of hulking aliens who intend to kidnap the Looney Tunes as theme park attractions. And just looking at that plot description, it's pretty obvious why a full-length feature film starring the entire Looney Tunes cast had never been attempted before.

Space Jam received mixed reviews, to put it modestly, and the whole affair is a pretty blatant attempt to make the characters more "hip" and "relevant" to 1990s audiences, despite the fact that they were just fine the way they were. The movie alternates between extremes, from loud and obnoxious to dull and lifeless, and it unashamedly bowed to mid-90s political correctness by introducing a token "sassy" female character, Lola Bunny. Nevertheless, though, it did do great business at the box office. And in the long run, the film didn't hurt the Looney Tunes' reputation too badly, and they continued to thrive through the latter part of the decade. But a sudden tonal shift in the taste of cartoon-watching audiences would alter the rabbit's fate yet again.

By early 1999, Kids' WB! still wasn't a ratings juggernaut. But that changed when they acquired the broadcast rights to a little Japanese cartoon you may have heard of called "Pokémon". Previously a syndicated smash-hit, "Pokémon" swiftly skyrocketed Kids' WB! to the position of undisputed leader in the race for Saturday morning ratings. And due to the unstoppable popularity of Pikachu and his fellow pocket monsters, anime became the new big thing in the world of kids' cartoons. Suddenly, "Pokémon" and other Japanese imports like "Cardcaptors" and "Yu-Gi-Oh" were everywhere on the Kids' WB! schedule, and the Looney Tunes (as well as the TV shows they'd inspired) were conspicuously absent.

In fact, it was getting harder to find the Looney Tunes in a lot of places now. In 2000, Cartoon Network negotiated the exclusive broadcast rights to the entire classic Looney Tunes library, which had previously been spread out over several networks. So while ABC and Nickelodeon lost Bugs and cohorts, Cartoon Network now had the widest selection of Looney Tunes cartoons ever – quite literally, over a thousand short subjects to pick and choose from. And for a while, this still worked out pretty darn well, with a massive three-hour block of Looney Tunes every Saturday morning and other assorted showings throughout the week.

But then in 2003, the final anvil dropped. A second live action/animated feature film, cunningly titled Looney Tunes: Back in Action, was released, a spy movie spoof pairing Bugs and Daffy up with the tepid pseudo-star power of Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman. A huge 120-hour Looney Tunes marathon aired on Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang to commemorate the film's release, and Cartoon Network struck a deal with Warner Bros. that they would get a percentage of the film's box office profits. But something went wrong. Maybe it was because nobody cared about Brendan Fraser, or maybe because Warner Bros. only started promoting the film two weeks before it hit theaters, or maybe audiences just knew a crappy movie when they saw one, but whatever the cause, Looney Tunes: Back in Action bombed hard. Really hard. Like, in the neighborhood of losing $80 million hard.

So naturally, there were no profits for Warner Bros. or Cartoon Network to reap. Worse, the film underperformed so badly that the suits at Warner Bros. began to think "Well, maybe people just aren't interested in Bugs Bunny anymore." Thus, the classic Looney Tunes gradually faded away from the Cartoon Network schedule, eventually reduced to one half-hour at 6:00 AM on Sundays before finally disappearing completely in 2004. And no effort was made to put the characters back on TV elsewhere, or really raise anyone's awareness of the characters at all. America's TV viewing audience looked around one morning and Bugs Bunny was gone.

Fortunately, there was one saving grace, and that was the Looney Tunes Golden Collection. The multi-volume DVD series began in 2003 and brought the classic cartoons into the home video market in a way they'd never been seen there before – totally unedited and fully remastered, complete with in-depth featurettes and documentaries from the most well-esteemed personalities in the animation business. Die-hard collectors were thrilled. Unfortunately, die-hard collectors also seemed to be the only ones buying the DVDs, as sales plummeted sharply after the first volume. What was intended to be a years-long project in getting the complete Looney Tunes filmography on DVD ended unexpectedly and unceremoniously in 2008, when it was announced that there would be no further Golden Collections after Volume 6. Still, the series brought a whopping 356 uncut classic cartoons to DVD in glorious high definition, which is no lean feat.

