December 31st, 2016

This strip is about a week late, but it was the best I could do. And I don't want to seem pretentious with what Billy's talking about here; it was all for the sake of the joke.

Well, this is the end of 2016. Man, so much has happened this year. It's crazy. And no doubt, it's only gonna get crazier next year. Billy's going to be three years old! Dang, it seems so much longer since I started out this strip. And yet, it seems like less than three years? Weird.

Thanks for sticking with Billy and the gang. I can't tell you how grateful I am for all your support. I hope this coming year is just as good for Billy! Let's see how much we can grow the Billy community!

See you all next year!

December 29th, 2016

Welp, that ends that Billy the Pop story. I'd say this was one of the bigger stories plot-wise. It was definitely fun to write and draw, so I hope you liked it!

Remember to check out the new Billy the Pop book here!

December 27th, 2016

Oh, Billy. You've taken it too far this time around. Seriously. This is just too much.

Remember to check out the new Billy the Pop book here!

December 25th, 2016

Merry Christmas, everybody! Or Hanukkah, or any holiday you celebrate. I hope your holiday season has been a great one!

Aw man. Billy's really done it this time.

December 23rd, 2016

Oh no. Things are starting to go downhill in this story. What will happen now??

Just another reminder that the first Billy the Pop book has been released! You can order it here or on Amazon. Thanks for your support!

December 21st, 2016

Everyone! I have BIG news today. The first Billy the Pop BOOK is now available for purchase! It contains the first year and a quarter of Billy strips, and features never-before-seen illustrations, as well as an amazing foreword by Mike Rhode, the editor of ComicsDC! If you guys really love Billy, are looking for a last-minute Christmas present, or just want to support the strip, I would truly appreciate it if you would buy a copy. It's super exiting to be able to look at my own work in book form, and I hope you feel the same way!
Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Billy-Pop-Cole-Goco/dp/1539198022/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

December 19th, 2016

We're back to this storyline. Billy and Pete are still messing around on the beach. What will happen next?

December 15th, 2016

Color-wise, this was another experiment in using brighter, more vibrant colors, especially in the last panel. I think they might actually be a bit too bright in that last panel, but I'm not quite sure. You guys can let me know whether you prefer these kinds of colors or more less-saturated ones.

December 13th, 2016

I always like writing King Billy strips. This one was also fun to draw; I like how the wave in panel three looks.

December 11th, 2016

This was inspired by a prank my cousins pulled on me once. We were playing card games and they asked if I wanted to play "52-card Pickup." Not knowing what that was, I said okay. They then threw all 52 cards onto the ground and told me to pick them up. 

I thought that was pretty funny, so I made my own version of it into this strip.

December 9th, 2016

There are tons of these little crab burrows on the Outer Banks. My family and I used to go there a lot, but I never found out if there were any crabs in them during the daytime.

December 7th, 2016

Oh, Billy.

December 5th, 2016

For anyone new to the strip, panel three is referencing this rather dark storyline I made just over a year ago. Long story short, Pete can't swim.

December 3rd, 2016

This is the start of a new Billy the Pop story! Oh boy! What will happen next? I don't know! Just kidding, I've drawn the whole story already. But you don't know! And the only way to find out is to stay tuned!

December 1st, 2016

I really like how the panoramic view at the top turned out. I've always loved those long, sweeping angles and I'd never really tried to draw one until this strip. I think it looks pretty good!

Wow, December already! So much has happened this year. it's hard to believe there's only one month left!

November 29th, 2016

Trickling water is the most relaxing sound to me. Even the word "trickle" sounds nice. Trickle. Trickle. Trickle.

November 27th, 2016

Sea cucumbers are one of the oddest things ever. Nature can be weirder than anything people make up.

November 25th, 2016

Hey guys! Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! As always, I'm thankful for you all for reading this strip and supporting me.

This and the next couple weeks' worth of strips were drawn in Maine. So there's that.

November 23rd, 2016

This one's kinda weird and I'm not sure whether it's funny or not.
I really don't know what Harley's hair would look like in real life. I guess that's up to interpretation.

November 21st, 2016

Clouds are pretty awesome. 

November 19th, 2016

Hey y'all! Sorry for the lack of posting; I've had some computer troubles for the last few days. But it's all good now.

I've never tried to draw an ant from a super-close view like in panel 2 before. I didn't really get it perfect, but it makes me want to draw bugs for often.
Also, after I finished drawing this I realized there's a Calvin and Hobbes strip that has basically the same joke. There was no joke-stealing intended, I'm just a huge Calvin fan and it must have rubbed off on me subconsciously. :)

November 13th, 2016

Billy's line in the last panel was originally "Summer is the best," because I drew this during the summer, but I later realized that it would be halfway through November by the time it came out, so I changed the line. I think the original line is better, but I didn't want it to be dated. Now you may be saying, "Why didn't you just run the strip during the summer and run some other strip today?" to which I respond: I don't know and it's just a dumb principle I have.

I went for a primarily orange, green and blue-green color palette here. That's one of my favorite color combos, so I like how this one looks.

November 11th, 2016

This is probably the biggest black-to-white ratio I've had in a Billy strip yet.

November 9th, 2016

More Billy spying shenanigans. Will he ever complete a mission?

Well, the election's over. This has been a very crazy year.

November 7th, 2016

I dunno, I'd sure love to see that in a museum.

