"Chatbox Shenanigans Season 1" Original Run: June 2012 to August 2012
This was the original set of comics, called “Chatbox Shenanigans”. They mostly revolved around inside jokes and comedic events that occurred in the forum chatbox and featured cartoon caricatures of myself and other forum members and staff members, including Super Skarmory and Kyoshiro/Kyoblitz. The original “First Season” of Chatbox Shenanigans ran from June 2012 to August 2012, when I first left for college.
When the forums first opened, I felt left out from a lot of discussions. I didn't play League of Legends or Pokemon or Fire Emblem, or any video game, for that matter, and I wasn't around much during the other eras of the Super Skarmory forums, so I didn't really have much of a connection with other forum goers or the staff members. In order to further my connection with the community and help me make some friends on the forums, I decided to draw comics, something that I was very interested in at the time (and still am).
Many of the jokes presented in this first season were very low-effort inside jokes, either referencing other pieces of pop culture or other contemporary going-ons, such as the Olympic Games and anime conventions. Towards the tail end of the first season, I realized that the forum chatbox was not a reliable source of comedy, as nothing of note actually occurs. It got to the point where I had to pull from my own real life anime convention experiences in the last few comics in order to make it through the summer. These last few comics would then become the basis for “College Shenanigans”. The previous point about the chatbox not being a reliable source for comedy is actually exactly why I chose not to revive Chatbox Shenanigans.
"Chatbox Shenanigans Season 2" Original Run: May 2013-August 2013
Following my first full year of college, I returned with a second season of Chatbox Shenanigans, this time building up a backlog of actual comedic moments from the forum chatbox throughout the entire school year, as well as the minor hacking of our forums by a hacker, Rootinabox.
While the original comics were drawn on a half-sheet of paper, this was the season where I began to set a bit of a precedent in my own comic work. This was the set of comics where I established comics with a 1 cm border around the panels, as well as giving me more panel space to work with. This would become a comic staple for this and other comics to come.
This comic season was also significantly longer than the last one, extending from May all the way into the semester, overlapping with the next season, College Shenanigans. Eventually, towards the tail end of both comics lifespan, I merged the two comics under a single title, called “Comic Shenanigans”.
"College Shenanigans" Original Run: August 2013-November 2013
This part of the retrospective was actually never posted to Tumblr, mostly because every time I tried to post it, it wouldn't save, so I just gave up on trying to reupload "College Shenanigans". This was probably for the better, because instead of fictional depictions of forum members, College Shenanigans featured fictional depictions of actual real-life people. I never really asked them for permission to depict them in any way, nor did they actually know about the forums or Super Skarmory, and I didn't really change their names to protect their identities. It was kind of a jerk move on my end, and it didn't particularly pan out.
College Shenanigans was well received, but I do note that, when I pitched the new "Comic Shenanigans", there were some people, namely Skitty, who noted that they didn't really get the jokes in College Shenanigans. A lot of the humor relied on knowledge of physics or contemporary college lifestyles, as well as some pop culture references that some people might not have interest in, or jokes that simply weren't that funny in hindsight. That wasn't really what I was going for, because I really wanted everyone to enjoy my comics without the prerequisite of taking college level quantum physics or watching the same shows that I did.
"Comic Shenanigans: The 'Merger' of Chatbox Shenanigans and College Shenanigans" Original Run: November 2013-December 2013
In November of 2013, I merged the Chatbox Shenanigans and College Shenanigans threads, restarting the Chatbox Shenanigans comics and finishing off the College Shenanigans comics. This merger was in response to declining forum activity as well as the call for more Chatbox Shenanigans and jokes people actually get. This union was short lived, however, as the effects of coming up with material and drawing the comics on a weekly basis began to take its toll on me and my grades. That December, I received notice that I would be placed on academic probation due to my poor grades, and I decided to end Comic Shenanigans before I got kicked out of college for good. (Thankfully, I was able to recover and graduate with a degree in Systems Engineering and Design)