Remember last week when I told you Ugly Hill was celebrating its 2nd anniversary? Well, the strip has been officially updating at uglyhill.com since May 23rd, 2005, but as most of you probably already know, it existed long before then.

In 2002, I was 22 years old and fresh out of college with a newly-minted art degree in hand, so naturally I was working a low-paying job as a customer service agent in a jewelry company's call center. It was the first (and hopefully last) time I ever worked in a cubicle, and I was only there for a few months, but it was enough time to give me an idea for a comic strip. The first character I created was "Business Monster", a singular-minded, workaholic creature who was trained to do only one thing: work. Good name, right? It's a gift. I would draw this monster all over my scrap paper to stave off suicide while I processed orders for $500 necklaces from little old ladies in Georgia. Pretty soon I started to add characters to the cast, and eventually I thought I had enough ideas to put together a new comic strip. I sat down, drew six weeks' worth of strips, and sent them off to the syndicates. They all agreed; a resounding failure! Two years later I redesigned the characters and put it on the internet, but the strips you'll see this week are from that initial submission packet way back in 2002. I tried to pick strips that reflected some concepts I ended up using in the current version of Ugly Hill so you could get a feel for how some things have changed and others have stayed the same.

I hope you enjoy taking a look back at the primordial ooze of Ugly Hill this week while I take some time to get ahead. Hey, why not talk about it in the forum, or on the Ugly Hill Facebook Group? Don't forget, you can also purchase the original art from these Classic Comics™ for only $100 (email for availability). And I hand-lettered these, so the text is actually on the original artwork. Ancient history!

New comics return June 4th!