Meet the Geeks

I don't really remember how this strip came to fruition other than it's one of those strange ideas that come to you from time to time. The idea of Patrick Stewart being haunted by Star Trek loving ghosts sounds like an actors nightmare. The original comic was done in pen and ink and then coloured with copic markers. I'm actually quite proud of how this one turned out. I had thought about doing this as a triptych painting but that never came about. ~Brother K'Bob

We've already covered the true and terrible saga of Clay meeting his idol David Prowse  so I won't be going too much into it here. Spoiler alert: David Prowse was a total dick. So this comic, as we imagined it, never came to fruition. Clayton and I had hoped that we would meet a jovial and accommodating David Prowse and he would say I'm a pretty, pretty princess which we would videotape and send to Jennie Breeden of the Devils Panties  who would give us mad props and we would hopefully get some traffic on our site out of it. Alas, it was not to be. The Devils Panties strip that started it all was one where Jennie shared her birthday gifts that year. It always makes me laugh. There was a slight screw-up with the comic. In the last panel David Prowse was supposed to be saying "ach" not "ack". I know, he's Scottish, not Bill the cat.  Blame Clay. It's all his fault.  Yeah. That's the ticket.  The guy in the seco...

I knew the Syphilitic puppy gag would catch on! I just knew it! Hah!  This was a comic done by Clay and, strangely enough, was a gag by Sean.  See, Sean is the straight man, he's not the gag guy. So one day while in the car we were discussing the syphilitic puppy when Sean, out of no where, quipped "It hurts when I pee.... woof..." Clay and I were left aghast at the fact that Sean had made a funny. It just doesn't happen.  I suppose it wouldn't be hard to find a chinese manufacturer to produce a set of puppy plushies with a voice box that says "it hurts when I pee... woof". It could be done. It could be real merch some day.  Perhaps the Syphilitic puppy will be making a re-appearance.  What do you think geeks? Is there a market for it? Is the time right? Shall I spend my hard earned money, money that could be spent on feeding my children, on a gamble based on a joke in bad taste? That certainly sounds like something I wou...

Here we continue with the Manitoba Comic Con 2007 strips where we find that our little "prank" had greater consequences on poor matt than suspected. And that Bloodwine is indeed a harsh mistress. The 2007 con was almost perfect for the Geeks to attend because there were guests from each of our fandoms. There was David Finch, whom we'll meet later, David Prowse, whom we've already seen, the Duras sisters (who were absolute dolls) and there was supposed to be a Tolkien scholar who, unfortunately, was unable to make it. The strip was done a long time before we found out that bit of information though. The strip also shows that I was still uncomfortable with hands. Look at that first panel. Yeesh! ~Brother K'Bob

This strip comes from a dark time in fandom. The days when a forty something porn star wannabe trolled the halls looking for victims. Her story has been told many places, such as in the papers. I won't get into the full details here but sufficive to say she managed to drag one of our own into her dark web. This would-be porn starlet approached Clay about using his high end video camera to make a girls-gone-wild style video and porn where she would approach a group of young men at a local event and bring them home to video their coupling.  Clay showed us the results one alcohol fueled night at Sean's old apartment. It was not pretty. It was basically like watching a video of someone's creepy aunt seducing a bunch of his friends. Clay said it was one of the most surreal nights of his life.  There is much to the story but I will cut to the chase. One of this woman's gimmicks was 'squirting'. Now, we've already touched on the reality of that...

Oops. Little late getting the Blog up. Today we start getting into the original Comic Con run. At this time we were going to be attending the Manitoba Comic Con and Expo, later known as the Central Canada Comic Con or C4 so we did a series of strips based on imagined shenanigans that we might get up to. In my younger years at various Con's I would usually use my trusty one litre slurpee cup as my drinking vessel. The idea of filling it up with bloodwine, at least as imagined by the Starfleet Marine Corps, would be dangerous. Their recipe, from K'Tesh's recipe's page , and listed below, mixes Tequila and Everclear. Nothing good could come of that. 8 oz Firewater 6 oz Everclear (the full strength stuff) 6 oz triple sec 6 oz white tequila 3 drops green food coloring 6 drops red food coloring It's noted that you might have to adjust the food coloring to get it right. The title of the comic comes from a Klingon take on What do you do With a Drunke...

For those of you not in the know, there's a section of Winnipeg viewed with disdain known as Transcona. This is where I grew up and this is where I became the neurotic mess that led me to becoming a cartoonist. Transcona is often mocked by others for being stuck in the past. Whether it's dudes in mullets driving Camaro's to the maligned bar The Oak, Transcona is a suburb unto itself. Transcona was a separate city until 1972, two years before I was born. It was incorporated into the city of Winnipeg Hi Neighbor Sam The Hi Neighbor Sam statue used to sit at the border of Transcona welcoming people into the Town. It's been move a couple of times and repainted and rebranded (it was an advertisement for Canadian Tire for a time). It again sits on Regent welcoming people into the suburb. Now, as for the comic above, why would I be looking at a flamingo and saying "Just like being back in Transcona"? Well, for a time the majority of Transcona homes h...

Today I'm talking about animation. One of the things I’ve always had an love of is animation. From my early days I’ve watched all sorts, anything I could watch. Of course, like many, my first true loves came from Disney and Warner Brothers. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that as I grew thoughts of becoming an animator entered my mind. I had signed up for an animation course through the National Film Board to be taught at their main street animation studio. Of course, a week before it was to begin, I wound up getting a job as a welder. The course was to be held evenings and the job was an evening shift position. I was devastated. The idea of animation kinda went away for awhile. I had books of course, but life and personal bad habits kept me from affording the materials I would need to begin. Like I couldn’t afford some round doweling and didn’t already own a hole punch. But it had to be perfect don’t you know. There was also the belief that I would fail if I put myse...

The Very Secret Diaries were a series of Fan Fiction written around the time that the Lord of the Rings trilogies were coming out. The now deleted Wikipedia article stated: " The Very Secret Diaries  are a series of satirical slash fiction stories written by Cassandra Claire in the form of diary entries by various characters in New Line Cinema's  The Lord of the Rings  film trilogy following the release of  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . Claire wrote a handful more stories with the release of  The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers , but then abandoned the series. " I'm sure there was more than one porn parody made featuring the LOTR characters but we, that is Clay and I, wondered what a Hobbit focused porn would be like and thus this comic was born. As revealed later this showing would break the character of Matt. Now, we haven't talked about Matt yet. At the time that we had met him as a young man Matt was very much a sheltered ...

As I've said before, Clay and I were the kings of self deprecating humor. If it was inappropriate and aimed at ourselves, we were all over it.  The Juniors restaurant close to Clay's old place would regularly have their "Fat Boy" burgers on for cheap, often a two-for-one deal. Of course everytime Clay and I would drive past we would comment that we should take our picture in front of the sign. Finally, one day, we were out with Sean and we decided to make this a reality.  Two fat boys for a mere six dollars! That's probably close to six hundred pounds of meat there dear readers. Cheap at twice that price! Sadly those days are gone. I think it's closer to ten dollars now if you want two fat boys. That's right. Tell me we're not in a recession.  The Creative Process above was made by Clay.  ~Brother K'Bob

     Full disclosure time. This webcomic, the second in the series, earned us our first bit of hate mail. It originally ran on October 8th, 2007.  While I never did see the e-mail in question Clayton assured me it was quite virulent, quite angry. Coming at this from a more mature age I can see where it might be considered offensive. The emo kid was supposed to appear in several strips suffering abuse at Corey's hand, usually jokes about suicide well past the line of good taste. Truthfully past the line of even questionable taste. I had also planned for the kid to finally stand up to Corey and take him down a few pegs. Overall it's probably just as well that never happened. I've been dealing with depression, including suicidal depression, since a young age. I was that young, emotional, always angry kid who hid behind black clothes and angry music. Depression and anxiety is no joke. If not for medication to help regulate my moods I probably wo...

"That's a strip" was a common saying among Clay and I whenever we would say or do something stupid.  Trip over a lawn gnome? "That's a strip." Stick our foot in our mouth? "That's a strip." Embarrass ourselves in front of a crowd? "That's a strip." We always joked that we were walking, talking cartoon characters. It was only fitting that we should use our lives as inspiration. Meet the Geeks was always meant to be semi-autobiographical, incorporating fact with fiction in the tradition of the great Gonzo writers. If it's stupid or embarrassing I'm sure it will find it's way into the comic. ~Brother K'Bob

Published on October 15, 2007, The Missing Ingredient is the strip that first introduced the world to our webcomic Meet the Geeks. The comic involved Clayton and Sean watching as Corey dressed as Crazy Britney (Spears) for Keycon's Masquerade. Like many ideas in the comic this one was based off a real life experience. I had dressed as Crazy Britney for the 2007 Masquerade (while Sean followed dressed as WWII Captain America). It was a late night drinking idea that had seemed like a good one at the time. It elicited a lot of laughs but didn't earn any awards. As had been previously mentioned though, this was never meant to be published as a finished strip. I had been practicing trying to figure out the layout for the strip and drew a series of figures before scanning them in for Clay to practice colouring on. As you can see in the raw art there wasn't a coherent gag, just a series of drawings of a rough idea with loosely laid out voice bubbles.  In the e...

Like many in fandom I hold a special place in my heart for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I've danced the Time Warp at midnight at Keycon and at fanish socials. I've seen the movie more times than I can count. So when I heard that Fox was going to be remaking RHPS I was, like many, apprehensive. I mean, why mess with perfection? Why take a beloved property and attempt to redo it? It's a travesty! Right? No. After all, the Rocky Horror Picture Show was the film version of the stage play The Rocky Horror Show. True that many of the actors from the original London cast made the transition from stage to screen including Tim Curry, Nell Campbell (Little Nell), and Patricia Quinn. Meat Loaf was in the Broadway production before appearing in the film. Richard O'Brian, who wrote the play, starred as Riff Raff in the London and Broadway productions before reprising the roll in RHPS. Since then it's been staged hundreds of times around the globe with different int...

Yes, pushed back to October.  October 2016. It may be time to let the cat out of the bag, so to say.  I'm planning a soft launch of the Meet the Geeks comic this month on Comic Fury's free webcomic hosting service. Starting later this month we'll (hopefully) be launching the site with the original comics, updating weekly on Tuesdays.  And after that run is done - well, we'll see.  Check out the new page here:  http://mtgcomic.thecomicseries.com/ During this time there will be continuing updates here on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as occasional blog posts in-between. ~Brother K'Bob

Some time ago I had been going through my old clothes and came across my white dress shirt. I figured I would see how I would look if I smartened myself up a bit and put on the shirt with a pair of dress pants, belt and my ever faithful flat cap.  There was no escaping it. It was right there in front of me, staring back at me.  There he was, celebrity chef extraordinaire; Dom Deluise. Like looking in a mirror ain't it fat boy? Ah well. When it comes to celebrities there are worse people to look like. But I'll never forget that feeling looking into that mirror.  Beer bread anyone? ~Brother K'Bob

I always felt bad for my cat Thunder, all twenty pounds of him, during the times I was working on the comic. He would be circling around my chair meowing, purring, whining and doing whatever he could to get my attention. Of course he never fully understood other than knowing that I was doing something that did not involve him. Of course this applied to most things that I did without him. Showering, going to the washroom, cooking, etc, etc... Of course cats are a big draw. Lar Desouza, comic artist and caricaturist extraordinaire, has three cats. Launchpad, Dante and Pixel, who have become minor celebrities via Lar's "Kittycam". Another of my friends regularly films her morning workouts. Likewise her cats, Misty and Brindy have also become favorites on her page. After all, everyone likes cats. I guess as I work on the new strip I'll have to figure out a way to work our cat Mercy into the creative process. ~Brother K'Bob

On October 3rd, 2016, Winnipegs fandom woke to find themselves fewer by one. At 4:18am Tom Ireland, husband of Anna Murray, passed quietly surrounded by friends and loved ones. I'm forced to admit that I didn't know Tom that well. Although our lives crossed paths for nearly twenty years I never really got to know him. I knew him enough to engage him in conversation and to congratulate him when he and Anna got married in 2015.  I saw him occasionally at my work and he, often accompanied by Anna, would come and chat for a time. We were both engaged in the security industry.  I really wish I had gotten to know him better.  I regret not getting down to see him in the hospital. I wanted to believe that there was still time. We had the good intention of going down to see him but life happened. Maybe next week.  But there is no next week. And I am truly sorry. I wish I knew more about him. Enough to write a short biography. Enough to tell you about...

Today's throwback Thursday is the companion piece to Tuesday's offering. Ahh that trip out had some great lines.  Clay and I had no illusions of our weight. It was a bonding point for us both. Go large or go home. So when ordering and the barista asked if he wanted the regular or the "skinny", well, there was only one way he could respond.  That quick wit is why he wound up doing stand-up comedy. I really miss those days. ~Brother K'Bob

This may surprise you fellow Geeks, but once upon a time Sean was not the responsible husband and father of two that we all know and love. No. There was a time, before his wife Silvy, that he was a smooth pimp. A casanova. A gigalo. A raging man whore! A dirty, dirty SLUT ....  well, maybe that's an exaggeration. But Sean had a way with the ladies. Whether he meant to or not. This is another from the started-but-never-finished files.  On this particular outing Sean, Clay and I went out to a local mall and stopped at a coffee franchise. None of us were really in the mood for coffee but Sean took the cake when ordering. Take away the knowing leer from the picture above and replace it with a naive sheepish look and you'll have what actually happened. The line itself did come from Sean's mouth, but it was delivered earnestly. He genuinely didn't know what he wanted to order. The young lady behind the till didn't take it that way though. As we ma...

Sometimes it's just too easy. Yeah there's sophisticated wit. Clean, sober humor. Family jokes that everyone can enjoy. How boring. If you want to find me and my sense of humor, look towards the horizon, past the border of good taste and that's where you'll find me. The idea for this comic came from a co-worker who in describing my sense of humor would say "Here's the line, and Corey's off somewhere waaayyy over there." I'd like to tell him he's wrong but I've been making mom jokes about his mom for the last eight or so years. That's a lot of mom jokes. It's hard. So if you find yourself offended, don't worry, it's all part of the Brother K'Bob experience.... ~Brother K'Bob

This was actually the first of the Creative Process strips and probably predates the first of the MTG strips. It was daunting at first, sitting in front of my drawing table, faced with a blank sheet of bristol board, and trying to find my muse. I admit that more often than not the ideas just weren't there.  The style of the comic was stolen from one of my muses. The Devils Panties was one of the first webcomics I was introduced to. It was unintentional that this comic closely mirrors one of the first Devils Panties strips but strangely apropos. I think pretty much every cartoonist goes through this. I eventually started to figure it out and once I got the basic idea out it became simpler to write the strips. However it turned out that it was the drawing of those self said strips that would turn out to be the hard part.  As artists we're our own worst enemies. We never think we're good enough, we never have the time. We have to get other things done. E...

Poor Clayton. We, the Geeks, had attended our first joint convention as a group of comic creators. For Clayton there was even greater excitement as David Prowse, the towering Scotsman behind Vaders mask, was going to be in attendance and Clay couldn't wait to meet his idol. On the first day, while I held down the fort, Clay and Sean went over to David Prowse table to speak with him, take their picture and present him with one of our handouts. There was also a plan to try to get him to say "I'm a pretty, pretty, princess" a'la Jennie Breeden of The Devils Panties . As it turns out it was not to be. I don't know if it was simply an off day or if he had just gotten sick of his lot in life, living off the fleeting fame of being the man behind a mask, but he was anything but pleasant with Clayton and Sean. His manner was standoffish and when presented with our handout he told Clay "I have no use for this". Clayton was crushed. Now, in all ...

Welcome Geeks to the first of the Throwback Thursdays where I (finally) jump on this bandwagon to bring you some history from the far flung past from Generation one of the Geeks. Aside from Meet the Geeks there was also a single panel comic called The Creative Process. The idea behind it was to show some of the jokes that would'n't make it into the comic but that amused us none-the-less.  This one, well... it amused me.  It came from a conversation related to me by a person I'll call Big Gay Rick and his response to an excited question. Other person: "Guess what I got?"  BG Rick: "Syphilis?"   Other person "No." BG Rick "A puppy!?!" Of course I had to continue this conversation in my head which ended with "A puppy with syphilis?" It was funny to me at the time. And to this end I kept trying to find a way to incorporate it into the comic. Unfortunately the other Geek's did'n'...

Holy crap! It's a new Meet the Geeks comic! Yes friends, after an extended absence from the web, I, Brother K'Bob, who is sometimes known by the moniker of Corey Toews, have, in my infinite magnanimity, returned the comic from the dead and brought new light to your lives! Ok. Never mind that the comic is one that I drew some time ago and put up on my personal Facebook page back on, oh.... June 2, 2015. Mind you it looked a bit different.  As you can see it's a wee bit different. Over the course of the last year I added some shading, blacks, and lettering.  In the last few days I've been working at my laptop, trying to turn it into something that I can use to start producing comics with. My attempts to find some of my old programs went bust so I started researching workarounds. I never imagined that MS Paint, or rather Paint.net, an add on for Paint, could be a useful tool for doing comic art. While not as slick as Photoshop it's definitely...

