The First Check, Please! fanfic...ever.
omgcheckplease:
There’s one more update before the book comes out. I’d like to do a NEW powerpoint primer that tells people about the comic??? But so much has changed. QUESTION FOR YOU:
- how did you find out about the comic
- what drew you in???
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE 🙏
oh man I like talking about this, but my answer is 400% not going to be useful. I followed you @ngoziu because you drew what is to this day my favorite piece of lotr fanart. And everything you produced was so heckin’ good! And then you started posting this hockey comic and I was like, sports? No thanks! I’m a real nerd. (but wow the art is real good)
What first finally drew me in was this extra which radiated so much weird heart and soul that I said, well, I do love bros and this art, so I went back and caught up on all the comics posted so far. What hooked me for life was a) my deep desire, from his first introduction, for Jack to kiss Bitty and b) the sriracha panel from this post which just… so succinctly summed up the experience of being in a college kitchen that I laughed out loud about it for days. Onlookers were concerned.
But when I stopped laughing I kept thinking about it. Not the sriracha (a little the sriracha) but the characters who, in so few panels, were so fleshed out and real that I couldn’t stop thinking about them as people, and what they would be doing now. They all had such rich and distinct personalities and so much charm that I already felt like I knew them and there were what, four comics? It was the kind of writing I aspired to, that I still aspire to, made to look so effortless that it was all the more a joy to read. I came for the extras and the sriracha and I stayed because I loved these people.
I sent this comic to everyone I knew. I wrote this which someone pointed out years later was the first ZimBits story in the tag (the ship name did not exist yet) and spelled Jack Zimmermann’s name wrong. I chased my friends until they all agreed to read it and then they all loved it. I work in a library now and I insisted that we order the first volume and I made my boss read it and now she loves it and sometimes comes in to work and says “is there a new update?” We already preordered volume 2. We can’t keep it on the shelves now because everyone is reading it and when it is in I put it in someone’s hands almost immediately. And when I think about how much it has grown in cultural consciousness I’m just… proud? I don’t know how else to put it. This comic has earned every accolade and every milestone, it’s no surprise that it’s so well loved, but having gotten to watch it grow from its initial concept has been such a goddamn delight and that pride is in seeing it succeed on the level it deserves.
I hold this up regularly as one of the best comics ever made. The skill is so utterly unquestionable, the story so succinct but so complicated and so moving, the voices so strong and recognizable, and my god it makes me laugh. The thought of it reaching completion makes me so happy but also so sad, but also I know I’m going to keep reading and re-reading it forever. And I’m sad that it’s coming to a close, but I can’t wait to see how it ends. It’s gonna be fucking amazing.
I remember, back in 2013, @rascalbot wrote the first Check, Please! fanfiction I ever read. I think it was comment fic? Either way, I flipped out and just about lost my mind. People, thinking about my characters!!! Inconceivable! Thank so much!