Band Geeks Anonymous is a comic about high school marching band that I started when I was in tenth grade. A friend showed me Tales From Band Camp, which a) Amused me and b) Inspired me to make my own comic about stuff.

This comic had a long run with me. The bulk of the strips were done during tenth grade, about a third or so done during eleventh grade, and then about a handful during senior year. In terms of sheer biomass, this is the largest artistic venture I think I have undertaken in my lifetime. Between the two spiral notebooks I drew everything in, there were a total of 172 completed comics, 36 uncolored ones, and if I remember correctly, somewhere between sixty and a hundred ideas I had jotted down for future creation.

The drawing style is pretty minimalistic, basically just how I drew at the time. Bodies and instruments and details I didn’t find too important were usually omitted for the sake of efficiency. Drawn just with pencil, colored with colored pencils, crayons, and the occasional marker or pen on lined paper, this shall surely be the scourge of the webcomic world.

The humor is simple. A lot of the jokes are of the “You Know ____ When ____” variety, like “You Know Your Band Is On A Limited Budget When...” and “You Know You’re A Band Geek When...”, along with plenty of strips clucking tongues at the uselessness of freshmen in general. Some anecdotes are based on true stories that I either witnessed, participated in, or heard of through the grapevine. Some are totally fabricated. Some have nothing to do with band at all but I felt like making them. Go with the flow, I like to say. Sometimes the background stories for specific comics can be found in the “comments” section located after the “Text” section underneath each comic.

No nifty character page or nothin’ for this comic, seeing as I didn’t name any of the characters within. I tried to keep it pretty impersonal in that fashion- I basically just identified characters by age, instrument, temperament, and physical features instead of delving too much into dramatic individualist analyzations (that’s a job for another comic).

In all, Band Geeks Anonymous was a lot of fun to make and to share with the kids I went to school with. Hopefully you enjoyed/ will enjoy it too. And remember to check back soon- two new comics a week until I run out!