Maybe the "T" stands for "Terrible?"
October 17 - "Forbidden" WOMP Character of The Day - Mechanical Hero of Otto Fastwind (always inexplicably abbreviated to M.H.O.T.F.)! What can I say? Not only was I a strange kid, I was also, apparently, crazy. Worse, as you may have noticed over the last few days, I had very little concern for spelling and English Grammar (in spite of my assertion on the 15th that "English was always my best subject"). As I've been looking back to those "glory days," and posting my reminiscences of them, that's proving to be a deadly combination for my over-inflated ego. It's been difficult to face some of the unfortunate realities of my childhood comics, even though I know that I was just a kid when I created them. I was expecting a bit of embarrassment (in fact, some extremely uncomfortable embarrassment in cases yet to be discussed), but characters like M.H.O.T.F. (a grinning cyclopean robot who looked like a cross between Tik-Tok of Oz and Commander Alien) have been so hard for the "2007-me" to describe because I'm so far removed from the "1977-me" who thought them up. They are "my" characters, but only because I've inherited them from my preteen self. I think that one of the reasons that they have become "forbidden" is that I can no longer truly relate to them. Strangely, my older characters, like Monkey and family, have more stoutly stood the test of time (and my own test of acceptability). I think that is due to two factors. First, they grew up with me. I don't really remember a time when I didn't have Monkey in my life (I was six years old when I began drawing his adventures, after all), much like how I don't remember not having my little sister in my life. Later characters seem more like school friends who may have been close to me back then, but not so much since graduating. Second, those oldest characters were so simple and without intended subtext of any sort that they were like blank slates. In recent years, I've been able to fill in those blanks with a more experienced hand. Still, I can't help but consider not only that the actions of that "more experienced hand" were, themselves, from almost two decades ago now (and therefor possibly just as embarrassing upon modern review), but that rehabilitating some of my dozens of "forbidden" characters may be both a great challenge and a lot of fun!