The Looney Tunes continued to languish through the latter half of the 2000s. Perhaps the most embarrassing failure to come out of this period was the 2005 animated series "Loonatics Unleashed", a thoroughly misguided attempt to update the characters as hip, smart-talking, anime-style crimefighters in the far-off future on a distant planet. For obvious reasons, most Looney Tunes fans prefer to act like this series never existed.

Nobody at Warner Bros. seems to fully understand how the Looney Tunes fell off their cliff, nor is there a consensus on how to put them back up there. Indeed, they now seem to be throwing everything at the wall in a harried hope that something will stick, from throwaway direct-to-DVD specials to more live action movies that keep dying in pre-production. A CGI Marvin the Martian feature starring Mike Myers as the titular character who learns the true meaning of Christmas (I swear I'm not making this up) was thankfully aborted a year before its release date, as was an equally ominous-sounding film that was to star George Lopez as a dish-washing Speedy Gonzales.

2009 brought the announcement that Cartoon Network would be producing another new Looney Tunes series called "Laff Riot", which was supposed to bring the characters "back to their roots". Of course, Looney Tunes: Back in Action promised the same thing. Delayed by constant behind-the-scenes holdups, "Laff Riot" was renamed "The Looney Tunes Show" and debuted in 2011 as a rather unremarkable animated sitcom, wherein Bugs and Daffy are sarcastic roommates who have little "slice-of-life" misadventures with their neighbors. More closely resembling Cartoon Network's slacker comedy "Regular Show" than anything made in the 1940s, the show is a lot of things, but "looney" is most definitely not one of them.

Perhaps the one bright spot is that the classic Looney Tunes are finally back on Cartoon Network as well. Admittedly, they're only on at 1:00 in the afternoon on weekdays when nobody's home to watch them, but it's still a step in the right direction. Maybe, just maybe, if enough kids from today's generation can discover the genius creations of the Warner toonsmiths like Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Robert McKimson, Frank Tashlin, and Tex Avery, and their parents rediscover what they've been missing over these past several years, these animated masterpieces of American cinema can return to prominence, receiving the recognition, accolades, and love that they so rightly deserve. It's another period of uncertainty in our nation's history, and now, more than ever, we could really use Bugs Bunny.

At the suggestion of , I've decided to commemorate DeviantArt's 12th anniversary by taking a look back at my artwork and how it's evolved. Of course, I barely needed prodding, as I do this all the time anyway.

Forever 16 is the project that consumes the vast majority of my time these days. But it didn't spring out of my head fully formed. It actually began life as a revision of a comic strip I started drawing when I was twelve years old. In seventh grade, I bought a few Calvin and Hobbes books through the annual school book fair, and my love of comic strips as an art form was instantaneous. So naturally, I had to try my hand at making one of my own.

Strapped for ideas from the beginning, I just made the strip about me and my family, and ripped off ideas from other comic strips when I couldn't think of a joke (which was pretty much every other day). The very first strip, which I've previously posted in my DA gallery [link] , is shamelessly stolen from the first Garfield strip from 1978. I think I was just hoping nobody would notice. Considering my audience for these things was just my parents and my sister, and none of them read comics as diligently as I did, I was probably right.

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The character dynamic was pretty simple – Jesse would say or do something incredibly stupid, and Elyse would react with annoyance. This is pretty much how it was in real life at the time, too.

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My pilfering of other cartoonists' material in these early strips is pretty damned egregious. There's a two-week series of strips from June 1999 where Jesse and Elyse build a time machine and try to go into the future, but end up traveling to the dinosaur age by accident. And it's entirely plagiarized, dialogue and all, from an identical Calvin and Hobbes story from 1987. As Chuck Jones once said, if you're going to steal, steal from the best.

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More Calvin and Hobbes thievery, as Super-Jesse is clearly a thinly-veiled plagiarism of Stupendous Man. But I'm not going to lie, I kinda like the colors in this strip.

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Whatever gag ideas I didn't steal, I drew from my own life. I wasn't the most attentive flosser at that age.

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My dad took us camping every year during the first week of August, so naturally, I constructed a story around that. I think my sister really did spill fruit punch on our tent that year, too.

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These are the jokes, people.

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The summer of 1999 is when I got into Pokémon, and I was so engrossed in it that the strip quickly devolved into approximately 75% Pokémon gags. One concept I used a lot was Jesse trying to get Elyse to play the Pokémon trading card game with him, then just being a general annoying ass throughout the entire game. A lot of this is based on real life too, sad to say.

