I printed my comic Dead Rat 10 years ago!! Felt inspired to revisit main character Riley and do a quick drawing of them. This comic introduced me to a world of comics pals and Iβm so thankful for that.
This comic really means a lot to me. Thereβs a lot I find extremely embarrassing about it in retrospect but like whatever thatβs the nature of any art you make when youβre a 20yr old. If you werenβt embarrassing as a 20yr old I donβt know what to say to you, we have Nothing in common.
My webcomic (and especially my valentines) gained some popularity on tumblr at the time and it was so encouraging to have something I was making for fun outside of my art school classwork connect with strangers on the internet. I met some lasting friends through the reach of my comic and I think thatβs really cool. I feel lucky to have had that fun corner of the web at that time.
This comic also allowed me the space to explore a somewhat self insert character who used they/them pronouns before I was even remotely ready to have that conversation with anyone. We all stumble our way through and I think perhaps maybe comics are actually the elixir of life.
if youβve been following along this whole time or if you have any fondness for Dead Rat, I just want to say thank you so much! πππ¦ππ¨π¬
If youβd like to keep up with me, Iβm more reliably on Instagram (but I am kinda bad at it rn) who knows maybe Iβll start using tumblr again for real. My handle on ig is RenataDavis
Heres me, 10 years ago on the fated day of comics realness looking like a tough guy:
