If it weren't for…

[Terotrous]

..if it weren't for one very determined grade-seven teacher in elementary school, I would never have met Tynan, and I would never be where I am now. Gods know where I would be.

You never know, you might have just made the other comic and still met Dawg and Tynan through Keenspace. Anyway, it's a cute story.

Interestingly, I was originally going to go to that convention, but I didn't. Hmm, I wonder if it would have had some huge affect on my life if I had gone. Ah well, life is filled with a million such mysteries - The ways you meet friends and loved ones are often totally coincidental.

Keenspace (aka ComicGenesis) was the best thing to ever happen to me. :3

Court is still out on "best", but it definitely had a pretty big impact on my life too.


Otherwise, there are few things that had a random impact on me, I think otherwise you can basically trace the path of my life and say "oh, so that's where that comes from" for almost everything.


The thing that had the most similar effect to that was a short period of time in which my dad lost his job (he's never really gotten another steady job since then) and a close relative was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Those events caused me to realize the true importance of friends and family and significantly changed my personality.

They've also to some extent caused me to have a fondness for things from my childhood (my site indicates a love of retro games and I love old cartoons and such), probably because it represents a time in my life when those around me were generally happier.

[Killbert-Robby]

If it weren't for CG, I'd still be using lol and u
When I was a kid, I was learning how to shoot bows and arrows, on the way out the instructor is all SHAKE MY HAND. Then he was all, WHAT WAS THAT? No, you use firm grip, eye contact, firm shake. I've shaken hands that way ever since, for over a decade, not including rushed OKBYEGOTTAGO shakes.

Damn damn damn I had 100 of these causeofthisthishappened stories, now I cant remember, uhhhhh

Well, my life just kinda works out. Dad has more money when I'm younger, go to Thailand, ride and feed elephants, feed crocs, hold a tiger cub, bla bla bla BAM suddenly I crave adventure. Most of the other things are really subtle and I barely notice them. All the little things in life have molded me into who I am now, and I think being an individual is pretty hot shit. Every trip, every broken bone, every bitchass girlfriend has lead me through the domino effect right here.

[Nanda]

If it weren't for "Little Shop of Horrors," I wouldn't have three beautiful men in my life.
[Et cetera]
Thank you Rick Moranis.

Best story ever.

Yay!

[Say Tom]

If it weren't for the Spelling Bee, I would never have met Matthias, he would never have introduced me to the Midwest Talent Search, and I would never have taken advanced math courses during middle school.

[McDuffies]

Curse that spelling bee!

[Ekolter]

If it wasn't for an old college friend named Bill back when I attend collge the first time back in 1994, I wouldn't have met Ryan. I was a freshman computer science major and he was the resident go to geek. He introduce me to MIRC and chat in general (mostly #truthdare on Efnet).

Long story short - Six years later, during a rough time in my life, I reconnect on chat with Ryan and later agree to meet in person. Six months after that he moves in with me. Two years later he pops the question. Two years later we're married. Four years after that, we have the spawn.

Yes, internet relationships can work out.

[Wendybird]

OK, here's something really strange. If I hadn't worked the register one morning at the store while my boss Vince was in the back room, and gotten held up...I would still have a character working the register one morning while her boss Vin was in the back and then she got held up. The characters came first.

One more reason why the whole experience was so surreal.

[McDuffies]

"Penguins, yes, penguins. What relevance do penguins have to the furtherance of medical science? Well, strangely enough quite a lot, a major breakthrough, maybe. It was from such an unlikely beginning as an unwanted fungus accidentally growing on a sterile plate that Sir Alexander Fleming gave the world penicillin. James Watt watched an ordinary household kettle boiling and conceived the potentiality of steam power. Would Albert Einstein ever have hit upon the theory of relativity if he hadn't been clever? All these tremendous leaps forward have been taken in the dark. Would Rutherford ever have split the atom if he hadn't tried? Could Marconi have invented the radio if he hadn't by pure chance spent years working at the problem? Are these amazing breakthroughs ever achieved except by years and years of unremitting study? Of course not. What I said earlier about accidental discoveries must have been wrong."

[Prettydragoon]

...you meddling kids, I would have gotten away with it! *shakes fist*

[Dr Legostar]

Okay, here's one that just occurred to me. had it not been for my impatience I would not have played the last part of system shock 2 during the day (instead of at night when I'd been playing it), I therefore would have not been on AIM that evening and talked to a girl I liked in high school who was finally ready for a relationship, and therefore I would never have gotten into a relationship with her, I probably would never have moved to Kentucky for her, and never have broken up with her only to end up with my lovely wife.

[Pimpette]

if I hadn't saved my teabag from the last time i made tea
i would not now be drinking horribly watered-down and tasteless tea right now.

DAMN YOU, PAST SELF!

[Risky]

I blame AOL for everything. Not only did I meet Eva there, that's also the first place I hosted my webcomic.

[Ekolter]

if it wasn't for me having a rough day, I wouldn't be reading the forums at 10:30pm while the boys finally sleep.

[VinnieD]

If not for a strange dream about rabbits in early 2005 I would not have.

Started AntiBunny, Returned to Webcomics after abandoning my old comic, set about improving my art, gone back to college changing my major to the arts, become interested in rabbits, gotten a pet rabbit, gotten over the depression I'd been going through since my cat died a year prior.

The moral of the story is that Bunnies turned my life around. Also now regularly donate to the ASPCA and other rabbit related causes to give back to my lagomorphian friends.

And no I'm not a furry but I have nothing against them, stop asking.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

How could I forget ARCHIE COMICS! I loved those things when I was little. Looking back especially at stuff I drew in elementary and middle school, you can really see the influence of those comics. Even nowadays I'll write out a comic and the storyline/gag seems very Archie-reminiscent.


...and yes, I own one of these http://www.cafepress.com/joshreads/4872581. You can like something and still be aware of its negative aspects.

If it weren't for this laptop, I wouldn't be hearing this whiny electrical sound right now. (And I wouldn't have anywhere to put all of my things for my site!)

[Kisai]

Let's see...

I'm not quite sure how I found keenspot or keenspace, but that was back when I thought they were the same (Brand confusion) due to the dropdown logo. This was back when the web had very few comics. The first webcomic I ever found was one nobody probably remembers http://unicornjelly.com/ . This was because the same person owned happypuppy.com when it used to be a real games site before it was sold, and now appears to just be a defunct link, happypuppy.com was probably the first WWW site I found. Prior to that I was still using a text mode gopher-lynx thing, the happypuppy site required a web browser that supported frames, and I had like Netscape 0.9 or something at the time.

Also back in the 90's search engines sucked. The most useful was lycos at the time because it could search ftp sites too. But then along came google a round 2000 and I haven't switched since. If anyone remembers the time before google, they would agree with me that finding stuff on the internet was a total crap shoot. If you found a site like keenspot, and remembered to bookmark it, it served as a useful portal for finding other webcomics. "web rings" were popular back then, and there would be a lot of unmaintained broken links due to the high decay rate of sites back then (expensive to host.)

I didn't have broadband until I moved to the island, and that's when I started doing programming stuff. Because I was really bored. I didn't know about any webcomics before then. I discovered PHP probably a year before I discovered keenspace.

A lot of things have changed since then. Google now owns most of the useful parts of the internet, microsoft plays second fiddle to google online, and blogs are common.

[Eve Z.]

If it wasn't for people being so mean to me in my childhood and teenage years, I wouldn't want to lose my minds right now.
If I hadn't live in this retarded country where people are taking your money without givin you anything good in return(in short, they don't give a fuck about you), I would have gone to a therapy and be sure they would kill my inner demons.

(i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on...i'll get more positive from tommorow on.)

sorry.

[BrownEyedCat]

I remember Unicorn Jelly. I stopped reading it when it started getting more and more distressing.

I understand it just got bleaker and bleaker from there.

[Risky]

Unicorn Jelly still has a running storyline, a spinoff / sequel called "To Save Her" (by the original artist/author). Unicorn Jelly is probably responsible for a ton of the multiversal fiction on the internets, that and DC comics.

[Lianweijun086]

If it weren't for my lack of artistic ability, my website would look WAAY better...