Oh Ernie… you can’t go ONE page without getting in trouble!

SO welcome to a new chapter in Pompfiction! Hopefully yall’ll like this one. If you enjoy it, please take the time to vote at TWC. Your support will help raise PompFiction to #1!

“I love you more than the flowers love the rain.” It was a game my father used to play with me when I was very little. Every night, he’d find a new way to compare his love for me. I was his only son, the only child. When my first sister was born, he would have to find two different ways to compare his love for us every night, and by the third child, he gave up that game all together. I guess it became too much of a hassle, or else he didn’t want to spark jealousy amongst us. Three daughters and one boy is what my family became. I was instantly promoted to sous-manofthehouse, which meant no more games for me and Papa. It’s been like that for so long, I almost forgot those games…
He ran the family like he ran the restaurant. Nothing was slow-paced, and there was a constant queue of orders. As sous-manofthehouse, I took on the brunt of the responsibilities, while my sisters had few chores. I didn’t complain; I loved my sisters and would have done the work for them anyway, even without being told to do so, but with such a big family it was impossible not to be a little jealous.
“I love you more than wolves love the moon,” I caught him saying one day as I passed my youngest sister’s room. I hadn’t heard that phrase in well over seven years but now as the chords struck my ears, I felt a pain in my heart where once there was elation at those simply-composed verses. At first I didn’t recognize the feeling, and I sat in my room for hours after hearing it, wondering why I felt so strange the way I did before I realized what I was feeling was jealousy. I prayed to have the feeling removed; it had to be a sin of some kind, I’m sure, but still it lingered like the aroma of foul cheese and in the morning it rotted me inside out. I felt somehow hollow, and I went about my chores with a certain lackluster that caught Papa’s attention. He told me I’d be punished for skulking about…. It seemed I was getting punished for a lot of things the more I thought about it. Punished for being with friends too long, punished if my chores weren’t done fast enough, punished if my chores weren’t done un-skulkily enough. If I thought about it too long it only made the hole in my heart feel more gaping.

I came to realize that rotting sensation was the loss of my childhood. I didn’t really have one, since I was promoted to sous-MANofthehouse before I was even ten years old. The only thing that carried over from childhood were the punishments, same style and everything. Somehow, Papa found it appropriate for spankings at all ages, but not appropriate to tell your boy you love him every night. No, that was highly taboo at the age of seven…

I hated how bitter I was becoming over everything, and I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. What had happened so differently, so drastically to cause my Stepford life to come suddenly crashing down? I had become so complacent with my lifestyle at home that I was un-phased by all the things I was now seeing as severe and awkward problems… It was like I was living in my own little clam shell my whole life until suddenly everything became so real. Ronnie called those “shit gets real” moments. He says they happen all the time, and that shit had gotten apparently real for him at a very young age, and that somehow my shit should have been real that early too. I guess my shit-censors are off or something, because I didn’t really get what he meant until– …Well, until Johnny died.
I think everyone’s shits got real then. After he passed, that summer just didn’t seem the same anymore. Being Italian, my family  had our traditions, but as weeks turned into months after Jay’s funeral, I saw these traditions slip. By summer time, we would be preparing for the annual drag race; my father would be making picnic food for the occasion.  There didn’t seem to be a point in going now, and no one in the family seemed bothered by it either. They simply shrugged it off, and went on in their lives. How they could do that, I can’t imagine. It was a steady routine, something to look forward to, and now I just find myself sitting at home, lost in my escapist hobbies and frivolous magazines.
My sleeping schedule had changed, since our gang didn’t hang out like we used to in the summer. We had each gone our own separate ways after high school. Penny was going to med school, Leo went to work for his dad, no one saw hide nor hair of Ronnie and Flo for a long time, and Rupert settled into the lifestyle that so many high school graduates fall prey to- living comfortably at home so long as his parents allowed him to, without a responsibility in the world, or fear for the future. I could empathize… I was stuck in purgatory between high school and higher education. I didn’t want to go to cooking school. I was so ready to go out and start my own show. I had dreams. I had aspirations. I had goals, and a drive. But it all seemed so pointless when I thought about that coffin in the ground. It hit me, that he wasn’t coming back, and that, no, it wasn’t going to be okay, because next summer would be the same too. No picnic and drag race, no melting ice cream at a drive-in on a hot day, no loitering at malls until we were kicked out on suspicion of causing a scene. It would never come back, and even if we recreated the scenes, it would never be the same. We were called the Jaybirds, but we weren’t, really. Now we were adults, adults with our own problems. Adults alone in the world. We didn’t have each other, and we didn’t have him… but how I wish I did.
Nothing was constant anymore. My friends had grown up, my family was moving on without me, and even though I felt all the growing pains of adulthood, I somehow felt so left behind. I guess I was never really ready to be a sous-manofANYTHING after all. How I wish Papa would have seen that, and how I wish Johnny would have too… because boy do I miss him…. More than the darkness misses the sun.

