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Rotting Bristle Board: The Story Of SAJ
🕑 Added 2025-03-23 00:11:07 +0000 UTCWhat the heck is SAJ (rhymes with dodge)? SAJ was an acronym for Steve, Angie (Mantiski) and Joe, three kid mantises who had wacky high school adventures around the time when I was having wacky high school adventures. Inseparable as I was from my buddies Steve (now deceased and deeply missed) and Joe (hi Joe!), at the tender age of 15 I drew the three of us as praying mantises for shits and giggles. The shits and giggles stuck, and this was the earliest evolutionary example of KaeMantis as we know her.
Steve O'Podd (orange hat) was good-natured, sporty and an all around cool dude who strove to be a threate actor. Joe Pondscum (black clothes) was sullen and moody, an aspiring writer and poet. Mantiski (usually called Angie, less so in her current incarnation) was chaotic and probably on the spectrum, and a wannabe artist (just like I'm a wannabe artist). SAJ had no leader, and the trio would simply rotate the protagonist mantle depending upon the day's hijinks. They had a gaggle of zany friends, would get into outlandish foibles and generally enjoyed an "Animaniacs meets Daria" sort of vibe.
It originally occurred to me to insert all three mantids into WwF; I experimented with same in very early drafts, but it was too much. I trimmed the hive to just Mantiski, though her canon backstory suggests that she went to grade school ("mantissori") with two beloved mantis classmates. Granted, Clem also had/has two male platonic best friends, but if it weren't for coincidences I'd have no incidences at all.
I was REALLY into chiaroscuro back in the day...holy Sharpie serial killers, Batman. Also, dig the little insert by my then-art teacher. She was cool. Most art teachers are.
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Must Love Frogs
Yeah, he passed away shortly after college. He was also my senior prom date. His family rented us a limo and we made it go through the Wendy's drive through so we could get frosties. Happy times.
Must Love Frogs
I was a pro wrestling dork in the late 80s and early 90s! Hence why Riley's alter ego RAMPAGE BLACK exists. As far as being a furry artist in high school, while I knew the term "anthropomorphic" due to our mutual comic-drawing friend, it wouldn't be till college when I learned the sheer heinous enormity of THE FURRY FANDOM...and how seamlessly I fit into it.
Jonathan
My condolences on your friend's death. And thank you so much for sharing these early looks into your artistry. And you are NOT a wannabe artist!
PebbleLion
I so adore this look back at baby Kae and how your creative style developed, along with your humor. Me and my circle were wrestling/videogame dorks, some in Special Ed (Because in the 90's, you put the problem kids in with the disabled kids when you had no idea of how to deal with the emotionally unprepared for life/troubled kids) and some just outcasts. I ended up the only furry out of them all though. I would have killed for one of us to be an artist. Mostly because I needed someone to take all of the ideas in my head (We were all called the -NEW- Star Fox Force), and translate them into art.
Must Love Frogs
"You had friends before me??" "Gaw?..."
Must Love Frogs
We also thought Billy Joel songs, and references thereto, were funny. Like, REALLY funny. Are they? Someone tell me if they are, I still don't know.
Jose Rosa
Agnes found Mantiski's old album and is relentlessly flipping through pages. That being said, I love wandering through old sketchbooks. Sweet delicious memories.
Joe P
Hi! Bonus knowledge: you chose for us to be mantises because, in those days, the proto/pre-Adult Swim series Space Ghost Coast to Coast was ascendant and we were obsessed. Throw in a few dozen other obsessions, mix liberally with our own perspective and, badaboom, you have a comic series!
