About

About the comic:

You are all part of my experiment, now I dance for you! Or something. I started this comic in May of 2004 because I couldn’t take the visions anymore. I only want to make you laugh.

My comic was once called Monkey and is now called Tails From The Backyard. It updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I can say that because I usually schedule them weeks in advance.

I’m on Twitter and Facebook.  Yes, I’m sorry.  The comic also appears on my Tumblr.

My art is not refined, my humor is obscure, my problems are often more ACK-worthy than Cathy’s, the spider wears less than Spider-Man, the animals are less devious than in Get Fuzzy, but I have made at least five people giggle, and so my plan is working…at a very slow pace.

About the author:

I am a nerf herding moon child who lives with myself, two humans and three furry creatures who like to drink water and eat grass, among other things, in a house overlooking the house that overlooks us, as well as some taller houses and a rapidly changing number of trees.

I like to watch movies and (bad?) television shows, I spend an obscene amount of time playing backgammon and brain trainers when I’m waiting for gigs to retouch photos, which is “what I do” when I’m not doing the comic. I really like listening to music, to the point where I can blindly reload my headset with fresh rechargeable batteries in 7 seconds while talking to people and swinging on a swingset–by moonlight. I have playlists on Spotify and am always looking for sounds I haven’t heard before.

I don’t eat meat unless someone forces me to (I am part-Italian); I have Chiari Malformation, which gives me all the side-effects of being a long-term drug abuser without as many fun stories or interesting friends;  I really like Star Wars (all of them, leave Jar Jar alone);  I love Tom Waits as a strange friend and I worship Jek Porkins as the immortal God that he is. I can lift half my body weight and should not be exposed to high temperatures.

I sell buttons and prints of my art on Etsy. I’m so eager for people to buy my work, that I even made a banner.
If there’s anything I’ve left out, tell me.

Cast and History:

I am quite obviously not formally trained to draw.
I’ve just been troubled by horrible visions when I’m within arms length of napkins and a pen for the last thirty years or so.
Many years ago, I filled a book with drawings and called it the Yippee Book, because I liked the word ‘yippee’ and it was, in fact, a book. These drawings troubled some people, but I continued to hone my nonexistent skills and entertain members of my family, who may have only laughed because they didn’t want me to draw them. Since then, I’ve managed to take up several packages of napkins chronicling the past few years of my life. Someday, I will scan those too, but for now, you get of my comic.

There is me, I’ve been called monkey by doctors and adults. I live on peanut butter, black coffee and moisturized hand soap. I begin to smolder when exposed to sunlight and I’m itchy. I wear a headset radio to make life more entertaining and a braid to remind me of things that are not so much fun.
I started drawing this strip in 2004 and unfortunately appear in much of it.  As in real life, I sit around trying to figure out how to hit the big time and observing things. I’m happiest when watching small furry creatures and drinking coffee.

The Ninja Twins were sprung from the North Shore Animal League after promising not to let them out of the house under any circumstances. Before that they arrived here from their home planet and immediately took on the mafia in search of fishy.
The Fluffy One is a lawyer, doctor, and philosopher.  Skilled in Jo stick fighting, he loves outtie time and explaining the unknown.
The Slinky One is fascinated by nature and hot things. He doesn’t talk as much as his brother, but when he does he usually tells it like it is.

The Puppy arrived mysteriously in April 2006, after The Woman and Grand Funk pulled some strings from beyond and had her placed directly in our path. She likes to taste everything, struggles with trust issues, loves flowers, and gets nervous around technology despite secretly being Doctor Whoof.

The Woman also spent some time at NSAL after touring with a rock band for a while. It wasn’t long before she used her hypnotic gaze to herd us into the car with her. We have been her flock ever since. She likes squeaky stars, singing songs she’s written, and sports of all sorts.
In March of 2006 The Woman took on the second job of helping Jesus out with his shepherding duties. She appears–sometimes with M’Man–to give advice or comment on some calamity she’s happy to have avoided.

M’man is currently a spirit that comes to visit me when he feels like it. He was not always so, my left arm and he were quite the item for the better part of 15 years. He tends to hang out under shade plants and surprises birds by appearing in the sky next to them.
In recent years he tends to hit on The Twins, mistaking them for hot, sexy, fluffy girls. He also appears as Space Glitter Cat, a fun- and flannel-loving apparition in the sky.

The spider lives over the window. Not much is known about him as I tend to stay as far away from all insects as is possible. He isn’t much of a hunter, has a “pet” called Flydo, and lives solely on poly-fill, coffee, and swing music.
Bitten by an angry, radio-wearing human in 2007, he became Homo-Arachnid, a humanoid creature with no special powers whatsoever aside from the ability to win non-stop at backgammon.

Other recurring characters in the strip include the Squirrel with No Fear, mantids, birds and random rodents who share the backyard and occasionally the house with us.
Tom Waits, Mr. T, Yoko Ono, Gary Oldman, and the disembodied voice of Johnny Cash have all made appearances in the strip over the years, as do The Puppy’s boyfriends Buddha and Lars, and The Spider’s hero Peggy Sue The Spider Fairy, who is very real, and very cool.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.