Why the name "Dirt?" Why do webcomics? Why make a website with lots of comics on it? If I can find out the answers myself, I just might write them down... otherwise I'm sure that others can invent all sorts of zany stories about it.

After all, that's what we do with all these comic strips.

My real name is Jim Dertz, and the only reason that I really hang on to the Dirt name is for connection with any previous web presence I might have (I was kind of active in the 3D community back in high school), and for sentimental reasons. In my high school days, I was a "techie" -- one of those guys who works behind-the-scenes during school plays and functions to make sure that everything's working properly. At our school, new techies were called Lemmings (it's one step removed from a gopher, which is what new techies do a lot... Go For stuff). Lemmings were given a new name by that year's Head of Tech, as well as a spiffy card with the name on it. Sadly, I lost the card along with my wallet while spelunking one weekend, but I kept the name. "Dirt" is just a play on words from my last name... but it's short and simple and I like it, so there.

I first became really interested in the whole webcomics thing after my freshman year of college... so that would be 2001 or so. I had had vague ideas of starting a strip, drawn in Macromedia Freehand for easy swappage of artwork, that would star a readheaded gamer girl and a friend of hers. It also somehow involved a giant pencil... I don't know, really, I had no material and the strip never got off the ground.

Whenever I'm in a group animation project in school, though, I always wind up drawing storyboards for the group. The step from storyboards to comics is a very small step... and so I now draw lots of comics for this site.

Now, if I only had an actual PAYING job...