Joyce and Walky!

Way back in … 2002…?

Anyway, I used to be part of Keenspot, and Keenspot used to do comic books.  Roomies! comic books collected both the original strips and also featured newer stories I wrote which fit into the continuity.  This is page one of the first of them, and it takes place during college orientation.

Martinsville, a city not far from Indiana University’s Bloomington, Indiana, is alleged to have been a “KKK stronghold” in the 1920s.  In 1968 there was a high-profile murder of a black encyclopedia saleswoman that brought the city into attention again, and it became part of the national conversation on racially-motivated crimes.  During the time I was in college, some of my peers said it was where the KKK in fact originated, which is an accusation which obviously can’t withstand scrutiny, but such accusations — reality, hyperbole, or otherwise — had very heavily colored my feelings on the city.  Apparently it’s a better place now!  Maybe!  (According to the white people who live there, anyway.)  Nonetheless, it is Martinsville’s less-than-stellar historical reputation that inspired the signs in the first panel, deserved or not.   If you live in Martinsville and are not a white supremacist, I apologize for my blanket libel.

The other three panels introduce the super-exciting characters of the Residence Assistant and a gaggle of parents.  Be still, hearts.