A year has passed. It still does'n't seem entirely real. A year devoid of one of the most dedicated mothers that I have ever met. If my pain and sadness is real, what must her son be feeling? To have lost a woman who raised you on her own, with no assistance save the loving hands of her family? To have lost the person who wholly, completely, believed in what you could be and encouraged you at every turn? The woman who put your needs and desires ahead of her own because, through her eyes, blinded as they may be by a mothers love, she saw the talent, ability and potential within and gently drew it out pushing you on to follow the path of that which you loved the most? How must her absence feel? Today, though I haven't seen him for over a year, my thoughts are with my geek brother Clayton in mourning the loss of his mother Sandra Stewart. Sandra Stewart It is because of that dedication, that belief in Clay that the Geek's came about. I can truly say that wi...

Ah, yes. Best intentions. All projects start off with them. All of us say to ourselves "This time I will see this through". But, often, and perhaps more often than not, all the good intentions in the world cannot see us through. But fear not dear reader. As you are seeing this, this proves that I have not forgotten you! I just need to peel myself out from under the mess that I have created for myself. "What mess is that K'Bob?" You ask?  Simply put, too many projects on the go and not enough time for reading and research.  And often just never enough energy. But I am here.  I shall prevail. And hopefully I'll learn to stop making excuses.  Bear with me messes and all. May the Dude be with you. ~Brother K'Bob

Technology is amazing.  My families first computer, aside from our 'Pong' console, was a Commodore Vic 20. Children of today won't recognize it. It was simply a keyboard that plugged into your tv and had a rudimentary operating system on it. You could program in dos and do some basic word processing on it. All in all it was a basic machine, little more than a toy. Now, I'm typing this out on a wirelessly connected miniature keyboard on a small computer that plays music, records video, wirelessly connects to the Internet, and performs a multitude of functions too numerous to list here. When my mother was job searching when I was a child, my father would bring home a massive electric typewriter for her to type out her resume. He would then bring it to his office to photocopy it. She would check the  help wanted section of the newspaper and physically visit each office to drop off a resume. She would then have to wait for a phone call and hope she was home to ...

Once again I have found myself too many days away from my keyboard and not writing like I should. And I am kinda frustrated with myself. I've missed a couple of perfect opportunities for blog posts as the San Diego Comic Con just wrapped up and we've had new trailers for Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange, Walking Dead, Justice League and various other properties. I've had opportunities to release links to these on the Meet the Geeks Facebook page and totally failed. If I was being true to myself I would be all over these news releases. Le sigh. So what am I doing with my day off? Cleaning the house and looking up recipes for Matoke. At least the Matoke is geek related. I've been re-reading Transmetropolitan. More on that later. However Matoke is mentioned in the book several times. See geeks, reading comics can make you a man of the world. There's no real point to this post. It's just me ranting. Back to domestic bliss. Stay tuned true believers. ~...

Happy Canada Day Geeks! No, I didn't get out to celebrate. I had to work. I did get a chance to spend a couple of hours with some friends and have a delicious dinner. I do consider myself fortunate to have been born and raised in Canada. Winnipeg especially. When I think on all that Winnipeg has going for it I feel lucky indeed. For our US Geek friends here is what Canada Day is. From Wikipedia: Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada) is the national day of Canada. It celebrates the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the Constitution Act, 1867 (then called the British North America Act, 1867), which united the three separate colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada. Originally called Dominion Day (French: Le Jour de la Confédération), the holiday was renamed in 1982, the year the Canada Act was passed. The Geeks would also like give their respect to those who have served in the C...

It occurs to me that I have'n't really explained to the readers of Meet the Geeks how I came to have the name Brother K'Bob. Are you interested dear reader? Can you handle the truth?  Strange and terrifying as it may be? I hope you can.   Here we go. It all started in November 1996.  It was the opening weekend for Star Trek: First Contact and I had been invited by a friend (at the time) to go meet up with the  KAG  group that was on hand for the premier. It was at this time that I met the Captain of that ship, Kull of House Jev, later known as Doug, who little did I know would become my nearest and dearest friend and would stand as my best man at my wedding 19 years later. But that is a dark tale for another time. It was the last of the truly interactive premiers that I would attend where the audience was totally immersed in the film.  It was probably also the last of the truly great Star Trek movies (sorry J.J.). After a few meetings and my eve...