Last year, I produced a run of three strips for an anthology from the team behind the former Haunted MTL. Consider them a pilot. Since the book has been out a while, it feels like now is a good time to share the comics and make a little proposal.

Thorn By My Side: The Test Comics

So, let me pitch something, shall I? Here are the three comics. They were completed in January of last year.

Alright, so take a moment and see if you like them. While you do that, let me explain a little bit about the concept.

You’ve probably seen several drawings of Briar, who is one of the two leads of Thorn By My Side, especially if you’ve been following me on social media for a while. They are showing up n the sketchbook a lot. You may have also seen a decidedly spicier Briar drawing as well. You have also seen Thorn, the goblin, at least a couple of times. I’ve been noodling around with the characters and trying to find a style for them. Looking at these test comics, I already see some stuff I might change. But they exist as a thing you can look at now and that is important.

The Concept

The concept of the comic is a simple one: Briar is a girl-failure millennial who struggles with anxiety, work, and her not-so-social life. Her case is pronounced enough that she has been assigned a life coach in the form of an emotional-support cryptid named Thorn, the goblin. Thorn, however, is not very good at his job, nor does he want to be, and he just finds it more fun to enable Briar’s behavior, acting more like a roommate than anything. Of course, only Briar can see Thorn. Maybe it’s all in her addled millennial brain. Or maybe there is quite literally a council of cryptids who try to guide humans toward betterment. We’ll probably find out.

That’s it, that’s the concept. There are, of course, other things involved, some other cast, and some possible stories. The main thing is that this would not be a big story or anything, just a comic strip. The comic is a way for me to process experiences about my generation and explore culture, anxiety, and life through a couple of characters. Relatable gags about life are the key, but with some elements that lean into the overworked, undersexed, awkward Briar and the somewhat sociopathic enabler Thorn. Two neurodivergent folks living together probably make one another worse.

I’ve thought about different kinds of gimmicks and worldbuilding, such as some light lore about cryptids and their relationships to humans. I have also considered ideas like having the characters review things as comics that lean into their obsessions. Hell, I’ve even considered doing NSFW comics as well – the idea of Briar being a failed OnlyFans model has popped up a couple of times. Nothing is set in stone, but people do seem to like Briar, and I am a people pleaser.

Plus, goth girl, so…

Basically, I think there is a lot of opportunity for the comic, but the question is: is there a potential audience there?

So…

So, what do you think? Would you want to see more of this comic? Please comment and let me know what you think about it, and feel free to ask any questions you may have. I’m not committed, yet, but I wouldn’t mind hard questions if you have them.

If you would like to support the work on do here at the website and help me produce comics and stories, donations and subscriptions always help. I post early access material on Ko-fi for as little as $1 a month, and it can really add up. My current goal is to handle my monthly server costs through donations, and we’re about halfway there.

The post Thorn By My Side: The Test Comics appeared first on hpkomics.com.

But for now, we’re here for the robots. The month of January was a nice full month of updates and there are some favorites of mine in the mix. Let’s check them out.

RGBots Updates: January 2026

Do the robots live in a post-apocalypse or are they contemporary passengers in our plane of existence? My answer is, “yes.” They are where they need to be for the joke.

Ro paraphrase from a great television show, MST3K: Repeat to yourself it’s just a robot comic strip, you should really just relax.

Speaking of a joke, how about how the month kicked off with the U.S. kidnapping a head of state of another nation?

Blu’s medical advice is terrible. Do not follow anything she says.

Red describing Green’s disassociative episodes is a fun thread I’ve turned to a few times. Green doesn’t even need to be seen to still serve a joke. Green has become the main character in any ways.

This was my favorite strip for January. It’s so simple.

This one was a lot of fun, too.

Someone on Discord mentioned we’re getting to the point where we can no longer distinguish what is reality and what is an RGBots punchline. That was the greatest compliment I ever received.

This one is one of my better examples of word play as a joke on RGBots. I was very happy with it.

Green as a contractor for generative AI was just doo fun of an idea to not do. I’ve been sitting on a few other ideas tied to this one we’ll probably see over the coming months.

Inspired by a day at my job. I ended up eating a third of a sheet cake that I kept in the 4th floor refrigerator.

This is part of a plotline I am going to explore. I also want to see if I can make Green into a v-tuber. We’ll see when I get there.

Please share your favorite comic in the comments, and feel free to share the comics on social media.

If you enjoy comics like this, as well as other projects, please consider supporting me and my work on Ko-fi with a one-time donation, or a recurring subscription for as little as $1 a month.

