Shrimp Fried Riot 20th Anniversary

 Back again after months just to post this:

It's been almost a year since the last time I updated this comic.

I'm trying to get back on the proverbial horse.

Actually, the real anniversary was somewhere near the turn of the New Year. January 5th, I think.

I realized not long ago that it's been two solid decades since I cranked out that first page of original Shrimp Fried Riot.

Over time I have restarted and rebooted this comic multiple times with multiple versions of my self-insert avatar, for multiple reasons.

It went from fictional comedy slice of life based on my life and associates in Bellingham, Washington to semi-autobiography to cathartic vomiting of my issues and coming almost full circle back to fictionalized comedy.

Over time I've lost my best friend, moved away from Bellingham and thus lost the rest of my friends due to distance, had an ongoing identity crisis that's still going (I actually have an alternate artistic identity concurrently running and making comics and pinups and such) and went through a lot of downward spiraling physically, mentally and emotionally.

I crested 50, lost both legs and my job. Gained 2 prosthetics and an existential ennui that I have yet to overcome.

On the positive side, I still have the woman I love and the desire (if not necessarily the skills I once had) to keep comicking.

More than any of my WAY too many sequential art projects from the last 2 decades plus change, I keep going back to this one most often as, one way or another, it is the most personal for me.

No matter how many times I reboot it and how many times I change it due to getting far too 'REAL' and personal for my own comfort, I always seem to come back to some version of Shrimp Fried Riot.

Now, I have the current version, which I plan to continue with. I am doing my best to keep it from becoming too personal and dark as before, but I still want that 'personal touch' that makes it mine.

Fingers crossed.

Featured:

Octavius Xailenrath the 3rd, aka "Ozzie" - 1/2 of my current self insert-ish main character.

Geoffrey Perlmutter, aka "Mutt" - the other half of the current protagonist duo.

Johnny Grey - protagonist of the "Random Instagram Funnies" era of this comic.

Octavius Xailenrath the first - original protagonist of original Shrimp Fried Riot

Lucy Q - the avatar of my longtime real life girlfriend as she appeared in "My Own Personal Apocalypse", the successor series to SFR.

Octavius Xailenrath, Jr. - the fictional son of original Octavius and Lucy Q who starred in the short-lived SFR: The Next Generation and original best friend of Mutt.

"Grandpa" Octavius - an aged-up latter-day version of original Octavius meant as a mouthpiece for my issues and dislike of getting old.

Milo Mannheim - the original version of the 'alt-me' that would helm "Malicious Intent". Self-proclaimed suburban supervillain. Probably the earliest indication of my interest in "villains" over heroes.

Scorch - Milo's faithful hellhound in human skin, patterned after Rick Moranis as Vinz Clortho.

20 years of memories.

Haulin' Ass to Lollapalooza!

 Here We Go Again!!

It's been a while since I gave Blogspot a try, but I'll be honest - I hate modern "Social Media".

Like, ALL of it! Even the ones I LIKE (BlueSky and Instagram... and that second one is really just for the overwhelming number of chubby girls whose entire 'Instagram Persona & Presence' consists of bouncing their ridiculously oversized breasts into their cameras while the worst music in the world plays for the sake of some snarky-ass 'meme'. Don't get me wrong. I'm a red-blooded American pervert cartoonist with an almost stereotypical obsession with gigantic (natural) breasts, but seriously! When did this become a 'thing'? And why wasn't I notified on Day One?!) - Even the ones I like have become tedious.

Being the Old Fart that I am, I miss the heyday of LiveJournal. I miss blogs and journals in general because I am a journaler. A writer. I enjoy expressing my thoughts in full sentences instead of truncated 300-character (or less) text-soup full of abbreviations, L33t5p3ak, 'modern slang' and sheer illiteracy for the sake of manufactured brevity that's supposed to appeal to those short on both brains and attention spans. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, "BTW".

Also, I miss the days when one could post as many pictures and photos as a rudimentary knowledge of HTML would allow instead of a maximum of four - or worse, ONE - per post! I'm a CARTOONIST, for fuck sakes! So, I have created this page in order to post said thoughts and cartoons, mostly unfiltered, just in order to have a place to do so that isn't DEVIANTART (don't get me started), FURAFFINITY, as I outgrew my 'furry phase' over a decade and a half ago, or out-of-the-way, niche-y spaces like NEWGROUNDS, MASTODON or PILLOWFORT.

So, that being said, here's a smattering of the stuff I'm doing these days. Most of my sequential comics are already being hosted on ComicFury and The Duck Webcomics - both of which I am still enjoying, but I, for some dumb reason, feel weird about posting Nonsequential Arts and One-shot Comics there.

On January 1st, I launched the newest version of my old autobio comic, Shrimp Fried Riot - and took out MOST of the autobio elements. Perhaps this time, the whole damn thing won't come out like some kind of illustrated mid-life crisis turned suicide note.

The protagonists, Mutt & Ozzie are the replacements for 'original' Octavius (me.)

At some point in the future of this blog, I will go back and (re)post all the original Shrimp Fried Riot comics. Also, with the permission of David "ProfEtheric" Hickmon, I started an ongoing comic taking place in a 'SpiffeeBurger' restaurant, which started in his comic, Autumn Bay.

My Spiffee comic began in the pages of my comic "Never Odd or Even";

This was sort of a "back door pilot" that introduced the characters for the ensuing comic:

Things seems to be going pretty well with it, so far.

I also brought back The Honeybees From Heck after a couple years' hiatus. What better way to reintroduce my favorite Girls with Boys' Names AND cement my notion to add more gratuitous nudity into my comics in this, the New Year than with this page:

I figure - why not? Every other graphic artist on the Internet is making pics of random naked people doing random naked things. Why should I be any different?!

And, of course, there's my superhero themed - or should I say Super VILLAIN themed comic, "I Was A Teenage Super Villain", which I am STILL doing 5 years in.

I am in the middle beginning of Chapter 7. So far, only a few members of the titular team have even been seen in this chapter, as I have introduced two other teams in order to set up future storylines, but they'll be back!

And, indeed the whole point for making this blogspot:

Random pics, pin-ups, jokes, NSFW content and Nerd Rage that I really can't post too many other places without breaking the rules or offending the sensibilities of the community at large.

So, this is who I am and what I do. If you dig it, feel free to stick around.