The Draw Play

Matt Schaub finally got his man.

The first comic I ever made was for the Something Awful football forum in early March 2012. That was where they stayed for several months, when I was doing roughly one per week. At some point thanks to some prodding by the forum members, I decided to start archiving them on a site. My wife went and set everything up because I had no technical knowledge on how to do that, and I started to upload the comics. I didn’t know what to call it, and it was almost called The No Fun league. Fun fact, the folder on my computer where I keep all my DP files is still called The No Fun League. After 7 and a half years, I’ve never bothered to change it.

It almost feels unnecessary to say that I never expected to make it this far. I didn’t expect to reach 100, let alone ten times that. I never expected anybody to care about it outside myself and what SA goons already knew about it. It’s been a hell of a time. I’ve gone from unemployed and lost to partly employed and inspired, to totally freelance, to fully-employed married homeowner who simply keeps this going for the fun of it. There are times when it sucks. I sometimes shudder thinking about all the nights I’ve lost with friends, with my wife, and just with my own self because I needed to come home and make another joke about Tom Brady deflating balls. It would have been easier to just stop. Outside my relationship, I’ve never really stuck with anything this long.

But knowing that a bunch of random people on the internet I’ve never met care about what I have to say, or want to laugh at the funny faces I give Eli, is one hell of a motivation. You readers are the reason I’m still devoting multiple hours of my life to this site almost every night every week. You’ve helped make this site a part of my life. I still laugh and get excited when I feel like I’ve made a good one. It’s always incredibly rewarding when I stick in some small detail that I figure nobody is going to notice and by the time I wake up 3 people have already commented on it.

Ringless Rivers was the first true running gag I ever had and arguably my first “hit”, so it felt only fitting to wrap up 1000 comics with some closure on that story, especially as the careers of all the participants wind down into their twilight.

So with that said, here’s some more specific thanks:
-Thank you to my wife Keeley, who this site would not exist without, and who has had an immeasurable amount of patience year in and year out as I sit in the office drawing butts instead of spending time with her. She’s my joke tester and my tech support, and an incredible positive influence.
-Thank you to Spilly, Sam, Mike, Sarah, Marcus, Trevor, PFT Commenter, Drew Magary and the rest of the crew of Kissing Suzy Kolber, who’s incredible sense of humor was the major inspiration for this comic and that picked me up in the first year and helped set me on this path of NFL nonsense, and many of whom I now consider real life friends.
-Thank you to Sam especially, who I still haven’t even met in person, for helping be a great podcast partner for the past several years.
-Thank you to Rob Press, who’s Too Much Mustard comic was a wonderful piece of competition to keep me trying to get better, and who was gracious enough to help me make several comics and was kind enough to allow me to host his archive of stick figure hilarity.
-Thank you to all the SA goons from The Farthouse who helped give my art career a direction and a purpose. I know I don’t have time to post there much these days, but I’ll never forget the lot of you and where I came from. Even the few of you I’ve been lucky enough to meet. None of you have been creepy. Thanks for letting me draw many of you as cameos on the site, and especially when I’ve had the opportunity to kill you in a comic. Many of you (like Buff Dolphins Man and Dr Swickles) have even become recurring characters. You’ve all been insanely supportive. I wish I could name all of you, but it would take up a lot of space.
-To my college football watching buddies, watching games with you is a large reason why I expanded my view of the league past just the Giants. To Jeff especially, for being one of the more tolerable Patriots fans I’ve ever met. I know you’re gonna read this, and I just want you to know I’m genuinely thankful to know you and also Tom Brady can go fuck himself.
-To the guys behind (I believe now defunct) Draftpedia App, who originally contacted me for the NFL draft cards. Your idea for one season has become a beloved yearly tradition.
-To the many sports media writers, editors, and the like at countless sites that have given me words of encouragement and shared my stuff.
-To my parents, who none of this silliness would technically exist without! Thank you for making me a Giants fan and sharing memories with you. Thank you for letting me go to art college and while I’m sure this isn’t exactly what you figured I’d be doing with my degree or my life you’ve always been supportive of me making dumb comics since I was a wee baby. To Dad, thanks for everything, and I miss you.
-Thank you to everyone who has ever sent in guest comics when I was sick, or traveling, or getting married. You helped save my ass on multiple occasions.
-To Joe, who I once paid money to so you would spruce up the site, and then you did a minuscule amount of work and then ghosted me with the payment, thanks for teaching me a valuable lesson of vetting who I’m working with and also you can go eat shit fucko I hope you trip and fall in a sewer.
-To anyone who ever asked for a commission or contributed to the Patreon while it was active. I ran out of time to really devote hours to all of you, but you helped get me through some skinny years.

And lastly, to anyone who has ever read, commented on, shared, or laughed at my work. Anyone from the longtime readers who were with me seemingly from the beginning to newbies who didn’t even realize Ringless Rivers was a running gag. If you have ever liked and shared my work, I am beyond grateful. I do this for all of you, and there isn’t enough I can say.

I don’t know if I’m gonna make 2000, but for now I see no reason to stop. Thanks for sticking with me this long and allowing me to be dumb on the internet, and lets keep the ride going.

-Dave

I’m traveling the rest of the week and I’m taking it off because frankly I feel like I earned it. Comics should resume back next week. I also plan on going through my archive in the coming weeks and doing an in-depth statistical analysis similar to what I did for comic #300, which will debut as soon as I’m ready. But since I know people are gonna ask because people always ask, if I had to pick a favorite comic, I think I can safely say this is my favorite comic. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in December!