Edgar is suspiciously suspicious

Poor Edgar can't let anything be what it is, can't accept an offer in good faith. What a putz.

When existential angst strikes, go shopping

A recurring them in Blood Culture is the ways in which we attempt to fill our aching need for satisfaction and fulfillment. And the most common way to make ourselves feel better is to go shopping. Buying things both distracts us from our problems and provides a short-lived rush of satisfaction. I have something new! I couldn't be happier!

Here, Edgar went out to find out who he was, what he stood for, what his life meant in the grand cosmic play that is life, and he decided to buy a pair of running sneakers instead. Now doesn't he look happier?

Two That Didn't Work

There was time, when Blood Culture was a wet newborn struggling to stand, that Gerry and I were convinced that absolutely any idea would work. The Blood Culture premise was so strong, we reasoned, that it would elevate to comic genius even the most mundane situation.

Turns out we were wrong about that. And Edgar eating a fish stick is the best example of our overconfidence.

Here's another idea that failed:
Edgar eating a fish fails because the line isn't funny; Edgar's reluctance to marry fails because nothing funny is happening. If Edgar's girlfriend were engaged in some activity that told us why he is reluctant to marry her, then it might be funny. Instead, she's just standing there giving him "that" look.

Lessons learned. I hope.

Grandpa Blood Culture

Here's the philosophical question of the day: how do you know that your memories are an accurate record of what you have experienced? Are your childhood memories your own, or do they reflect the stories others have told you about yourself? Are some of your memories completely fabricated from the cloth of fantasy?

That's precisely what Edgar is up against here. He thinks he remembers his grandfather on his own terms, but his memory of the old man is only through the mementos of others.

He Ain't Heavy

This was one of the first ideas I wrote, maybe a day or two after Gerry agreed to draw Blood Culture. Walking toward the PATH station after work, I was struck by the homogeny of the suited men around me. Granted, not the most original observation ever, but an observation nonetheless.

What I love about this panel is what you don't see. Because Edgar and his brother look identical, the first instinct is to brush the panel off as a simple joke about appearances. Why would Edgar want to be more like someone who seems to be just like him?

The reader must fill in the context, the sibling rivalry, the lives they lead outside the panel. How do these two characters act when we can't see them? How is his brother's life better than Edgar's? How can it be, considering they are red blood cells?

This panel is also the template for leaving nameless all characters other than Edgar. It's a running joke that stresses Edgar's incredible self-absorption.

The Origin of Edgar, Pt. VI

David Sanders agreed to draw Blood Culture just after the first tower was struck on September 11, 2001. I was overjoyed--Blood Culture was back on track, riches were just around the corner, I would finally get some new panels to shop around. Sure, a catastrophe has just occurred, but it was an accident. That a plane hadn't crashed into the tallest structure in New York before was a minor miracle. It was accident, and it had happened to someone else, as we believe accidents always do. At least that's what everyone thought. Until the second plane hit.

That's when we realized that it was no accident. It was an attack. Someone was at war with us, and that meant it was happening to us all.

Even though my office was on New York's east side at 33rd and First, far from the World Trade Center, we were all nervous. Would another plane drop from the sky? Would it crash into us? Were there bombs placed throughout the city? Were we going to die? What the hell was going on?

I called my wife, but the lines were overloaded and all I got was a busy signal. My mom was babysitting my daughter, so I called home. I got a bust signal. I called my brother. Busy signal. I tried over and over to reach people, but all I got was a busy signal. Everyone in the ofice was frightened, so we did what people do in a crisis: we sought out each other. We gathered together to watch the news, taking comfort in the fact that at least we were still here, that we weren't there, in the burning towers, and then feeling guilty for the thought. We sat together in disbelief when the first tower fell. Together we were dumbfounded when the second one fell.

Very few people had left the office before the towers fell, but once they did everyone just wanted to go home, to see family. A coworker wanted to see his wife, who worked a few blocks away, and he was nervous about walking alone--again, the comfort of others--so I volunteered to walk with him. The streets were packed with the traumatized and the angry. Some were crying, some were planning a way out of the city, some were plotting revenge against those responsible. Everyone looked dazed.

I walked back to the office, alone, because there was no other place to go. I couldn't go home; all public transportation into and out of the city had been canceled. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that the trains were running again, so I met up with my wife, my brother, and my sister-in-law for the long paranoid walk to Penn Station. There were no cars on the streets--something no one had ever seen before or has seen since--just mobs of people looking for a way to get out. I made it home in time to see my daughter off to bed.