The post RGBots Updates: January 2026 appeared first on hpkomics.com.

This collection features the following stories:

• “ShmoofyLand Robot Rampage” – The crew makes a delivery of advanced tech to a beloved galactic theme park destination, unaware robot radicals plan on snatching up the technology for the great purpose of robotic liberation!
• “Death and the High Cost of Delivery” – Kracker has to deliver a package on his own and gets swept up into a covert operations against a sinister galactic cult.
• “Paranoia” – Someone from Dash’s past is working on his last nerve. Can the crew figure out what has Dash on edge before he does something extreme?

You can download the collection on Ko-fi. This is a pay-what-you-want collection, meaning you can download it for free if you wish. Of course, donations are always encouraged. A buck seems fair for over 100 pages of comics, right?

Additionally, this volume may be “plussed” in the future with remastered and updated pages and potential additional content. If you download the comic you are entitled to free updates when they happen.

Download Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 – “Connections” (PDF Edition) via Ko-Fi!

Cover Gallery

Here is a collection of covers that make up Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1. You can click on any cover to see a larger version.

Want more Cosmic Dash?

You’re in luck if you want more Cosmic Dash adventures. More comic volumes will be arriving in the coming months. In addition, classic shorts stories and novellas will be added to the updated and expanding archive. You can keep track of new releases and where they fit in series continuity on the series timeline page or the Cosmic Dash Project Hub.

Additionally, you can learn more about the recent changes to the series in a recent announcement post.

The post Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 – “Connections” (PDF Edition) Now Available appeared first on hpkomics.com.

A lot of this is due to changes in life, between my dependency on freelancing over the last few years, and finally getting the full-time teaching position I have been after, the comic ended up taking a backseat. It’s understandable why – survivability trumps my passion projects. Cosmic Dash is a labor of love, but it is so time-consuming that I can’t make it work with my schedule. I am one person, with an occasional assist from Kevin, of course, but I put a lot of effort into the comic that just slows me down overall.

The time investment in the comic just isn’t worth cutting into my existing full-time schedule. As fun as it can be to draw, I am not a fast artist either. It’s a perfect storm of production issues.

But one thing I know is that Cosmic Dash, as a concept, is bigger than the comic. The characters and stories can exist through writing.

The Switch to Prose

Cosmic Dash’s characters and settings have been explored in prose before. I’ve written two novellas and numerous short stories featuring the characters and setting. I believe the volume of written material outpaces the comic material by a significant margin at this point.

So, why am I keen to switch to prose primarily now? If you’ve been following me and my website, you’ll recognize Fang of Triseria and The Dead Life, two novels I am writing. Simply put, I have been able to turn around installments of those far faster than comic pages. Additionally, they just make me happy to write. I have always seen myself as more of a writer than an illustrator and feel most at my element with sentences and paragraphs.

So, my impulse is to continue telling Cosmic Dash stories that way. If I stick to comics, the story just won’t update enough. Through prose, I am far more consistent, and I can get through the backlog of stories I wish to tell.

How Will This Work?

While I still intend to finish episode three of volume four, “Ladies Fight,” as a comic, I plan to start novelizing the story of volume five immediately. It is a big story I have been itching to get to, and I am excited to finally be writing it – I’ve had the outline in my Google Drive for literal years at this point.

But I am not giving up on art entirely. The plan is to have chapter images and additional illustrations included in the written work for some visual variation – much like the chapter image galleries for Fang of Triseria or The Dead Life. I can draw a character or scene in a relatively quick manner. Entire pages are the issue, here.

Additionally, the idea is to scale back the CosmicDash.com website to a project hub here on hpkomics, including a PDF archive of the comics and existing short stories. Pulling down the website and folding it into this website is a huge deal and not something I am pursuing lightly. I’ve had a standalone Cosmic Dash website for decades. It’ll be sad to see it go. The same applies to Serreven.com, of course, including all those comics and the lore posts. All of those are going to be folded over into hpkomics as well.

Feeling Optimistic

I’ve been agonizing over this move for a few months now. I saw the writing on the wall in early 2025, and as much as I tried to fight it, I knew this was coming. In a lot of ways, I am still not entirely comfortable with stepping away from Cosmic Dash as a comic, but I have grown more accepting of it.

As fun as the comic is, I believe that what people come to the website for are the characters and the stories. I am excited about the opportunity to write a more reliably frequent story for the people who love Dash, Mara, Kracker, and the rest of the cast. There have been so many plot threads that are just hanging there, and I will have a way to finally get to them. Plus, everything that exists is still canon.

