I first created Blake in late July of 1995, so as you can see, he's been around for quite some time. He took me awhile to round out, but for the rest of that summer I drew up several sketches of him to get some feel for his character. By the time school rolled around in early September, I had some idea about what I wanted to do with him, but the theme of the comic that I planned to place him in was still a little vague. At the time, I was taking my first structured high school art class in school, sophomore year, and my art teacher informed me of a comic contest put on by one of the local comic book shops in our mall. So I figured that I'd give Blake his first shot at stardom by using him as my character.

The idea for Lunch Break developed out of the experience that my friends and I had with school lunch ourselves. Everyone knows how wonderful state-funded school lunch can be, right? Well, we had our share of disfigured pizzas ourselves, so when I was brain storming ideas for the comic, it all hit me in the middle of lunch. I realized that for the idea to work, Blake would need to have a friend. This is the reason why I created Dustin. Things began to fall into place, and I had myself a comic strip.

Though I don't think too much of this comic now, it's the most important factor responsible for the character that Blake has become today--and the same goes for Dustin. Their personalities sort of develop as the comic progresses, and model the characters that you also see in the comic that I'm presently working on. You'll notice that the drawings aren't quite there, and that both Blake and Dustin have sort of evolved in appearance over time, but I think it's still a comic worth looking at because of the personal history that goes with it. Plus, it did win first place in the contest that I put it in, so somebody must've liked it. So go on ahead and check it out...

Lunch Break

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