My first, proper reference of Chris and Amy in their formal attire, based on a previous picture.

Amy continues to get shorter (on her toes, no less), and Chris continues to get moodier... in the right way, of course! Marrying Amy has done wonders for his outlook on life.

chris amanda dingo fox ref size suit

Someone once told me the structure of the Fox family [FoxTrot.com] was very similar to that of the Kanus family. Personality wise, I don't agree, but I thought it would be fun to draw a “Backoutified” version of the first Fox Trot book cover.

Thanks for all the comics over the years, Bill — and what a run it was! May you now enjoy your late-night Warcraft sessions with “only” one strip a week to draw.

joshua chris rebecca darryl nokino dingo wac raccoon fanart role plushie

A concept user-interface for Amiga Workbench 5.0. Not nearly as good as the GUI QNX made for Amiga (under the ownership of Gateway at the time). Of course, Gateway dumped QNX in favor of Linux before canning the OS altogether.

Isn't there anyone out there that knows what to do with the Amiga?

amiga chris robert dingo raccoon

Most of my Backing Out artwork is on the BO website, but this one is pretty special, as it's the first drawing I know of that is traditionally colored (unless I missed something obvious).

Christopher, having been inspired by the Crocodile Dundee movie, always wore a vest and bush hat in the early days of his development. I'm sure most Australians appreciate that this is no longer the case. ;)

Thankfully, my characters also no longer walk on their hocks, though they are usually still barefoot.

chris dingo stacy cocker spaniel

Well, here is is, the very first furry picture I've ever drawn. Yes, this really is it! I'm a bit confused about the timeline for my earliest stuff, but this is definitely the image that started it all. I drew very little of Chris at that time. The real volume, and my signature style of squished eyes and peachfuzz cheeks, developed in 1991.

By the age of nine, I had already built a lackluster stack of comics featuring blobs and silly, borderless faces. I was not, shall you say, a natural artist, and did not start drawing “as soon as I could hold a pencil” as many other artists say.

That all changed when my parents took me to my aunt's wedding (and Disney World) in Orlando, Florida. While camping out in my aunt's home (with a horrible sunburn), I saw something that changed my life — a Sunday newspaper with a full-page Pogo comic strip on it. I was instantly hooked on anthropomorphic characters and comic strips. That same day, this drawing of Christopher was made.

I had just seen Crocodile Dundee on VHS a little while earlier, and thus I decided to make Christopher a dingo, sporting the flat-topped hat I had seen in the film. The first “real” Backing Out art and strips started showing up in 1991 with the full cast of kids, including Joshua, Rebecca, Robert, and Vicky. Things kicked into high gear in early '93, though I spent a lot of time coming up with ideas and not so much time drawing (thankfully, I put dates on all of my comics). The Kanus parents, Darryl and Nokino, did not show up until much later — around 1995.

It took about six years for me to ditch that damned hat, too. ;)

chris dingo