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After a while, I started thinking up some halfway decent original concepts. Like this 12 Weeks of Christmas storyline from December 1999. On the whole, though, I think I executed the concept rather poorly, but that unenthusiastic tree salesman still makes me chuckle.

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There's a germ of a Forever 16 joke in this strip. I later reworked it into Katy shutting off the power to the garage whenever Joel's band practice gets too loud.

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Charles Schulz famously announced his retirement in the first week of 2000, and I got a story out of that where Jesse tries to inherit the Peanuts strip and make it more contemporary. I think this concept could work as a Forever 16 story too.

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These things started to get a little better in 2000. This week of snow gags still makes me laugh.

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I attempted my first really long story in February 2000. Having just become a pretty big Harry Potter dork, I wrote this story where Jesse gets cast as the lead in the high school drama club's adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The story is entirely fictitious, but that bit about how I played February in a first-grade pageant about the months of the year is 100% true.

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This is the only Jesse and Elyse strip that my sister ever wrote. So blame her for this one, not me.

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By the latter half of 2000, I had switched the strip from three panels to four, and I'd stopped drawing the strip every day of the week, instead just cranking it out whenever I had the time. I had also entered high school and begun to notice girls. These two strips were meant to be the beginning of a long story where Jesse tries to ask out Jessica, a girl in his History class. In real life, I had already tried to ask out the real Jessica – and it didn't go over very well at all. Maybe that's why I didn't finish this one.

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Not a lot of strips from 2001 survive today. Most of them were published in my school's monthly newspaper, so I suspect I gave the hard copies to the editor. There's still traces of plagiarism in here, though, as evidenced by Woulby the cat's Garfield-esque thought balloons. But at least I'd finally begun using a ruler for the panel edges.
I do have one long story from 2001 still within my possession. But it's so unbelievably bad that I'm determined never to show it to anybody. Trust me, you don't want to see it.

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This one kind of reads like a Forever 16 strip. You could replace Jesse and Elyse with Joel and Katy and it'd almost be funny.

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By this time, I think I was taking this a bit more seriously. For starters, I was drawing in pencil now instead of a ballpoint pen, so I could correct whatever mistakes I made. It's also worth noting that the strip was getting a lot more dialogue-centric at this point. I had finally discovered that having my characters talk to one another fleshed out their personalities a lot better than generic sight gags did.

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And yet I still think this is funny. Go figure.

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In my junior year of high school, I finally succeeded in going out with a real live girl…kind of. Kristen and I were more like really good friends who just hung out a lot, but we still called each other girlfriend and boyfriend, and I made her a recurring character in the strip.
Again, the seeds of Forever 16 are starting to sprout here, as I started writing more and more stories based around the popular culture of the time. I did a recurring story where Jesse reviews new movies and pans them based on the most infinitesimal details, often not even pertaining to the movie itself. "The film was grainy, the floor was sticky, that one guy behind me wouldn't shut up…"

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In real life, I don't think my parents were too cheap to get me driving lessons. I was just too afraid of crashing the car.

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My sister was listening to a lot of rap and hip-hop in the early and mid-'00s, so naturally that gave me a lot of strip ideas. I can still remember my dad driving us to school in the morning and being forced to listen to Ramiro and Pebbles, the annoying morning DJs on JAMN 94.5 out of Boston. I never really did call them up and heckle them, but my cartoon alter ego made a habit of it. This particular story almost wrote itself after I heard these jokers stop in the middle of the news one morning and argue for nearly ten minutes over whether Legally Blonde 2 or Terminator 3 would make more money at the box office.

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Kristen was a really big anime fan, so of course that showed up in the strip too. I had never watched an anime that wasn't Pokémon before I'd met her, so she really broadened my horizons. And a lot of the anime and manga she showed me ended up influencing my drawing style a fair bit too. (In addition to Ranma ½, I remember she also introduced me to Excel Saga, which is still one of the craziest things I've ever seen.)

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Another very Forever 16-ish strip. I could totally see Jocelyn doing this.

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Finally we come to my senior year of high school. Mr. Meehan was my real-life art teacher, and he did indeed have a very warped sense of humor. I had to clean up that joke a little bit before I put it in the strip, but he really did tell it to me once.

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This is one of my favorites, but it's also the last Jesse and Elyse I ever drew. It appeared in the May 2004 issue of the school paper, after which I had no further incentive to continue the strip. I can't recall why I stopped, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I would be moving to New York that fall to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology, and it would have been hard to write a comic strip about my own family when I was about 400 miles away from them.

I thought about reviving the strip in late 2006, but I was nearly 20 years old by then, and I thought it'd be better if I created some original characters, rather than basing my stories on real life people who aged. It'd be a lot easier, I thought, if I had characters who would stay the same age, no matter when the strip was set. Characters who could stay 16 forever…

So a couple of weeks ago, I needed a new starter for my car. That cost about $300. Then the mechanic said I'm also gonna need a new exhaust system before long, and that's gonna cost about $1000. So all told, the month of July is really delighting in making my wallet its bitch.

Thus, commissions are back on. $30 each, ten slots available - let's begin!

1. A compilation of female characters from the Scott Pilgrim series
2. His shrunken OCs being held captive in a jar
3. His OC Ryan in the "Goof Troop" universe
4. Confidential
5. A poster-style drawing of Jocelyn
6. Sketches of her OCs Pepeline and Martin
7.
8.
9.
10.

It's the Original Character Questionnaire, as snagged from !

1) How Old Are You?
Joel: 16.
Michelle: Me too.
Aaron: Yep.
Steve: Yo.
Jocelyn: That depends on which of my IDs you look at.

2) Height?
Joel: Around 5' 7", I think?
Aaron: You think? You're not sure?
Joel: I haven't bothered to check in a while! Not knowing my exact height isn't really something that keeps me up nights.

3) You Got Any Bad Habits?
Aaron: Only that I love too much.
Joel: Oh, shut the fuck up, Aaron.
Michelle: I get so engrossed in my work, I tend to forget what time it is.
Steve: I have trouble sticking to a project. I still haven't finished memorizing the entire screenplay from Iron Man 2.
Jocelyn: I live with my parents. That's a habit I'd like to fucking break.

4) You a virgin?
Steve: I'm sorry, those records are permanently sealed.
Michelle: Yes, I am, and I don't think that's shameful at all!
Aaron: Um... (mumbles something noncommittal into his hand)

5) Who's your Mate/Spouse?
Michelle: This one right here!
Joel: Hee hee!
Steve: The endlessly hot babe standing to my immediate left.
Jocelyn: You know just what I wanna hear.
Aaron: Nobody yet - but ladies, it could be you!
Jocelyn: No girl wants to compete with your Mila Kunis poster, Aaron.

6) Have Any Kids?
Jocelyn: If I ever do, I'm adopting a ten-year-old who already knows how to fucking behave.
Michelle: I like the idea, but yeah, if my kid turns out anything like Jenny, I wouldn't be an especially happy camper.
Joel: I think I'd make a good parent. All I have to do is the complete opposite of everything Homer Simpson does.

7) Favorite Food?
Aaron: Anything prepared in under two minutes.

8) Favorite Ice Cream flavor?
Jocelyn: Caramel cone is the shit.
Joel: Cookie dough, no question.
Steve: So how come they tell you on the Toll House package not to eat raw cookie dough, but apparently it's okay to put it in ice cream?

9) Killed anyone?
Joel: I hit a pigeon with my car once, does that count?
Jocelyn: I can think of several people I'd like to kill. Or at the very least, just watch them die. Very very slowly...

10) Hate anyone?
Michelle: I don't like hatred, it's so detrimental to society as a whole. That being said, Christopher Paolini and Stephenie Meyer.
Jocelyn: Let's see...my parents, fuckin' Lindsay, that ass who tried to hit on me at Starbucks, the kid who flushed my piercings down the toilet, Mitt Romney...
Steve: I have a love-hate relationship with George Lucas.

11) Any Secrets?
Steve: I organized the Kennedy assassination. There, I said it. I can sleep so much easier now.
Aaron: Well, I guess my Diana Agron/Ashley Tisdale fantasies aren't so secret anymore...

12) Love Anyone?
Michelle: You!
Joel: You!
Michelle: You!
Joel: You!
Aaron: Here it goes...

13) TACOS?
Jocelyn: Fuck. Yes.
Steve: Fuck Taco Bell, though.
Aaron: Are you crazy? Taco Bell is the shit.
Steve: Taco Bell is fuckin' nasty, dude. I don't know what that shit is, but it ain't meat.
Aaron: Shut up...

