This is a random strip from Molly’s blog comic, My Life in Sticks, dated July 11th, 2006.  This is also a long way to go for an in-joke on Twitter. While there’s all kinds of crazy metatextual nonsense I could write about, I’ll just cut to the chase.  This strip originated when it occurred to me this morning that, if Molly is supposed to be the one drawing Lit Brick, and if Lit Brick has had guest strips, then clearly Molly herself must know the guest artists themselves.  This therefore implies that there exists a fictional Dan Shive within the Sporkiverse.  A reference Deirdre makes to El Goonish Shive itself further reinforces this notion. Falling further down the rabbit hole, Molly has - on two occasions, mostly because I’d forgotten my own comic-within-a-comic nonsense - also drawn me.  After mentioning this, Dan shot me the following tweet: “So she must know fictional you too, but fictional you can’t be drawing what she’s drawing or the universe you’re in… that’s a pretty good opening to make fictional you whatever you want fictional you to be! He should be a professional dinosaur puncher.” The strip pretty much wrote itself from there. Now, here’s some fun behind the scenes info on the comic.  This is the first time I’ve ever drawn Molly’s pre-LB blog comic.  I’ve always assumed she created it at least throughout high school and early in college.  She began high school in the fall of 2003 (shown briefly in LB when she met Deirdre), and therefore logically graduated in the spring of 2007.  This gives me the opening to occasionally doodle scenes from Molly’s life without interfering with the flow of Lit Brick. The art style itself is subtlety different than in LB, since there needed to be at least some artistic evolution between Molly in 2006 and Molly now.  The figures here are barely fleshed out stick figures with bobble heads, and she’s drawn the characters with fingers (gasp).  It’s clearly the work of the same artist, just from a different point in time. The minor stylistic changes were inspired by some sketchbook doodles I cranked out back in 2007 when Molly was first created.  Yes, strange as it sounds, Molly predates Lit Brick itself by three years.  How is that even possible?  Well, maybe I’ll ramble about that tomorrow… In any event, this was fun, and is honestly the first comic I’ve drawn purely for my own in entertainment in a looooong time.  I suspect this won’t be the last we see of High School Molly. EDIT: Oh, and a quick note about the canonicity of this strip’s content.  In the very first LB strip, Sam noted that Molly’s blog comic read like “fan fiction of your life.”  Which is to say, while Molly clearly knows both me and Dan, and while we were all probably on an island campground just before the 2006 Comic-Con, there may not have actually been raptors.  But there should’ve been.

This is a random strip from Molly’s blog comic, My Life in Sticks, dated July 11th, 2006.  This is also a long way to go for an in-joke on Twitter.

While there’s all kinds of crazy metatextual nonsense I could write about, I’ll just cut to the chase.  This strip originated when it occurred to me this morning that, if Molly is supposed to be the one drawing Lit Brick, and if Lit Brick has had guest strips, then clearly Molly herself must know the guest artists themselves.  This therefore implies that there exists a fictional Dan Shive within the Sporkiverse.  A reference Deirdre makes to El Goonish Shive itself further reinforces this notion.

Falling further down the rabbit hole, Molly has - on two occasions, mostly because I’d forgotten my own comic-within-a-comic nonsense - also drawn me.  After mentioning this, Dan shot me the following tweet: “So she must know fictional you too, but fictional you can’t be drawing what she’s drawing or the universe you’re in… that’s a pretty good opening to make fictional you whatever you want fictional you to be! He should be a professional dinosaur puncher.”

The strip pretty much wrote itself from there.

Now, here’s some fun behind the scenes info on the comic.  This is the first time I’ve ever drawn Molly’s pre-LB blog comic.  I’ve always assumed she created it at least throughout high school and early in college.  She began high school in the fall of 2003 (shown briefly in LB when she met Deirdre), and therefore logically graduated in the spring of 2007.  This gives me the opening to occasionally doodle scenes from Molly’s life without interfering with the flow of Lit Brick.

The art style itself is subtlety different than in LB, since there needed to be at least some artistic evolution between Molly in 2006 and Molly now.  The figures here are barely fleshed out stick figures with bobble heads, and she’s drawn the characters with fingers (gasp).  It’s clearly the work of the same artist, just from a different point in time.

The minor stylistic changes were inspired by some sketchbook doodles I cranked out back in 2007 when Molly was first created.  Yes, strange as it sounds, Molly predates Lit Brick itself by three years.  How is that even possible?  Well, maybe I’ll ramble about that tomorrow…

In any event, this was fun, and is honestly the first comic I’ve drawn purely for my own in entertainment in a looooong time.  I suspect this won’t be the last we see of High School Molly.

EDIT: Oh, and a quick note about the canonicity of this strip’s content.  In the very first LB strip, Sam noted that Molly’s blog comic read like “fan fiction of your life.”  Which is to say, while Molly clearly knows both me and Dan, and while we were all probably on an island campground just before the 2006 Comic-Con, there may not have actually been raptors.  But there should’ve been.

(Source: litbrick.com)

  1. troutcave posted this