This piece was written as two separate stories at first and later combined. The part in relation to the Jaybirds was first written after reflecting the loss of my professor who’s sudden death occurred shortly before I launched Pompfiction. Coming up on the first year anniversary, I got to thinking about that again, and got re-saddened, so I wrote a piece about that, which I later snuck into this piece. The rest of this was just inspired by a “game” I play with my bunny, Rocko whom we adopted from the SPCA. I try to compare my love for him to the grandest things I can think of, every night. XD And I thought that’d be a cute addition to Ernie’s family life.

New challenger: DaeDae

(Dae Dae was designed by Jocelyn Cofer)

Rupert don’t play dat.

The first ComicLib of Pompfiction! In this one, Susie is drawn by Celest.

1st: FoxinRamen

2nd: LittleRaccoonDemon

3rd: Specifier

Please email me at thirdpotato (at) gmail.com with your address so I can mail out your prizes! Or if you prefer a commission instead, email me with your request. Thanks again to all entrants! Please enjoy!

ALSO see these two entries!

“Black Attack” a comic script by Stavner (deviantart) featuring Flo vs Cookie

And Ottergrl’s (deviantart) parody song “When You’re a Jay”

Welcome to the preview of the first ever Comic Libs: spontaneous comic strips done with a guest artist in a make-it-up-as-you-go fashion! This cover image was done in collaboration with artist Celest who drew Susie. Comic Libs update EVERY MONDAY! For more on what Comic Libs are, check out the FAQs!

It was on this day exactly one year ago, that this webcomic officially went live, but it seems like just yesterday. It’s a particular momentous occasion, and I can’t help but get sentimental every time I remember what finally pushed me to produce my work as a steady and constantly updated comic. My whole life, I have been drawing, even since I was a child drawin’ with my poop on the wall (ask me about it sometime >.> its not pretty). I used to draw comics in crayon and pen with my sister, and later dabbled in digital comics using Oekaki, but upon reaching college at the Savannah College of Art and Design, I began to pursue the real venture of professional comics. My first year there, I saw a seminar by Prof Jeremy Mullins  and Bob Pendarvis on the possibilities of a career in webcomics, and the liberations the medium provides and I knew right then and there, THAT was what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I studied abroad in Lacoste, France, that this website really came into being as I took a class on webcomics with Jeremy Mullins. The class consisted of two students, me included, and gave me the chance I needed to have one-on-one help venturing into the world of site building with Comicpress. Though after the semester let out, and after school was over for the summer, I felt like sooo many other artists do once they’re finally armed with the tools and knowledge necessary to finally do something with their life. “Eh. I’m not ready.”

That single phrase is the killer of every artist’s potential and future, in my opinion. It’s the greatest brick wall you’ll ever face. “I’m  not good enough yet.” And so there I sat all summer, with a comic ready to go, and a site, while not fully polished, ready to show the world my work, but I just never had the drive to get up and do it. It wasn’t until that summer when my professor passed away from a tragic accident, that my life turned around. It hit me. Life IS short. If you just keep waiting to be good enough, one day those doors of opportunity will close. There is NO time like today, to begin your dreams, and I knew if I didn’t start my comic that very summer, and SET a date to launch it, I would never make anything of my life. And so, I just did it. I set the date, August 28th, and promised myself I would launch this comic, if not for myself, then for the man who encouraged me to believe I should. And so I have consistently updated without missing a single date, every Wednesday and Friday since August 28th 2009, and I couldn’t be happier. Yes there were many late nights where I barely met the deadline, yes there were many times I felt like giving up. Afterall, it was my senior year of college and I had no buffer built. I was doing pages the night they were “due,” often staying up till 5AM to get it out there. But every time I thought about giving up, I looked back at the sheer amount that I had already produced and said to myself “I can’t stop here.” It is like a snowball effect, guys, I’m telling you. Once you just start doing it, you will be encouraged by your accomplishments to just keep producing more. When you screw up, or you produce a page you’re not proud of, you just gotta keep on moving, and get over that hump, because before long it will be yesterday’s page and you can move on to better yourself in the next!

