Five years ago, when I was a lonely teenager with a punk fixation, I started writing a comic called Adventures Close to Home. It was an outlet for all my teen angst and a patchwork of my biggest influences at the time, intended to be an early testing ground for my growing interest in comics. I wrote about Al and Carl, two aimless 22 year-olds re-evaluating life with high school in the rear view. And then a weird thing happened: I kept writing more episodes, and slowly I started catching up to the characters in age. Today, Al and Carl are no longer twisted models of adulthood, but my peers, and I feel even closer to them as a result. I feel like we grew up together.
Today, I’m ending this chapter in the lives of both Al and Carl and myself. This will be the last Adventures Close to Home for the foreseeable future. It’s possible I’ll pick the story up again in time (I still have plenty of ideas), but it felt right to end it now. I’ve had this conclusion in mind for years, and it was time to put it to paper. As it stands, I’ve written 12 chapters and 73 pages of ACTH. They vary in quality, but I’m proud of them. I’m exploring the possibility of printing or publishing the series (under the title “Adventures Close to Home: Hold My Hair, I Think I’m Gonna Puke”), but for now you can read all of them on my website at https://www.vomitparty.com/adventuresclosetohome.
Thank you to anyone who has ever read a page of this comic, whether you were following along or reading casually on social media. I hope this story connects with you and provides a couple of laughs.
The image below is the first time I ever drew Al and Carl, circa 2018. I’ve grown a lot as a person and an artist since then, and I’m still growing up. I like to think this story is a reminder that we all are.