I don’t think this is the end of the comic, entirely, either. One day, maybe I’ll have the ability to hire help to create comics. For now, though, that will need to wait. I am just not reliable enough to tell the stories primarily through comics right now. I accept my limitations, and I am thankful I can find another path to the same story concepts.

See Ya, Space Cowboy

As it stands, I am already in the writing process for the first new Cosmic Dash novel that will cover the events of what would have been Cosmic Dash: Volume Five. I am working to give myself a buffer of a few chapters before I begin releasing them. Additionally, I’ll need to post the archived materials to hpkomics, which will eat up a little time as well. I am not going to confirm a date, but I feel giving myself six months to accomplish the migration and write new material is fair.

So, we’ll say to expect the new Cosmic Dash novel in June. That seems about right. But in the meantime, don’t be surprised if we have some smaller releases.

This week, we’ll be launching with the story hub, timeline page, and two remastered short stories, “Son of the Soil” and “Preacher.” Expect frequent updates of existing short stories as I begin to port everything to hpkomics. Additionally, the PDF edition of Volume One of the comic is available right now as well.

Once the archive is moved over to hpkomics, the Cosmic Dash domain will redirect to the story hub here on this website.

In any case, please share your thoughts in the comments below. If you enjoy this material, consider supporting my work on Ko-Fi.

The post The Future of Cosmic Dash appeared first on hpkomics.com.

About Dash Kameku

Dash is, of course, one of my oldest characters by far, only beaten for that position by Eron Cameya, another OC of mine. For the record, Bernell Marken would be the third oldest character. Dash has been around since I was a child.

Right now he’s associated with Cosmic Dash, but I’ve thought about him as a character I could put into other projects in the future, kind of like Karma. That hasn’t panned out, though, yet. I am very much a fan of the Tezuka Star System.

No sense in dropping him into other projects when his webcomic has been the victim of a massive schedule slip. Regrettably I haven’t had a ton of opportunities to continue Cosmic Dash, and it weighs on me heavily.

Upcoming Cosmic Dash News

On the tragic note of me not drawing much of Dash, lately, and the hiatus of the comic, I’ll have an announcement next week. There is a big announcement next week on Jan. 27th, which is, coincidentally, my birthday.

This is a substantial update and not a direction I thought things would head, but it also makes sense given the trajectory of my life. So please keep an eye out for the news.

Oh, and here is a clean render of Dash Kameku from the sketchbook page.

As always, if you are interested in supporting what I do, you can do so through donations on Ko-Fi. I also take commissions.

The post 2026 Sketchbook #010 – Dash Kameku appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Let’s see what comics were released last month.

RGBots Updates: December 2025

You have to be pretty close to someone to make a joke about their dead mom. Love you, Kevin. I really enjoy making comics about friends and in-jokes. Doesn’t mean they will land with a broader audience, but if it was about I broader audience I wouldn’t be doing RGBots.

In this one, Ally, listener of Supernatural Selection, decided to drop a question about frogs. I went weird with it, as always. I have a lot of fun with the juxtaposition of these robots and sensory abilities that make no sense for them to have.

It’s kind of like Bender in Futurama always being sad he can’t feel things.

Here is my “old man on the internet” comic for the month. I’m not that much of a curmudgeon, I don’t think. I don’t know. You tell me.

Heed the bumper stickers you see on the road. It’s like fishing.

Getting into heavy economic theory in this one. I always enjoy a good “of course, you idiot” type of punchline or reveal.

This was an interesting case. The comic was about the discourse surrounding a person, not about them, per se, yet they were compelled to try to rope me into a conversation about the strip with an emphasis on themselves and completely missing the point being made. It’s not about them, it’s about the person caught in their wake being reduced to a punchline.

It really seemed their emphasis was more about how they were viewed when all they were was context to a different issue. You may also have noticed I have no mentioned the person’s name here in this post, either. They are a notorious namesearcher.

I find myself having Blue’s thoughts here and there. I mean, all three character are aspects of my personality – not always so extreme, at least, I hope not – but aspects of my personality regardless.

It’s the annual RGBots Christmas Special! I seem to mention spiders a lot in these comics.

This felt like getting back to my roots – yelling at people for having wrong opinions on science fiction shows.

Please share your favorite comic in the comments, and feel free to share the comics on social media.

If you enjoy comics like this, as well as other projects, please consider supporting me and my work on Ko-fi with a one-time donation, or a recurring subscription for as little as $1 a month.

The post RGBots Updates: December 2025 appeared first on hpkomics.com.