AND SO it is because of my desire to encourage every young artist out there, every writer, every reader and watcher of my little comic, that I reveal to you the new Pompfiction Oekaki Board, Pompadoodles! It’s a free online drawing program and forum just like how I started drawing online when I was in middle school! The simple tools make it easy to draw even if you don’t have a tablet! So now there’s no excuse for “not having programs” or “not having a tablet” not to draw! Get out there and draw today! For more info check out the board at Pompadoodles or by clicking the link in the top left, or even by clicking Pompadoodles in the menu bar above!

Aside from that, we now have a digital version of the Character Profile Form! This is a form I’ve created that you fill out about characters you have created either for writing, roleplay, comics, or anything, that will better help you get an understanding for character motivation, history, physicality, and psychological characteristics! It has been a LONG time in the making and thanks to my high school buddy Elaine Butler for coding the whole thing for me from scratch! So check that out up in the top menubar under Links, or just click here!

BUT WAIT! That’s not ALL you get! Maybe you’re not the creating TYPE, and all you want to do is just see more Pompfiction! Well get this! Every Monday, come back and see the collaborative efforts between me and my college buddy Celest (Character designer of Susie B. Goode), known as Comic Libs! These are add-lib style comics, made up on the spot, drawn simultaneously on the same canvas between me and her as we create hilarious situations with some of your favorite Pompfiction characters such as Susie B. Goode and Ernie Aliberti as well as many others! Heck, you might even see some new faces! For more about what ARE Comic Libs, check out the FAQs here! Today you get just a sampling of what’s to come starting Monday, and will continue on for every Monday, giving you a reason to actually LIKE the first day of the week again!

Contest Winners will be posted soon!!!

SPECIAL THANKS:

Thank you to every reader and follower of Pompfiction for your support, for your kind comments or your silent views! I could not have done this without my viewers! From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thanks to Phil Hofer of ComicPress for practically making this site run! He was there for me when I had NO one to turn to, and when all hope seemed lost and I was on the edge of tears, he was right there to give me a hand. Man, if you like the way Pompfiction runs, please give him a big thanks, donate to Comicpress and/or to Phil himself, show him how much he means to the comic community. Please check out his site here.

A big shout out to my sister, without whom, I would not have ever begun to draw as a kid. She’s been my inspiration, my brain, and my creative partner for longer than I can remember. And a shout out to my supportive parents who actually believe art can be made a career as much as I do.

Thank you to Elaine Butler for all your coding help. We spent the first month or two of Summer just hackin’ away at the character profile form, to get that up and running, and hopefully I’ll continue to pretty up that page, but what you see right now is what you get!

Thank you Celest, for your support. It was drawing with you that really help keep me inspired to pursue Pompfiction, and thanks to your generous donation of a whole character, rights and all. You still can’t comprehend how much it means to me. I look forward to working with you again!

I could go on, but I need to give it a rest. Tis only the first anniversary. Let’s see it through to another!

And so begins a new chapter in Pompfiction! Guess who this one will be starring!? Don’t worry there’ll be more familiar faces as well, so stay tuned! Don’t forget to check back on the 28th for some EXCITING site updates including some Pomp merch!

Yyyyeah. Ernie needs to learn how to play baseball….

Anyway, don’t forget to enter the Pompfiction Fanart contest! Only 3 more days till judging!

And so ends another PompFiction adventure! Stay tuned for the PompFiction Anniversary coming up on the 28th!! Get your party on, cuz it’s coming… Dont’ forget to enter the PompFiction Anniversary Fanart CONTEST due on the 28th! For more info, click here! And vote today at Top Webcomics for a coloring page!