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!

So, this monster (pun intended) storyline will finally be wrapping up tomorrow, with a special epilogue strip to run on Saturday. On, did I mention that there will be a special epilogue comic this Saturday, May 26th? I think I just did. Thanks for sticking around while I got this out of my system! We'll soon be going back to shorter stories, though I don't think I'll ever escape the habit of making them all interconnected in some way. It's how I repel new readers! No one does it better.

Also, I'm taking next week off! Well, not really. I'll still be drawing the cartoons, I just won't be posting them. Every once in a while I need some time to build up my buffer so I don't fall behind and end up working by the seat of my pants. You don't want to see the kinds of comics I'd produce up against the deadline. I'm thinking crayon renderings of stick figures speaking in an indecipherable language of typos. So anyway, there'll be something to look at next week, be it reruns with commentary or whatnot, but no new comics. But hold onto your hats, because the stuff I've got lined up for the strip's return on June 4th is really special. It's something Ugly Hill has never done before, and I hope you'll like it. So there's your incentive to come hobbling back (I hope).

I'll leave you with my reaction to last night's LOST finale: &#$%# @$#%! HIGH FIVE.

You know what I just realized? Today marks the two-year anniversary of Ugly Hill! If you'll remember last year at this time, I made a blog post saying that I intended to keep making Ugly Hill until it is "painfully unrealistic or destructive for me to do so". So I guess that hasn't happened yet. Awesome!

A lot of stuff has happened in the last year of the strip! Hastings dealt with temporarily losing one of his eyes, Eli faced down the dreaded Joe Cthulhu, Peter met the Fattest Man in Ugly Hill, we met a member of the extended Kilgore family, Eli grew a beard and got a girlfriend, Hastings continued his hate-affair with Elliott Krauthammer, we were finally introduced to the infamous Mother Kilgore, Hastings and Eli finally came to blows, Hastings jumped hastily at the opportunity of a lifetime, Eli became indebted to his mother, Peter has started to notice girls, we saw what Hastings was like as a toddler, Eli realized how much he needs his brother around, and Hastings learned that the price of success is sometimes too high.

Whew! I told you there was a lot of stuff. So all that happened, plus we signed a publishing contract with Viper Comics and sold our first t-shirt. Not too bad for a year's work. Let's see how much crazy crap we can cram into the next year.

Thanks for reading, everybody!

It's time for bullet-points. I hope you brought your bullet-point proof vest.

• Did anyone else think Spider-Man 3 was incredibly disappointing? Not only was it a complete mess, but they committed a cardinal sin comparable to resurrecting Batman's dead parents or reassembling Krypton. It just... I don't... ARG. Maybe I need to stop taking these things so seriously, but I'd watch the train scene from SM2 until my eyes turned to jelly before I watched SM3 again. Ugh.
  
• Medieval Friday shirts are being discontinued this Friday! If you want one, better get one now! Supplies are limited!
• Original artwork is still available for $100 (email for availability), and 8" x 10"glossy prints of any strip in the archives are available in unlimited quantities for $40 a pop.
  
• And last, but certainly not least, I finally feel confident enough to tell you guys that we are having a baby. My wife is 20 weeks pregnant as of today (halfway there, about 5 months), and everything is going well. So every purchase you make from me will go to a good cause; the feeding and clothing of a new little person this coming September. I'll keep you posted! Here's a picture of the little guy/girl, with a little enhancement of something we thought we saw in the sonogram by yours truly:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION TO ME.

As of next Friday, May 11th, the "Medieval Friday" t-shirts are being discontinued to make room for a new t-shirt design. So if you were putting off ordering one because you thought they'd always be available... SURPRISE! As of right now, quantities and sizes are limited, so it's first come, first serve! And as for the new design, it should be going up for pre-order the following Monday, May 13th. What, you want to know what the new design is? Well, I haven't quite decided yet, but you'll be the first to know. I mean, after my dog, of course. She gets veto power over all my business decisions. For example, this morning she urinated on the floor, so I won't quit my job today. It's a complicated system, but it works for us.

And don't forget, original art is still available for a paltry $100, which includes a free 8" x 10" glossy print of the colored and lettered strip! As always, email me for availability and payment options. Glossy prints of any strip in the archives are also available individually for the laughable price of $40! I'm practically giving these things away. I'm insaaaaaaane, and so forth. Own a small chunk of Ugly Hill today!