So yeah, here is the main character, Lauren Ipsum herself. I really love the classic cartooning look of this character, and the overall comic. It has always given me a warm, nostalgic feeling. I grew up reading a lot of newspaper comics as a kid, and I feel like Brubaker’s work would have fit right in alongside some of the comics I loved.

The other thing that I think makes Lauren a good cartoon character is that she is easy to draw. I do not mean that in any dismissive way, rather, the shape language is very strong and you know right away as you draw the character that you’re on the right track or not. The overbite and the ears are particularly key in the look, I found. When I was happy with those I felt I was on the right path.

As always, here is the key art without the sketch. Charles, if you are checking this out, let me know if you want to full resolution image.

As always, if you are interested in supporting what I do, you can do so through donations on Ko-Fi. I also take commissions.

The post 2026 Sketchbook #003 – Lauren Ipsum appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Rather than updating everything that has been posted since January 20th of 2025, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to share a handful of favorite additions to the archive. Then starting this month, I’ll focus on doing a monthly roundups. We’ll get back to regular comic collection posts as soon as possible.

Anyway, onto the comic collection!

RGBots Archive: Catch Up Edition

First off we have this fun new Green variant I need to find more uses for. Green is my favorite bot to draw in increasingly screwed up ways.

This one was based on a real incident. I was being cyberstalked, completely ineffectively. It was kind of sad, honestly. They kind of stopped after this one.

I miss them.

There is nothing I love more than establishing constant, contradictory backstories for these dumb robots.

Nothing.

Is Green a murder? For sure.

Time really is a flat circle, isn’t it? Flattened by tank treads, I mean.

I don’t know what to tell you, I ended up having a pretty great day that day.

This is a whole new sub-series of comics I absolutely intend to do more with. I might do it with the other bots, but honestly, Green is absolutely the best character for this kind of thing.

This one is my favorite of the batch because appeals to my inner-twelve year old.

Buttholes are always funny. Itchy ones? Even funnier.

Please share your favorite comic in the comments, and feel free to share the comics on social media.

If you enjoy comics like this, as well as other projects, please consider supporting me and my work on Ko-fi with a one-time donation, or a recurring subscription for as little as $1 a month.

The post RGBots Updates: Catching Up Edition appeared first on hpkomics.com.

If you aren’t familiar with the project, here’s an overview from the webpage:

About the Project

To celebrate the arrival of the iconic Popeye the Sailor in the public domain, I wanted to draw a continuous, cartoony fight scene. It made sense to include my rough-and-tumble take on Steamboat Willie (aka Mickey Mouse). Thus, Steamboat Sailor Brawl! emerged—a comic that explores transformative work using public domain cartoon characters.

The project is simple: throughout 2025 I will attempt to draw as many comic panels as I can, sometimes daily, depicting a ridiculous brawl between these two cartoon icons. In the spirit of this being a comic utilizing public domain characters, you are welcome to remix and repurpose these cartoons, or join in the fun.

As mentioned, I am hoping some folks might want to jump in and draw panels here and there where these characters beat the ink and paint out of one another. It’s going to be more about shorter exchanges of panels and more frequent updates on my end. As we’ve seen with the current updates, I’ve been mostly focused on multi-panel updates, but now I am going to switch gears to smaller updates for more of a back-and-forth feel.

So, with that in mind, it should make it easy for anyone to jump in. Just get in touch with me. Contributions should be limited to one or two panels, with an emphasis on fighting. That’s about it really.

As this is a public domain project, there is no claim of ownership on my part. This project has an element of an exquisite corpse. All contributors will have their contributions linked to their website or social media as necessary as well as the links page.

So, if you are interested in drawing a panel, please contact me about it and I’d be happy to work with you. This is wishful thinking on my part, but I am indebted to the public domain here and want this project to be just as open.

Anyway, check out the comic and consider joining the fray!

The post Want to Join the Steamboat Sailor Brawl!?! appeared first on hpkomics.com.

He is a big boy.

Polarstus is also known in lore and legend around the galaxy as “the star eater” but few believe that this giant monster actually exists. The bulk of Xenotrackers is about brilliant xenobiologist Goja Femb, who earnestly believes there is an entire array of leviathan species out there; Leviathans being the term for kaiju in the comic.

And yes, he is very heavily inspired by Godzilla.

As for Polarstus, he has remained largely hidden because of long hibernation periods within stars, which seems impossible. But what is impossible to a kaiju, anyway?

Let me know if you want to see me adapt Dracula someday. If you are interested in supporting what I do, you can do so through donations on Ko-Fi. I also take commissions.

The post 2025 Sketchbook #031 – Polarstus appeared first on hpkomics.com.