Precocious, a comic by Christopher J Paulsen

Friends/Idols

Lots of wonderful people out there, and it is my obligation to give them appropriate shout-outs. This page features (or will feature), friends, idols, great artists and often all three combined! Give them your love!

I'll try to keep this page growing, as I simply can't cover everyone I want (or remember them all at any given time), so keep checking back periodically. If you want a link to your comic here, or want to set up a banner exchange with Precocious, email me!

Webcomics

This is an amazing service and I highly recommend it to all! All the nice, clean and quality comics you could ever want are just a click away!

How can I not honor what may be the only other strip specifically about gifted children? CrebHEADS is like Precocious plus a couple years, plus technology addiction and minus cute furry animals. As someone who went down the gifted education path, let me say there's a lot of accuracy in the bizarre way these kids act!

KEZ performs two great services for us all. The first is the epic and masterfully-crafted comic War of the Winds. Second is the extremely useful Winged Wolf Studio blog, which is a treasure trove of great advice, help and tutorials for webcomickers. Every time Precocious' site adds a new feature, chances are I learned about it from KEZ.

Hey, I made someone a banner without asking permission first! (It counts as fan art?) The WebcomiCritic is an ambitious fellow looking to review several "new-ish" comics out there. Oh yes, that means Precocious got review #1! He also supplied me with my first fan art, so, yeah, I think he's keen!

Code Name: Hunter is one of the best-drawn comics out there. The more I read, the more I am in awe of Darc Sowers' amazing talent. This is someone who had a great story in her and would not settle for anything but perfection in execution.

In the first few busy months of getting Precocious up and running, Housepets was probably the one comic I checked every time it updated. It's about, you guessed it, housepets! Imagine a world in which your pets were still pets - but could walk and talk like little humans. (Makes going to the zoo a surreal experience.) More than a few people have linked Precocious and Housepets together, and I'm quite pleased with that compliment.

The cartoon equivalent of a big hug! Alone in a Crowd is a cute slice of life (patently absurd life, but life anyway) about two girls, Hope and Faith (aww), and the quirky family around them. Oh yeah, Faith has cat ears, Hope is cutably insane and there's a porn star in there for good measure! Fun for the whole family! (Viva Hopetails!)

As an ART strip, I admit to getting resentful at how po-mo stick figure strips see so much success no matter the quality - and yet I keep going back to them for post-modern quasi-humor like a fool. When I first hit Pictures for Sad Children, I rolled my eyes and moved on. Then I went back. Then I read the archive. Dammit, it's REALLY good! I find myself checking every day in hopes of a new update. Damn you, po-mo stick figures!

Matter of Fact is your classic single-panel gag strip. It takes the similar-format strips you'd spy in the newspaper into a back alley and beats them into a bloody pulp. It's way harder than you'd think to construct a gag-a-day strip, and Matter of Fact gets it done.

I love its origin story: Dad's artist partner bails, dad recruits daughter, dad bases salary on daughter's grades, daughter gets tricked into drawing a comic AND getting good grades, everyone in the world wins! The strip is wonderful collection of hilarious commentary and ranting about whatever current event/shiny thing has piqued their interest.

I love ambitious strips. Rocket Llama aims to capture the pulpy tone of the age when radio and newspaper comics were it for entertainment. They've built a whole network of interesting things at their site, so check 'em out!

It really isn't only about paintball! Not only is the comic excellent, but the man behind it has a heart of gold. You've earned my eternal gratitude, Whiteboard people!

This is another strip with a highly intelligent and attractive readership, seeing as they appear to like Precocious as well. Doc Rat is wonderfully written and flawlessly executed.

How can I not give Ryan North a shout out, when services he provides keep Precocious going? Dino Comics proves that if the mind behind the work is incredible, it doesn't matter what the format is. The comic expands your mind while entertaining you. North is a connector who's done so much to help and motivate webcomic creators over the past few years.

This is the new strip by one of my cartooning idols, Dana Claire Simpson of Ozy and Millie. Precocious owes a lot to Ozy and Millie. Simpson and I clearly come from the same perspective on many things, and reading through her commentary in the Ozy and Millie books proved incredibly valuable in the fine-tuning of my strip.

We're all better off because Tatsuya Ishida likes to swear. Sinfest is one of the best strips out there, and it's symbolic of the new era of webcomics. Print publications hamstring cartoonists until only the tamest work gets through, but the internet is for freedom, man! I still want to see Precocious in print one day, but I may be too spoiled by strips like Sinfest. I won't ever take the bite out of my humor.

If I could steal one cartoonist's ability, it would be that of Kelly Hamilton of Good Cheese. Fortunately, she is benevolent and has created Draw Furry to give her talent back to the world. That's why she gets a mention even if Good Cheese is completed/on hiatus. The comic is exactly what the title says: A good and cheesy slice of life. The art will leave you either awestruck or jealous.

Here's another artist that filles me with jealous rage. Tracy Bailey's drawing is fantastic and, most important, fun! Catena is unrepentant in its silliness, making it free to tangent off to wherever the most fun can be had.

Here's another case where a true talent can do anything and make it art. Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures is one of the best-drawn, best-colored and funniest strips out there. Heck, even when I don't get the specific geeky reference, it's *still* funny enough to crack me up. Amber Williams has created an amazing world in which everyone is delightfully insane. All the best comics are like that. *cough*Precocious*cough*

Ok, so Precocious doesn't have much in common with a T&A strip, but that doesn't stop a cartoonist alliance from happening! The forces behind Cosmic Hellcats and I share the world-domination ambition that is needed to break out from the pack. Gotta admire that. Good folks should have their hard work rewarded!

It still amazes what wonders can be created from a Waccom tablet. Every page of this fantasy strip is a digital painting. I love the blend of painterly effects and digital construction that goes into Between Places. When comics cross over into the art category, you have to take notice.

Sharif Shakhshir is a recovering gifted student, who has abandoned the ivory tower in favor entering the *real* world. (The Precocious kids are highly confused by this idea.) This strip appears in Univeristy of California, Irvine's student newspaper. Mr. Faux goes to Washington (and his other strips) reflect a person who is intrigued by politics - good or bad. There's a healthy dose of cynicism involved, but how else can one tackle the system?

Woah, I totally forgot to include this one at first. What is so special about Girls With Slingshots? Danielle Corsetto, the cartoonist, went to Shepherd University with me! We were often in the same room with each other! I have no recollection if we ever actually talked, but never mind that! Go Rams! (That was our mascot, right?) Here's to making Shepherd the new cartooning power school! Oh yeah, her comic kicks butt too.

Seems odd for me to put an adult-only comic's link on this family-friendly (*my* definition of "friendly") site; but Chris Johnson, Tally Road's creator, is an insightful person and great ally in dealing with this webcomic universe. The link actually points to his twitter page, so I'm linking to the guy and not the comic. There's a link to his comic there if you're interested.

And let's not forget our old friends, the linking networks and advertisers!

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