theheroesofcrash.com

It's hard to believe it, but this is the tenth anniversary of The Heroes of C.R.A.S.H. (Well, technically, it turned ten sometime in January or February, but I'm not sure what day my site actually went online, so I just celebrate it alongside my birthday. But I digress.)! It's been an amazing ten years. While I may not have made any money or gained the notoriety of many of my peers, I can say that it's been fun challenging my brain's creativity lobe to come up with loveable characters, cool stories, and funny jokes on a regular basis. As you can see from my filler, my art and characters have evolved quite a bit in that time. Who knows how they will look ten years from now...? Here's to finding out!

I want to thank everyone who's supported me during this time: my family (especially my Mom, whom I got my artistic genes from), my girlfriend Melissa, my friends (Including my computer-fixer Chris and my #1 commenter Gill, who also inspired Cannon and Sugar Rush respectively), all the cool comic artists I've met and chatted with over the years (There's way too many to list - go see my Links page and read their amazing work!), the folks at the 910CMX forums for hosting my own forum (and subsequently helping me to start growing a readership!), many of my teachers (Particularly my patient Junior High and High School art teachers, Mrs. Eichelberger and Pam Grumbach... as well as one IMpatient 5th grade teacher who told me I was too creative. I not only showed her wrong, but I based Battle-Axe Beatrix on her. Heh heh heh...!), and the many cartoonists who inspired me (Once again, too many to list, but I do want to give extra kudos to Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Warburton, Butch Hartman, Chuck Jones, Charles Schulz, and Walt Disney).

And of course, I couldn't have done it without Belt Boy, Cannon, and Titanium Maiden. Thanks for everything, guys! smile emoticon

Anyway, if you want to help me celebrate my comic's tenth anniversary AND my birthday, then you should enter my fan art contest or my fan avatar contest by May 19th! You don't have much time left, so do it A-S-A-Now!

Oh, and to all my friends who follow me on social media, here's some bonus factoids about today's tribute:

- In case it's not obvious, my characters on the left are drawn in a style meant to emulate that which I used when I first started the comic. Back then I drew with a mouse! I was going to use a mouse once again, but Manga Studio lacks the auto-smoothing capabilities of Flash, so I still used a stylus

- Retro Belt Boy lacks a "mullet" in the back, TM's got different eyes, shoes, hair, and abs, and Cannon's got stripes on his shoes. And of course, they have thick, sloppy outlines and diamond-shaped muscles.

- I wasn't sure how to fit Cannon in with Belt Boy and TM on the sides of the big number 10 without blocking them, and I wasn't sure how excited he'd get over this milestone... so I just had him sitting in front of the lettering and reading comics obnoxiously.

- Cannon's having a greater interest in his comic books than the world around him is largely inspired by Jason Grey from the webcomic The Wotch. Cannon's comic cover resemble's Jason's shirt, which was also used as the logo of the 910CMX forums, which hosts my forum, of course!)

- The background is gray, just like in the first HoC desktop and the 5th anniversary picture, albeit with a different gradient look to it.

- I still want more fan art, folks! Okay, that may not qualify as a "bonus factoid", but it's still true. Send me your entries!