Into The Belly of The Beast

greyhame on Dec. 31, 2006

Well 2007 is finally here and with it comes to fruition an idea that has been on our minds for nigh on 7 years. This is an idea that was born out of our own experiences with the often absurd world of retail. And out of years of selling unnecessary goods with even more unnecessary service warranties.

There was many a lull in those jobs that Jarrod and I, among others, would sit and lambaste the ludicrous marketing ploys and sales techniques that were so often heaped upon us from far off places called “Corporate” lobbed like the load of some dire trebuchet from a borderline mentally deficient product of nepotism in a cheap suit. Not that we were ever bitter.

To be honest it was by far the most entertaining job I have yet to have, where the daily routine was to stand around and make with the funny, interrupted occasionally by someone who demanded one of the many trinkets or gizmos that we sold in the massive complex of electronic hedonism wherein we made our day to day dollars.

So you may be asking: “Is this comic simply about retail stores?” to which I would answer no… and also yes. And then the other voices in my head will say something like “Jibba jabba woo woo!” I will try my best to silence them.

This comic is actually about a lot of things, they all just happen to occur amidst the backdrop of working in the worlds most massive electronics store, so massive that it can be seen from space.

The comic is about life really, or a very surreal vision of it. There will be plenty of retail jokes and references, but there will also be a lot of references to the things that Jarrod and I enjoy, a short list of which would be: Electronics, games, music, TV and movies, pop culture, gadgets… Pretty much the standard faire of the average 27 year old American male with some geeky tendencies. We hope that you enjoy it, and we hope you join us for this journey that we are now embarking on. We couldn’t be more excited about this. If you like what you see then go to the forums and give us a shout out.

Today’s comic introduces the main protagonist of our little fantasy, a young man by the name of Benjamin J. Dover. Ben is a well meaning guy with dreams that are bigger than his current circumstances. While he has a good heart, his time a J. J. Sunshine’s have fostered a healthy amount of cynicism and sarcasm in him. He both loves and hates his job but feels he is bound for better things; he just doesn’t know what those things are. And so he soldiers on each day with the soulless work of sales, hoping to figure out what life has in store for him.

Ben is born of large chunks of Jarrod’s personality and mixed with part of my own deep cynicism and sarcasm. I would say he is an 80/20 amalgam of the two of us, though that is bound to shift as the fictional character of Ben develops further.

This comic will normally be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but for the first month while we work on parts of the website we are only going to run new comics on Monday and Friday, this will give us time to get the other parts of the site that we want to develop up and running. Come February the site should be at 100% and the comic will be updating three times a week like clockwork. We hope that all of you who read this have enjoyed our first day out and hope you join us on Friday for the second strip where we will introduce the lovable but flawed character that will serve as the measure of insanity to complement Ben’s “Strait Man” character. Your gonna love this one.

See ya Friday!