This is one of my personal favorite single strips. What I mean by "single strip" is that it wasn't part of any big nineteen-part epic storyline (well, okay there wasn't really any storyline that got that long, but I came close once.........ONCE). This strip, which I call "To Ski or Not to Ski," was published (in a very, very tiny size) in the Revere High School Lantern on December 21, 1994.

This isn't the first published appearance of Andy Commode (that event took place back during My-Life's first year in print, in a storyline that I am still contemplating whether or not to post on here), but is one of the best "single strip" examples of his character. Andy's a regular joe just like you or me, but he has that little edge in him that can make him turn from friend into foe at any moment.

When I first showed "To Ski or Not to Ski" to a friend of mine (before it was published), she asked me if I had ever skied before. Of course I said "no," but skiing is just begging to be tried by someone as accident prone as Greg or Andy (or anybody else in the comic strip). Hey, any sport where people wear yard-long planks on their feet and hold cattle prods only to fall off a hill is okay in my book!

The little "name in the snow" joke in the first panel was a risky one to draw, considering it was the first thing you would see (and it WAS in a newspaper funded by the school board, who has to review every item that goes into it!). I was fully prepared to white-out the "message" just in case, but for some reason nobody objected and the gag was kept in. After that, I started to push the envelope a little more and more each month.

When first noticing the whizzing reference, a then-colleague of mine named Keith McQuown said, "Geez, Greg, I can only get my name down, and you do whole messages!"

I just hope that it's not what I'll be remembered for ("Hey! Remember Greg Method? You know, the 'Pee in the Comic Strip Guy?'").

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