Capes-n-Babes

Today’s strip features my good (online) friend, Tim Dempsey – based on his own cartoon caricature from his fine webcomic strip, My Life in the Trenches.

Okay, so here is the updated blog post I promised I would write today…
I “met” Tim Dempsey while Matt Stout and I were still recording our Lightbox – Illuminating Webcomics podcast. Tim started listening to our podcasts and contacted us when we were taking solicitations for webcomic reviews. We didn’t call them “critiques” since neither one of us had earned that right yet seeing as both of our comics were just a few years old. No. our goal was simply to highlight other creator’s comics and talk about what we liked or didn’t like about them – but in a friendly, “boy, I really like A, B & C” or “I wish the creator would do X, Y or Z”.

Tim was one of the first to jump on that request and I’m thankful that he did.

Whenever Matt and I decided to review someone else’s comic, we really dug deep into that creator’s archive and read a lot of their strips. The cool thing about that though is, every now and then, we would come across some really great comics that neither one of us had heard before. I likened it to sort of going to a hole-in-the-wall record store and finding a really cool indie rock band you had never heard of before. And for me, it was really amazing because a lot of people who wrote to Matt and I asking for reviews ended up becoming permanent bookmark in my webcomic reading list. In fact, you can find a LOT of them in my “Pull List” section on my right sidebar on this site.

But, if memory serves, Tim’s comic was one of the first that Matt and I reviewed. I don’t exactly recall the podcast episode number or title in which we reviewed Tim’s strip but I do recall immediately liking it. I like the humor. I liked the colors. I liked the set-up and concept of his strip. In some ways, it reminded me of my friend, Tovias’ webcomic, Reality Amuck , in the sense that it was household/family, autobiographical in nature. I believe Matt said he liked the concept of the ghost that occasionally appears and talks to the main character (Tim). I liked that as well.

I think the only negative thing I said about Tim’s strip at the time were that I thought the bodies of his characters were a little too big and his heads were too small. In fact, I might have even made a crack about him being the antithesis of me – a guys who draws his heads way too big for his character’s bodies. But I thought that “style” kind of had a New Yorker magazine kind of flair so I wasn’t sure if this was something he should stop doing. Since that time though, it looks like Tim has worked a lot on his anatomy and his character’s bodies are all looking much more natural than when I first discovered his strip.

Overall, I just remember being very impressed and, soon after that, I started checking in on his strip on a daily basis and added it to my permanent webcomic reading list. I remember highly recommending his strip on that Lightbox podcast and, honestly, that recommendation hasn’t changed a bit. It really is a comic I think people will enjoy reading. So go check out My Life in the Trenches.

You can also follow Tim on Twitter and Facebook by going to his site and clicking all of his social networking icons at the bottom of each blog he writes.

-Chris