This is a guest strip from the first year of guest strips by one of my favorite artists, Scott Thigpen. Scott used to draw a fantastic online comic strip called “Boomslang” featuring a big purple ape named Willy and a little, somewhat evil orange cat, named Koko.
Scott let me use ‘em for a brief cameo in THIS 2002 Strip. But when Scott submitted the above guest strip, I fell in love with the dynamic between Koko and Dandy. Unlike Bernard, Koko could and WOULD give as good as he got and I felt the strip needed that dynamic. As such, after MUCH begging and pleading, Scott actually let me use Koko as a semi-regular character in THIS 2003 Storyline. A few months after Koko’s appearance as the villain of the arc, he became a member of the family.
However, a couple of months after Koko joined the regular cast, Scott Kurtz introduced his OWN, somewhat evil orange (Although originally pink) cat named Scratch Fury, Destroyer of Worlds. Scratch evolved to an almost identical character with a similar disposition, personality and lust for power. And since PvP has a FEW more readers than I do, I ended up getting a bunch of emails and forum posts accusing me of ripping off Scott. It REALLY got on my nerves, and added to the idea that since I didn’t actually OWN the character there was only so far I could take him in the strip, and I wrote him out.
A lot of folks initially suspected that Koko was, in fact, the secret Mystery Trucker (He’s NOT, dagnabbit!) so it seemed like a fun time to remind you all of the first time these two characters really squared off. Enjoy.
