They live in forests and rivers, plains and swamps, mountains and caves.
If you look hard enough you are sure to find one of these mysterious creatures.
They come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities.

Weird Little Guys are a a series of doodles I’ve been drawing since 2023. Before then, I was primarily a writer and didn’t feel confident in my drawing abilities. I was always telling people, “I can’t draw, I’m just the writer.”

Well, I work with kids so most of the people I talk to are in elementary school. So whenever I would tell kids that I can’t draw, they’d scoff at me and show me just how easy drawing is.

So I had Markk, my main comics collaborator, suggest some different drawing utensils for me to try out. When I got my first felt-tip pens in the main, I grabbed a sheet of paper and started doodling… these things.

I thought they look fun and cute and realized they would make a good coloring page. So I printed off thirty copies and brought them in to work. The kids loved them, though it took them a while to figure out that I was the one who drew them. Most of them thought they were cool or cute, but this one girl…

This one girl. She look at me. So angry. So indigent. She look at me, right into my soul, and demanded to know:

“Why would you draw these weird little guys?!

I still don’t really understand what her problem was, but the name stuck. 

Since then, I have drawn hundreds of unique Weird Little Guys. At first, I was just making new coloring pages for work while trying out new pens. Every few pages of my sketchbook were filled with Weird Little Guys, but they were nothing more than doodles. At first.

One day, while preparing to teach a class on zine-making, I was making some example zines and ended up creating a six-page guide to six of my favorite Weird Little Guys. That example zine ended up relatively popular. Some kids didn’t even make their own zines, they’d just reread the Weird Little Guys one over and over again.

The next obvious step was a longer zine featuring more expanded profiles on twelve Weird Little Guys. It regularly sold out at zine fairs, inspired kids to create their own, and solidifying Weird Little Guys as one of the things I am known for.

Nowadays, I’m still drawing Weird Little Guys. Kids still love them which I think is great. As I’ve grown as a teacher, now exclusively working in the arts, I’ve met many kids who lack confidence in their drawing abilities.

Weird Little Guys are composed of simple shapes with faces and some minor details. Can’t draw hands? Don’t draw them at all. Drew too many legs? That’s fine. It doesn’t matter! Weird Little Guys can be whatever you want them to be!