I first started drawing the Water Man comics in 1977, when I was eleven years old. My parents actually encouraged me to make these comics. They weren’t too fond of my “Captain Underpants” and “Diaper Man” comics, and were trying to persuade me to make comics that were a little less “potty-oriented”.

So I began in November of 1977, and over the next few months had compiled twenty issues of my “Water Man Epic Saga”. These comics featured not only “Water Man” and his crime-fighting pals, “Molecule Man” and “Mr. Shape-O”, but also a cast of famous bad guys, including King Kong, the Invisible Man, and Jaws 2.

I started each comic by grabbing a big stack of paper. My Dad always brought home paper from work for me to draw on (you might see the Republic Steel logo bleeding through some of the pages). I went through the paper as fast as my dad could bring it home.

As you’ll probably be able to tell, I made my comics up as I went along. I started with the title, then made up the stories as I drew the pictures (much the same way I do today). Sometimes it worked out great… other times it didn’t. For example, in the comic “We Must Destroy Water Man”, there’s only one bad guy. Who’s the WE? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. Often these comics contain misspelled words, and sometimes you can tell where my pen started running out of ink as the pages piled up. But that didn’t stop me. I was on a roll.

While none of these comics are masterpieces, they always remind me of the home-made comics that children now send me every day. They have the same spirit. There’s something about the work of a kid who is being creative on his or her own time. Nobody forces a kid to make a comic book. Kids just do it sometimes. And there is always something wonderful about that kind of spontaneous creativity. It’s magic!

I’m really grateful that my parents encouraged me to make these comics, and even more grateful that they refused to let me bring them to school. I begged and pleaded, but they always said “no”. All of my other comics (including the ones I made in jr. high and high school) have disappeared. Some were torn up by angry teachers, others were borrowed by friends who never returned them, and some just got lost. But because my parents had forbidden me to take these comics to school, I still have every single one of them. They’re the only childhood comics I have left. Don’t you hate it when your parents are right?

I hope you enjoy these comics. Each one was written, illustrated, and stapled together by me when I was 11 years old (the last few were done when I was twelve).

A note of warning: many of these comics contain some mild violence (gunfights, gruesome shark attacks, hitting, kicking, eye-poking, etc.). It’s all normal “eleven-year-old-boy” stuff, but if you think you might be offended by such goofiness, please don’t read any further.

your pal,
Dav