The very first online comic I read was BoxJam’s Doodle. Reading the doodle that first time was inspiring to me, because previous to that, I had mostly been exposed to well-drawn, technically sound comics which, well, weren’t always good. Whether it was either in the “funny papers” on in actual comic books, the amount of art would always intimidate me, and in many cases, content and writing would take a back seat. The Doodle really broke that wall down for me.

I, like most comic fans, was still trying to fill the void from losing Calvin and Hobbes. I was able to find the same sensitivity and insightful observations that Watterson had given us for so long. Only here I was finding it in crudely-drawn, quasi-stick figure characters, as opposed to Watterson’s elaborate style. The Doodle showed me that you didn’t have to know how to draw technically well to make a meaningful comic. But moreso, anyone could get on the web and put out a comic.

So I came up with this idea of an insecure guy whose best friend would be a bipedal talking horse and would have all sorts of wacky situations together. So I started to draw and write.

Yup, I decided to start up a comic just on that one idea. That was about the extent of the AWR vision at that point.

But then it donned on me even further. This was the Internet. Censorship on the Internet was about as much an issue as a Cheap Trick world tour (i.e. a no-brainer). I could write about what I wanted no matter how dirty, taboo, or scandalous the subject matter was. I was going to write a shock comic! I was going to write the world's greatest and raunchiest shock comic! And I was going to start off with an initial installment which would set me right off as being confrontational and offensive!

And to think it was BoxJam’s Doodle that inspired me.