Six years. That’s how long ago I posted the first Grimstone comic strip to the web. That’s right, today is the six year anniversary of Grimstone. I only wish that it had been six continuous years of uninterrupted updates, but it hasn’t. Nevertheless, it was six years ago today that the “sneak preview” comic brought Ribcage onto the Internet and that is an anniversary worth acknowledging.

The regular comic didn’t start until October 9th, but the September 20th comic is still technically the first. It wasn’t the first comic strip I ever put online, but it had been over a year since the last one (my short-lived first comic, My Martian Friends, in June of 1999). And Ribcage himself was not new. I’ve been writing and drawing the character in one form or another since I was about 7 years old. Ribcage and friends are to me what Bone is to Jeff Smith. We both created them when we were kids, we both did the first true comic strips during our college days, and they both ended up being more than what we first imagined them to be. But I still have a looooong way to go before Grimstone is where Bone is, and I may never make it that far. I doubt I’ll ever have the same level of prestige and critical acclaim that Jeff Smith and Bone have had, but I like to think I may at least reach his level of personal and financial success. I would like nothing more than to make a living creating Grimstone and to have it develop a modest yet loyal fan base.