Like many people, I questioned the direction of my life after 9/11, and the direction I wanted to go in was toward Blood Culture. With David onboard Blood Culture had a real shot this time. I choose a line from my long list of ideas and emailed it to David. I had a picture in my mind of what the panel should look like. What he sent back the next week amazed me. It was exactly the image I imagined. Here it is, Blood Culture #40, four years in the making. (Click on it to make it larger.)


The terrorist attacks were on my mind when I picked this line. This panel is a comment on the supreme confidence not only is there a God, and if you unwisely choose to worship the wrong one you will be punished. Edgar avoids offending that fate by following the most popular religions simultaneously. He wants salvation without having to make a definite choice, afraid that the by choosing he might anger that wrathful specter. At least this way, he's worshiping each god in turn, currying a nit of favor from each.

Everything about the panel was perfect, from the slight angle of the wall behind Edgar to the tiny details David added, like the callout box pointing to Mecca. David was the best choice, even if he was the only one.

Seven years later, David is still surprising me with his work. He incorporates his own sense of humor into every panel, bringing out the best in each joke. Amazingly, seven years later, we are no closer to seeing Blood Culture published. In February of this year, I shut down the Web site and forwarded the traffic to Comics Sherpa, a hosting site run by Universal Press Syndicate. The monthly fee to host on Comics Sherpa is the same as the cost of hosting the Web site, but the traffic to the Comics Sherpa site is on average 15 times that of the Web site. It's worth it just to expose Blood Culture to a larger audience.

After 11 years, I still love Blood Culture and believe that it is one of the best comic strips ever produced. I won't give up on Edgar. Ever.

Right now, though, we're on hiatus. I'll be posting some comics a few times a week, sometimes explaining the idea behind the joke or what observation led to the idea. You can let me know if the panel hit its mark.

The origin of Edgar, Pt. V

Y2K marked the third birthday of Blood Culture, the single-panel strip starring everyone's favorite corpuscular mope, and in those three years my partner and I had produced only 39 panels. Even though I knew that my artistic partner Gerry would never get around to drawing more strips, I still wrote many, many lines. I would jot down any idea, no matter how silly or ridiculous. It was--and still is--my way to clear the brambles from my thoughts, to free up some mental space for new ideas to take root. I carried a pen and paper--sometimes a scrap, sometimes a notebook--wherever I went. I didn't want to miss a single observation.

I didn't pester Gerry at all that year because I knew it was pointless, and also because I was busy with something more important than even Blood Culture: wedding plans. In September of 2000 I took my vows and headed out to San Francisco to honeymoon.

A few weeks after my honeymoon I found out that my wife was pregnant. After the initial excitement died down, we settled into our roles as expectant parents, buying things for the baby's room, thinking of names, dreaming about the future, eating ice cream.

Then in February of 2001, my dad died.

With one life just ended and another about to begin, I couldn't help but be philosophical. What did I want out of life, for myself and for those I loved? I wanted creativity, humor, and, more concretely, financial security. That's when I knew I had to give Blood Culture another try. It's the hope of all parents that their children will learn valuable lessons from their lives and I was--am--no different. I had to put every effort into making Blood Culture a success, both as an idea and commercially, to show my child that she could follow her dreams and make them come true. I wanted her to see me succeed doing what I loved to do. And I knew the only way to do that was to break up with Gerry. If Blood Culture was to survive, our collaboration had to end.

I sat on my decision for two months, fretting about the details. What would I say? How would I say it? What was I going to do with Edgar after Gerry was gone? I never answered those questions, but in April I wrote an email to Gerry anyway honestly describing my hopes and plans for Blood Culture. He agreed that Blood Culture deserved a shot at greatness and that he would never be able create new panels on a regular basis. With assurances that we'd stay in touch, we parted ways.

I decided to draw Blood Culture myself. I drew a couple of panels, but if you remember how the first panel turned out you'll know why I quickly abandoned the idea. I needed an artist, someone who could actually draw more than a circle within a circle and was interested specifically in comic strips. I asked around, pumping friends and friends of friends for names. No one knew of anyone who fit the bill.

I struggled for months to think of someone, and then one day it occurred to me: David Sanders could do it. David and I had worked together at the same place Gerry and I had met, and he liked the Blood Culture panels I had shown him all those years ago. David was also a fantastic artist. In his downtime he would draw astoundingly detailed scenes of ancient Rome and photographic-quality renderings of the Titanic. I used to marvel at them, much to his embarrassment. He also wrote and drew a comic strip about the adventures of a misanthropic blob called the Glunch. He was cynical and a bit angry, and he loved to draw. He was the perfect candidate.

