Billy had practiced his clarinet solo every single day for the entire school year.

He was so excited when the night of the big recital arrived, but was crushed to learn it was canceled due to the zombie invasion.

(originally posted 6/15/09)

One year ago, a couple of nascent internet friends—one a writer and one an illustrator—were referred to each other’s work via a mutual friend. They decided, for some reason, to try creating a web comic based on simple drawings of mini-situations and one-liners.

The result was Low Resolution Theatre, a project undertaken solely for the amusement of its creators and a small circle of internet pals.

One year later, here we are. Our audience has grown from a dozen friends into nearly 7,000 followers on Tumblr alone, in addition to hundreds more RSS subscribers and direct visitors. We’ve been publishing our little cartoons five days a week for 52 weeks, which we think is quite a feat considering that we both have actual paying work to do. Most of the time, anyway. Ahem¹.

We’ve always said that we would continue doing our silly comic only so long as it entertained us; we pledged that as soon as it stopped being fun, that we’d shut it down and move on. But it’s still fun, largely because of the support from all of you. We get excited about every comment and reblog, especially ones that say “This is my favorite,” or “Best LRT ever!” It’s very satisfying when people enjoy our nerdery along with us².

And while the cartoons are never “serious”, per se, we have seen a few themes develop over the last year. If you’re a regular reader you’ll recognize the most common motifs being those of disappointment, rejection, and failure. We often have characters in those sad positions, largely because we identify so closely with them as people in creative careers. We’re used to rejection letters and all other sorts of letdowns. Yet at the same time, there are always notes of hope in those same comics; nothing is really ever “final” for the characters who are pushed aside or left behind, and those bits always seem to be popular with our audience too. Probably because if our work appeals to you, then you’ve been in the same position. You find yourself rooting for Billy who didn’t get to play his clarinet solo, or for Super Grover who didn’t make the JLA cuts, or for the housecleaner who was fired from Darth Vader’s employ.

So, thank you for enjoying our nerdery, obscure references, and the occasional bad pun. If we make you smile or chuckle at least once a week, then it’s all worth it for us. We’re still having a great time with Low Res, and we hope you are too.

Your pals, Tony Delgrosso and Angela Black

1. We’re each available for hire! Contact us. ↩

2. In fact, if you have a favorite LRT cartoon, why don’t you reblog it and tell us why it’s your favorite. We’d like that. ↩