If you see me in public, my Macbook is probably within a five foot radius of my person, and it is that piece of equipment that was really the OB ward where Seven-O-Heaven was birthed. Apple, in their infinite wisdom, decided to include a rather arbitrary program called Comic Life as part of Mac OS X, which I may or may not have played with when I first bought my Mac, but for the most part I ignored it and the space it was taking on my hard drive.

Months later, a classic confrontation between two of my comrades unintentionally led to the creation of my first comic. James Marvel, Mario Maggio and myself found ourselves with our vehicle buried in the sands of Baja California. The entirety of that trip had been an epic power struggle between three strong personalities and the frustration produced by our predicament bubbled to the surface. James and Mario engaged in some verbal sparring and I, having no regard for the weightiness of the moment, decided to take pictures of it. After we all made up, the images captured in the heat of battle seemed much more humorous but unfortunately the absurd conversation was lost. Now, why I took so many still pictures of two people arguing I can't imagine, but eventually they found they're way into Comic Life and I did my best to reconstruct the spirit of the argument while at the same time taking some creative liberties. (It should be noted that upon viewing the final "comic," Mario thought that poking fun at what had been a serious discussion between two best friends was inconsiderate. But he got over it.) Much like Seven-O-Heaven, the humor works best if you are invested in its subject matter, but whatever. You can view it here.

Another year went by before boredom once again led to something resembling creativity.

To Be Continued...