The Annotated Alice!
Originally published: June 25, 1999

If one must start somewhere it's best to start at the beginning. Looking back at the early strips always fills me with a deep sense of nausea. If I could I would redraw all the strips from 1999. Still having said that I still believe that much of the writing is still fresh and tight.

The first strip is always a difficult one to do. How do you introduce these characters (who you know intimately already) to a new audience? The jokes have to be simple and establish character very quickly. I think this one does it adequately. I wish now that I hadn't broken the fourth wall and introduced the girls in a more familiar setting.

I have come a loooooong way technically as well. The varying font sizes are very unprofessional, and the balloon shapes are amateurish at best. And the phonetic spelling of "kid speak" is a thing of the early strips, it looks awkward and doesn't work, especially from Dot.