I'm Douglas Keech an I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I'm 18. I feel uncomfortably form-letter.

I've been into drawing since I was a kindergartener but never thought I was any good. I became a webcomic fan in 2006 when I read xkcd. After reading for I while, I chose to try to do that and started a webcomic called “Sticks” that started on October 6, 2007 and ended about 6 months later when I lacked inspiration and fulfilment from it after being on long, unannounced and unexpected hiatuses.

After that, I made “FakeLife” after reading “Real Life” by Greg Dean for two weeks. It was a blatant rip-off, idea-wise and name-wise. Then I realized that journal webcomics were actually quite common. Then it was a blatant name rip-off. I am personally, after looking at this and other projects I've set of on, very surprised I've gotten as far as I have with this comic. I believe it's the higher (though still not the best) quality of work on this one on comparison to other projects.

I used to do comics by ball-point pen and a scanner, with no, or very little, modification using the computer. I started learning that it wouldn't cut it, and got better pens. I started using pencil, then inking on the lines. I started doing computer manipulation. Some comics I did completely on the computer using a mouse. This was while I was doing “Sticks.” After taking a long break from comicking I had to relearn most everything again. I started of with colorless grayscales, then started to learn about scannning as Black and White and used liquid ink writing pens for inking. After making a few B&W comics of “FakeLife” I decided to try coloring the comics. I went on and off a few times before sticking with it. I did experiment with Inkscape for SVG style comics and would prefer to be able to do that, but I want a tracing program that's decent first. After last Christmas (2008), when I got my tablet, I've not had a single comic drawn out on paper and scanned since.

The tools and software I use for comicking are: The GIMP (computer and paper), Genius MousePen 8x6 tablet (computer), No.2 pencil (paper), Pentel Tetra (for inking)(paper), HP PhotoSmart C3813 scanner (paper).

The reason I have so much time to work on comics is because I'm in high school at a Private institution that has a very good self-paced system. I do the work at a casual pace that lets me qualify as a full time student. I don't need a job since I get Social Security due to my parents being highly disabled. My entire family is currently getting all of it's income tax-free from the government so my family doesn't need to freak out about economic climates and ship me out to the job market to prvide for the family.

A little bit about me: I'm a highly political person, leaning heavily to the left. My religion is Christianity (and to be clear, I know it's ridiculous, but all religions, including atheism (which I used to be), are all pretty ridiculous. so you don't say anything about me, I won't say anything ab out you on the subject). My music genre of choice is Country, but I listen to soem modern instrumental music sometimes when I draw. My favorite genre of book is “teen romance”, mainstream genres: Fantasy with Scifi a close second.

Well… I think that's enough for now. Just wanted to make a decent post to start this blog off.