Goats: Encore Edition | April 1, 1997 (Patreon)

Hi everyone! This is the first installment of the big Goats rerun, inspired by the recent Goats server hack and subsequent shutdown. If I'm going to put these comics somewhere to live online for the time being, it might as well be here where we're all enjoying the new pages. Unlike the new pages, which are for Patreon subscribers only, these reruns will be free to everyone! And there'll be commentary from Yours Truly where appropriate to keep things interesting.

Today's rerun is the very first Goats comic I ever drew, almost 30 years ago.

I'm trying not to be judgmental. It's a start. It's very much the work of someone who has only drawn a couple of comic strips. A proof of concept. I think I started using jokes not long after this.

That's Jon and Phillip, loosely based on two post-college roommates living on their own in Manhattan for the first time. They drink a lot. They watch some tv. They sit on a couch. It's a 1990s webcomic.

I added a manual header to this one, and realized that was probably unnecessary if it was being posted on a website which already had a header, and didn't do that again. You'll also note a long-nonfunctional email address, which seemed like a smart thing to post publicly in 1997.

As for the comic itself, the cathode ray TV and rabbit ears were already anachronisms at the time but I was never that concerned with accuracy. MTV was still in existence, though. This comic has aged a bit. It's aging me, just looking at it.

A lot of these early files were only saved in very low resolution format; I don't have the originals anymore (they were sold a long time ago to folks like you!) and I was pretty inconsistent in my production process. This one, I seem to have remembered to save a relatively hi res version, but prepare yourself for prominent pixels in the upcoming days.

Thanks for joining me for the first installment! I'll post five days a week, Monday through Friday, until we're caught up to Book Five. That should give us a few years of posts to enjoy. Again, this is all free, so tell your friends that they're welcome to sign up as free members to get all the updates delivered directly to their inbox, or as paid members if they also would like the imminent (and paid) SFAM reruns and all the lovely new content that comes with being a supporter here on Patreon.

See you back here soon!

-Jon