The 2nd year of Chris’ Crusher Comics (ChrusherComix for short) was initially going well. I had a girlfriend at the time for 6 months, and — since the comics contain copious amounts of shameless self-inserts of myself, and my friends — The Chrusher got a girlfriend during this period, too. Also, my comics got noticed by teachers, and I was tasked to draw comics for the local school newspaper, the Buccaneer Bulletin. They were meant to go hand-in-hand with the 2nd year of the regular “sketchbook with a storyline” comics that got passed around in study halls for friends to enjoy. But that is where things went horribly wrong.
Sometimes, my friends took offense to the humor. Ray, my good friend and sometimes co-conspirator in these very comics, got really offended at comics of him having some rather illicit relations with unsavory characters, and sometimes… things. He took the comics and demanded I knock off the excessive stuff at his expense. Immature me at the time didn’t, because I thought it was funny. Well, his drug-addicted (and possibly possessed?) friend (that I barely knew) took them, tore them up, and threw them in the garbage at high school.
Months of comics (around 3-5 issues) were lost. I had some good art in them, including a lot with the Chrusher’s girlfriend, which enabled me to get a lot of practice in drawing females (most of the characters were males). Most of the story was also forgotten since so many pages were lost. I recapped some below, but it just wasn’t the same.
With the help of one of the high school assistant principals, Ray and I agreed to stop being angry and wanting to fight each other, that we were friends, agree to get along and work together again, and we did so. However, Ray DID still have to pay the price, which the following volume, “The Last DaYz of the Glare” was. He actually *did* find that funny, as I toned down the illicit stuff, but he still paid for his transgressions against me and the entire ChrusherComix fanbase (basically, just high school friends).
But below is an attempted reconstruction of what was lost. We can never get most of it back, as most of it honestly was almost completely forgotten (although I remember some great art with Chrusher and his girlfriend “SaberSam” fighting criminals, Chrusher being wounded, comatose, and feared dead, and making fun of Ray, but not much else). This, however, gives me an opportunity to reconstruct and retcon some ideas, using unfinished artwork from the era, my memories of the storyline, and retconning some unaddressed plot points to better tie into later storylines. It is under construction, but here is what we have so far:
Christopher Stevens
Christopher Galletta Stevens
RaYzor C.
