As you might suspect from a tour of my own site, I like the way that my comics look when they're displayed on a computer screen. It wasn't practical, though, for me to both write and draw a brand-new series at that time. So I suggested to Tom that I draw new versions of some Barefootz comic strips that (with a couple of exceptions) had been originally published in underground comic books or in the Marvel newsstand hybrid Comix Book between 1974-79 but never anthologized in book form. Unlike their original B&W versions, these new "incarnations" of my work from twenty-five years ago would be redrawn in full color and formatted expressly for online viewing. And just for fun, when time permitted, I would sneak in a newly-written episode.

Tom liked the idea, and fresh installments of Barefootz: The Web Incarnation appeared weekly for free on Serializer.net for almost a year beginning in the fall of 2002 (and were archived for subscribers only for a while after I stopped adding to the set).

Below: a panel from one of the Serializer strips as it originally appeared as as it looks in its recently re-drawn form.

Serializer.net continues to be a vibrant showcase for cartoonists with highly individual visions, and I commend it to you today even though my own days as a contributor are (for the moment, at least) over. Meanwhile, since I have these comics strips all drawn and colored anyway, I'm adding them to Howard Cruse: The Web Site in a new Flash-based format wherein the panels unfold fluidly before your eyes with no mouse-clicks required. Let me know what you think of this alternative way of sharing my comics, ok?