I made a gag strip called Functionist Funniest and assigned a name to the non-existent artist. I immediately came up with a backstory for the character: this hack who phoned in laff-a-day strips, but only between phone calls with licensers in attempts to get "punchlines" from said strips onto coffee mugs and desk calendars. I did about 18 (so far). They were easy to do at weekly get togethers, as warmup drawings or while talking to other people, that I could complete in less than an hour or so. They were also influenced by was going on in another comic book.
Anyway, I was thinking of various artistic ("artistic?") plans ("PLANS?") involving writing and filming some adventures with the help of some friends, but it too would be influenced by things that I have nothing to do with. After meeting the wonderful writer of one of those things that I enjoy, I realized that whatever these plans were, they would have to feature original characters. Characters that could be themselves without me having to say beforehand, "oh, you have to read this" or "oh, you have to watch that," because that would be the WORST on several levels.
I really liked the idea of Mort. Think of all those strips in the 80's and 90's that weren't Calvin & Hobbes, Far Side, or Bloom County, the ones that all looked alike. How some of those simple looking strips with forgettable jokes could be recycled every month or so and you'd probably never notice. Mort is one of those guys. He's a robot whose function is to come up with those strips, but is too busy begging his agent to call CBS or ABC to see about optioning the strip as a TV show between glasses of lunchtime martinis. He's just too much fun to be fan fiction.
So, Mort is now part of The Paul Show family.
Anyway, I don't know why I typed that out. I had a rough few years and I actually feel guilty trying to amuse myself drawing comic strips about me. Mort can do that for a little bit, and I can help him. So raise a glass of hard liquor with a chaser of red wine, but don't you dare put it on his tab or you'll be skewered in the next strip.
