The History of Boot Camp

The original concept for Boot Camp was created back in December 2002. I created a series of hand-drawn lined-paper cartoons that proved to be a surprising hit on the Team 17 Forums where I spend a vast amount of my 'Net time. Anyway, despite being poorly drawn, they seemed to have a certain charm and humour that people on the Forums liked. I wrote a few of them, put them up on a friend's website, then kind of forgot about them for a while. This pic is old and unoptimised, forgive me:

Then I created what can only be described as "Boot Camp Mk. 1", the first incarnation of this site. I stored my pencil drawn creations there, along with a few computer-drawn efforts (made in Paint to complement the whole "quarter-assed" feel). Then I made an entirely new series of cartoons, not based around the Boot Camp characters but based around certain members of the Team 17 Forum, with myself cast in the starring role (I know what you're thinking: Agh! An ego-comic with the author as an all-powerful god! Well, it wasn't quite as bad as that...). This comic was called MAPP - The Miscellaneous Adventures of Paul.Power.

It was around this time that I started to get interested in making a proper webcomic. MAPP felt good for me, and people on the forum liked it, so I tried having one based around that. Some people that I showed it to though thought that the basic subject material was too in-jokey (and it was: it contained copious Forum in-jokes). Some people noticed the Boot Camp strips though, and suggested I have a go at redrawing them. After a brief attempt at a non-Worms related webcomic that failed completely due to a lack of patience at the time with KeenSpace (just think: if I'd had more patience then, this might not be here...), I started making CG versions of my old Boot Camp strips. I posted a few on the Team 17 Forum to see what people thought, and now I've started work on this thingy proper.

So there you have it. Any questions?

Where do you get your ideas from?

A small mail-order... no, I'm not going to rip off the late D. N. Adams. It depends. Sometimes the joke revolves around a particular Worms weapon (It's a Worms-based comic; by default, there will be lots of Worms-based humour). Occasionally it's a joke vaguely based on my own personal experience. Some of the humour is kind of character-based, although the plotlines have a habit of getting out of character on a regular basis.

What program do you use for your comics?

Currently, Corel Photo-Paint 8. It doesn't seem to do layers very well, but it does the job. I save my images as .gifs, if you're particularly interested in the grisly details.

How long does it take you to make a comic?

I honestly have no idea: time seems to fly a bit when I do one. Not counting stoppages (in which case, sometimes days), probably a couple of hours (well, they are eight-frame strips. Even at my quality level, that takes some doing).

What fonts do you use in your comics?

I probably should mention it somewhere in my copyright section, but I don't. The main text is DomDiagonal BT, with Caps Lock switched on; I can't remember what program it came with. The title is good old Stencil.

Are any of the characters based on you?

Possibly. Howard's into computers and stuff, and has a similar approach to organisation. There's also a little bit of Sarge in there.

You're coming up with a hell of a lot of smart answers for someone with such a small archive

Like I said, I've drawn a lot of these strips before. And I have access to the strip backlog, so I know what's coming.