The first year of Robot Friday was entirely black and white - despite the fact that I always intended to publish it online. I could have used color from the start, but I didn't. Why? Because just keeping the characters consistent from strip to strip was already a challenge. And since I was drawing the comics in Adobe Illustrator, adding color would have tripled my workload - and I was trying to produce a daily strip.

There's an old saying in web comics: Your first 100 strips are your "building" strips. They're going to be rough, both in writing and art, but you have to push through them to reach the good stuff. I both agree and disagree with this sentiment. It's true that Robot Friday evolved a lot in those first 100 strips. The art shifted and I struggled to find my "voice" in the writing. But at the same time some of my favorite and funniest strips came from that early period. The black-and-white format actually helped in some ways, keeping the focus squarely on the comedy.

Of course, there were plenty of mistakes, but that's the whole point of the building phase - and why I still keep those strips online. They remind me how hard I worked and how far I've come.

Technically, there were only 75 black-and-white strips but they made up the bulk of my learning curve. That period was all about experimentation - not just with character designs and backgrounds but also with who these characters were and how they spoke and acted. If you look back at the first 100 strips, you'll notice that Thomas and Gary behave very differently than they do later in the series. Early on, their dialogue was crude, and their situations were pretty mundane. Like most budding artists and writers, I was heavily influenced by the "successful" comics circulating online, pulling inspiration from other creators and pop culture.

Fortunately, through the process of writing and refining, I eventually found a direction that was more fun, more charming, and - most importantly - completely my own.

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