But would he agree to draw my humble cartoon for no more reward than my appreciation? There was only one way to find out. But before I could ask him to join up with me, my daughter was born. I took the full 12 weeks afforded me by the Family and Medical Leave Act to stay home with my growing family. On my fourth day back at work, September 11, 2001, I got to my desk around 8:15 am and sent an email to David asking if he'd like to draw Blood Culture.

I heard back from him right after the first plane hit the first tower.

Next time, part VI, and the first Blood Culture panel David drew.

The Origin of Edgar, Pt IV

I pinned my hopes of publishing gold on the big comic strip syndicates, sending out submission packets with the clutch of Blood Culture strips I had been able to wrestle from my partner, Gerry. The syndicates didn't bite, forcing me to admit that Blood Culture didn't have mainstream appeal. So I set my sights on the world of alternative weeklies. After all, alt weeklies run some wacky comics, including one of my favorites, Life in Hell, the strip by the Simpsons creator Matt Groening. Alt weeklies were definitely more Blood Culture's audience.

I combed the Internet for names of alt weeklies and mailed out around 40 submissions simultaneously. As great as it would be for Blood Culture to be picked up by one of these papers, it wasn't going to make us rich. There would be no syndication, only publication in individual papers across the country. But my bruised ego was hungry for approval and I would have gladly accepted any offer if it meant that someone like Blood Culture.

Over the next few weeks, rejection after rejection arrived in the SASEs I included with the submissions. I heard from only a few papers, though; most hadn't even bothered to use the SASE. It looked like I would never catch a break.

I was wrong about that.

My wife loved Blood Culture and had shown the panels to some of her coworkers when they were first drawn. One of coworkers remembered the strip and said he knew a guy named Francis who was starting a humor zine--this was still 1999 after all--called Cripple and that he was looking for cartoons. I got in touch with Francis and sent him the panels used for the syndicate submission. He loved them and wanted to run a few. I gave him permission to run as many of the panels he wanted.

Cripple ran two Blood Cultures in each of its first two issues. I was elated. Francis was the first total stranger who had read and appreciated Blood Culture based purely on the strip itself. Francis didn't know me and had no vested interest in stroking my fragile ego. Blood Culture made him laugh and so he used it. It remains one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. And another was on the way.

After the second issue of Cripple came out, another friend of a friend had heard that a new web site called Indie Planet was looking for comic strips. With my confidence restored, I sent the editor of Indie Planet some samples. He loved them. Everyone in the office loved them. And best of all, they were willing to pay $150 a panel. 150! A panel! In American dollars!

I signed on with Indie Planet in December of 1999 and immediately registered bloodculture.com. If Blood Culture became a hit on Indie Planet--and how could it not?--I wanted to be ready to capitalize on it.

In January of 2000, Blood Culture was the first of four weekly comic strips to appear on the site. It was the only one to appear twice.

After five weeks, the site went bankrupt, one of the first casualties of the bursting dot com bubble.

So there I was, in February 2000, $300 richer but with no prospects for publication and still no new comics. By this time both Gerry and I had left the company where we had worked together, and my emails hectoring him for new panels--and his replies--became less frequent. I did the only thing I could think of to keep the momentum going: I created the first version of the Blood Culture web site.

Here's something you should know about me: I hate to read instruction manuals. I prefer to just dive right into a project--whether it's putting together an Ikea bookcase of building a Web site--without all that useless preparation and forethought. One look at the many small home improvements I've attempted will tell you that. So I downloaded an old copy of Adobe PageMill and poked around a little. The result was the Web site that was active until just a month ago. (Just for kicks, you can see most of those early panels on the Blood Culture pages at Internet Archive). It was utilitarian. I posted the panels, wrote some stupid copy, included my email address. No one paid much attention to it.

As 1999 ended, I was disappointed that there hadn't been a new panel drawn in two years. I had invested more time and energy into Blood Culture than in previous artistic endeavor and I wanted it to be successful. I still believed in Gerry, though. I felt I owed him more time to draw new panels. Without him I wouldn't have had the little success I had had. Still, my patience was wearing out.

The next year would bring big changes for me and Blood Culture. In September of 2000 I got married; by early October my wife was pregnant; in February of 2001 my dad died; in April of 2001 I broke up with Gerry; and on September 11, 2001 David Sanders agreed to draw Blood Culture.