THIS COMIC WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EXIST

Is It Canon is a geek and pop culture-focused webcomic made me, Peter "Cynic" Chiykowski, and my good buddy Aaron "Plants" Lenk. As we will up the site with art you will find comics about all kinds of fandoms, and most of these comics poke fun at any canon that we sometimes take too seriously.

But here's the thing: this comic probably shouldn't exist!

If you split the world into an infinite number of parallel alternate timelines, Aaron and I would never get the chance to meet in about 99% of them. He happened to come by my convention table at Montreal Comic Con in 2011 and gave an absolutely terrible pitch for what turned out to be an incredibly good comic.

The thing is, the fates seemed hell-bent on Aaron not going to that convention. His ride to Montreal disappeared 24 hours before the show, and he had to overcome a big pile of other logistical hurdles even to show up. Even then, I was one of dozens of people he chatted with that day, and I don't think either of us made a great impression on the other.

But not long after the show he got in touch with me about drawing a single panel for a special feature in his comic. I was one of 50 people he wanted on the project. I said yes. He said he'd email when he had the project ready. More on this later.

A little later he asked if he could join me behind the Rock, Paper, Cynic table at Fan Expo 2012--he wanted a foot of space to keep his books. I said sure, why not. He brought homemade sandwiches to the show, and over the crinkle of tin foil we got to talking. Really talking.

I think we realized really quickly how much we liked each other and started hanging out. I admired how little he cared what people thought of him--he really wanted to write the stories he wanted to write, even if they weren't bound for mass popularity. He had an abundance of talent and a dearth of shits to give. I still don't know what he saw in me, but our friendship grew. Soon we were working together on stuff--anthologies, button designs, website building.

It was a hell of a lot of fun. Aaron challenged me to stick to my guns and believe in my integrity when I was working on comics. I challenged him to find new ways to share his work with a growing audience.

Eventually we knew we wanted to make comics together, and so Is It Canon? was born! So now you can drop by whenever you like for geeky comics--probably two a week.

Oh, and that panel Aaron wanted me to draw? HE STILL HASN'T SENT ME THE SPECS. What an asshole!