14) Ever slept in All day?
Michelle: No way! I hate that feeling of waking up at night and knowing that you just wasted the whole day.
Joel: Ugh, me too. I got shit I need to get done!
Steve: I slept through A.I. Artificial Intelligence. That was about six weeks long.

15) Eye colors?
Joel: Boring ol' brown.
Michelle: Hey! My eyes are brown too!
Joel: Yeah, but they're beautiful brown, not boring brown.
Jocelyn: Green. I think they really stand out against the purple.

16) Skin?
Jocelyn: Illustrated.
Michelle: Kinda brownish, I guess. That Singaporean brown, what would you call that?
Joel: I call it hot.

17) Fat/Average/Slim?
Aaron: Anything but average! This is fucking ripped, boy! I got to check these guns at the door!
Jocelyn: Dipshit, I could fit a Silly Band around your fucking waist.

18) Rain, sunshine?
Joel: Anything that's not snow.
Michelle: Oh my God, don't ever come to Minnesota. You'll never see grass between November and April.

19) Pool, Beach?
Michelle: Pool! No question! Just as long as I'm not the one checking the pH every morning.
Jocelyn: Hmm, tough one. Pools are cleaner, but the ocean's so much bigger and full of life.
Steve: As long as there's water, though, you'll be satisfied, right?
Jocelyn: You better believe it, buddy.

20) Camping, staying home?
Jocelyn: With my family? Let them go camping and I'll stay the fuck home.
Aaron: Closest we've ever come to camping was Woodstock '94. And between the mud fights and getting Green Day's autograph, I think it evened out to about neutral.

21) Dog, Cat?
Joel: I like cats. That's why I took in Tom Servo. 'Course, he almost always lurks in the basement these days.
Aaron: I keep forgetting you have that fucking cat. That's how little I see him.
Michelle: I love dogs! I just wish Punkin did anything interesting, aside from chewing the arm of the couch.

22) Believe in aliens?
Steve: Hell yes. They're everywhere, you know. How else do you explain Snooki or Lady Gaga?
Jocelyn: I keep hoping my parents will turn out to be aliens. It would explain a whole hell of a lot.

23) Natural Born, or Clone?
Steve: I can only assume natural born, but the documents may have been faked.
Joel: You tried to clone yourself, remember?
Steve: Alas, my efforts were misguided. The technology yielded a less than satisfactory result that barely resembled a human organism and Mr. Tucker gave me a D-.

24) Car or Ship..?
Steve: Skateboard. Or light cycle.
Joel: If my car could go more than a fucking month without falling apart, I'd go with car, sure.

25) Ever destroyed something out of Blind Rage?
Aaron: I burned my Motley Crue albums when Pamela Anderson married Tommy Lee. Had I known they'd split up, I might have slept on it.
Jocelyn: I break a lot of shit. There was that one time at Menards when I ripped out that speaker 'cause I was just so fucking sick of that Titanic song...
Steve: That was a fun week.
Michelle: Not out of rage, but I did make sure to microwave Watkins' hard copy so he can never come back again.

26) Any Unusual Things about you?
Michelle: Aside from the extra-large bra sizes I need to shop for? I don't think so.
Joel: If that's unusual, babe, don't ever be usual!
Steve: Every time I think so, another one of my niche interests goes mainstream. All these Hot Topic kids walking around with Watchmen and Scott Pilgrim stuff - well, I read all this shit before it was cool, okay?
Jocelyn: I love being unusual. Beats the fuck out of the alternative.

27) How much food/drink do you need a day?
Joel: However much microwavable shit my mom can fit in the freezer.

28) Favorite Place?
Joel: The garage, where I can rock the fuck out.
Michelle: My bedroom, away from Jenny and other distractions.
Aaron: The Mall of America. So many fine ladies...
Steve: Tatooine. Followed closely by Jocelyn's bedroom.
Jocelyn: Anywhere my family isn't.

29) Anything you would like to say before we end this?
Joel: I hope I die before I turn into Pete Townshend.
Michelle: Never be afraid to ask questions.
Steve: Keep circulating the tapes.
Jocelyn: Think. It's not illegal yet.
Aaron: 952-949-4094. Text me, ladies.

Just gotta get that journal off the front page, now that the issue is no longer plaguing me. In fact, I'm doing a pretty good job in general of not over-analyzing myself into emotional paralysis anymore. Carry on, then.