The Dog’s Days of Summer began as a weekly webcomic, scheduled to run late May to September of 2007. Every new week’s installment was dictated by the voting results of readers, via multiple-choice poll. The comic itself was a rigorous artistic challenge stretched over the summer of ‘07—writing, sketching, inking and coloring the comic from week to week was a test of our patience and nerves, to say the very least. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at the crazy idea and ask myself: what were we thinking? Every Wednesday when the voting results were tallied, we had until Sunday to finish the next installment. The project’s success boiled down to a mixed concoction of personal stubbornness, cold beer, hot coffee and the overwhelming reader support that kept us motivated and the pen moving.
At first, we had only a vague notion of the comic’s direction: a hot dingo and his tourist trolling pals living on a popular (yet somehow secluded) Australian beach. Diego was a sexy, self-absorbed and highly desired player. It was going to be a light hearted–possibly erotic–romantic romp and we foresaw Diego “having a naughty” with several sexual partners over the span of the summer. However, we vastly miscalculated the time we could realistically pass to keep a cohesive story going in the limited pages we were able to produce every week. Diego’s first day and the consequences of his very first Big Choice carried on for months. Of course, during that time, Diego’s character evolved into a role that set him apart from the meat-headed, hunky beach bum of our original intention. The story developed week to week around one central idea, an idea that voting readers could never decide on or agree they wanted: Was Diego just hungry for superficial sex, or was he just a guy looking for love?
In the end, the readers’ choice became clear.
With the summer drawing to a close (and with it, our free time) we had a choice of our own to make. How should we end this?
Previously prevailing reader opinion voiced an overwhelming desire to see Diego get laid. Hey, even we wanted to see the poor mutt get a little action! We drew out what was to be the final three installments, assuming that the vote would cry out for a carnal conclusion set up in the tattoo parlor.
Much to our amazement, the reader votes took an unexpected turn—Diego turned down his immediate lust—people justified their “no sex” voting with comments and emails declaring: “Diego’s a nice guy, he wouldn’t want it like that.”
We had the abrupt realization people were right—over the summer, Diego had evolved into a living, breathing nice guy. He wasn’t the mindless sex machine he’d first been portrayed as on paper. Suddenly, Diego had a conscious and feelings and we felt we owed the character more than the brief conclusion we had planned.
Aside from the oppressive drudgery of drawing the comic week to week (not to mention the guilt that followed if we missed a date), we really had grown to like the characters. In my head, they’d each developed extensive back-stories, side-stories and childhoods as we spent countless hours sketching them and coloring them.
Diego, Raj, Bayshore, Jack, the Brumby and even Zeb deserved a full story and a happy ending. We were resolved to give it to them.
So with the first 33 pages established by readers, we had a rough idea how to bring it all together for the final 34.
It all came down to Diego’s choice—would he live up to his initial reputation as a burly, promiscuous beach bum, or would he (could he?) wait it out for love like the good guy he seems to be?
We labored for a few months on the script, going back and forth over previous installments to smooth out incongruencies, and in the end managed to tie the entirety of the story together. In the process, a shorter prequel comic was also written and illustrated, explaining some of Bayshore’s story from the previous summer spent with our indecisive dingo.
If it weren’t for the massive support from readers, I’m sure the story would have been left untold. We are very grateful for everyone’s contribution to the project, to Diego’s development and the experiences and challenges of the summer that brought this project to fruition.
We’re quite pleased with the story’s ending and the final 34 pages—I realize now Diego and the Dog’s Days of Summer could not have come to any other conclusion.
~Blotch, aka Tess Garman & Teagan Gavet
If you’re curious to know what comes next, check out the full color graphic novel, available from Sofawolf Press!