November 5th, 2016

Air horns are one of the funniest-sounding things. I would laugh so hard if someone was trying to open a cookie jar and got blasted by a deafening air-horn assault in the process.

November 3rd, 2016

I don't know how strong water pipes are, so I'm skeptical as to if you could puncture one with a shovel. Do any of you know?

November 1st, 2016

I think, when asked this question, all of us have answered "I wish for a million wishes." It completely evades the point of the question. It's like someone asking you, "If you had spent all of your money except one dollar, what would you use it for?" and answering "I'd buy a million dollars."

October 30th, 2016

Happy Halloween, everybody! Hope it's a spooky one.

This one's weird. And bad. And doesn't make much sense. Please, do forgive me for this one.

October 28th, 2016

More Billy-Harley prankin' shenanigans. I've always loved the comic strip Spy vs. Spy, because whenever you think one of the spies is going to win, the other one somehow finds a way to outsmart him. This strip is a sort of attempt to recreate that.

October 26th, 2016

Well, that ends that story. I should have thought of a better punch line to end it off, but it's okay.

October 24th, 2016

Poor Pete.

October 22nd, 2016

For those just tuning in to the story: Billy is teaching Pete how to score a lady with rigorous training.

I didn't really know how to draw a female turtle, so I just drew Pete with a bow. Is there even a difference between male and female turtles? 
Tell-if-a-Turtle-Is-Male-or-Female.jpg
Oh, okay. How obvious.

October 20th, 2016

This series was fun to write because, frankly, I don't know any more about girls than Billy does.

It was tricky to design a suit for Pete to wear, because (obviously) he doesn't have the proportions of a human. Looking at it now, I think I should have separated it into a shirt and pants, but due to the nature of Pete's body that doesn't physically make sense. But whatever, you can hopefully still tell it's a suit, so it's okay. :)

October 18th, 2016

This is the start of another classic Billy story! Stay tuned!

I like Billy's confidence in the third panel, especially with the line "flying toward you like moths to a porchlight." I swear I've heard that line somewhere before, but I can't imagine where.

October 16th, 2016

As with the last colored strip, I tried experimenting with brighter colors here. I like how it turned out, actually. I'm not sure that it's the perfect style of colors for me, though. I've been through a lot of different phases of coloring styles over the course of this strip, so who knows what the colors will look like in the future?

Ah yes, another fishing strip. I don't really have anything against fishing, but Billy's hatred for it is always fun to write about.

October 12th, 2016

Hey everybody! Today is very special, because it's National Billy Day! It's the day I appreciate all of you for sticking with this comic strip and making this little blog what it is. Thank you all!

In celebration of this day, I have a challenge for you all. I challenge you to tell someone about Billy who you've never told about it before. If everyone does it, we've got twice the fanbase right there!

October 10th, 2016

I spent a long time choosing which two objects to have Harley say in panels three and five. I eventually picked light bulbs and a hammer, but there's probably a million other combinations of objects that would have been just as good.

October 6th, 2016

There are a few things wrong with this strip. First, Harley's left headphone is way too far down in the first panel. Second, Billy's line of sight in the second panel points to the "-" sign when it should be at the "+." Third, the punch line's kinda weak. I guess it was a bad day for me when I drew this.

Hey guys! I'll be out of town for the weekend, so I'll be missing a post. Sorry, but it's not too long a wait, I hope!

October 4th, 2016

Wildlife Billy originated in this strip, and I liked drawing from Billy's perspective so much I wanted to try it again. The problem is, I'm not sure whether it's even clear that this strip is from Billy's perspective based on the angles I drew. I'll try to make it more clear nest time.

October 2nd, 2016

Get it? One dollar a pop? Eh? Anybody?

September 30th, 2016

Basically my life.

September 28th, 2016

I think about this occasionally. I feel the way Pete does, for the most part.

I tried to experiment with using brighter colors in this one. For the most part, the colors in this strip have been more muted and dialed down. But using brighter colors has a lot of potential that I haven't really tapped into yet.

September 26th, 2016

Art doesn't have to be subtle.

September 24th, 2016

This strip follows a train of thought I had one time. I thought up what Billy says in the second panel, but then I realized what Harley says in the second panel. So then I thought what Billy says in the fourth panel.

September 22nd, 2016

Well, it's the first day of fall today. Summer is officially over.
On the bright side, though, fall is one of my favorite seasons! Hopefully it'll be a good one.

This one was sort of based off a story I read one time. I don't want to type it all out, but you can read it here: http://urbanlegendsonline.com/how-to-call-the-police/. It's a pretty clever story, so I built a joke around the idea of it, in a way.

September 20th, 2016

I like King Billy. He really fits Billy's character.

September 18th, 2016

Have any of you ever seen this happen? Because I sure haven't.

Sorry for not posting the last few days; I guess it's kind of been slipping my mind. Don't worry, though, I'll be sure to post regularly from now on! :)

September 12th, 2016

I'm more into smallish towns. Like not in-the-middle-of-nowhere small, but not small-city small. If that makes sense.

September 10th, 2016

The colors in this one are somewhat inspired by Calvin and Hobbes. I really like how Bill Patterson would use sort of unconventional colors to fill in objects, and I tried to emulate that idea here. For example, in panel 2 on the left I colored the leaves blue instead of a typical green. I'm not sure how well it worked out in this strip (the middle panel looks really awkward to me) but it was a good experiment.



I think this is an okay "goodbye-summer" strip.