Back in 2001, I got laid off from a job right around the same time as Sam Brown, the creator of Exploding Dog. Over the course of that year, as I looked for work and worked to remake a lot of my life, Sam spent much of his time creating illustrations based on captions submitted from his audience. I took a lot of inspiration from the work that Sam did on the site.

We met for the first time later that year at a meet-up for his fans (He insists that I was proclaiming adamantly at the time that I wasn’t into blogging) and have run into each other a number of times along the way, especially at Mark Hurst’s Gel Conference. In some ways, as the popularity of his site has grown, I’ve felt a bit like someone watching a favorite local band start to become a well-known name. Except without the feeling that the artist has sold out.

Back then, I used to check in on the Exploding Dog every few days; It was a nice, simple respite during a time when I didn’t have a lot of them. So I was thrilled to hear that Exploding Dog 2001 has been published, a single book collecting all of the pictures from that year. The illustrations from 2001 were fun and affecting as I’d remembered, and though Sam’s sent me a copy since I started working on this post, I’d have gotten a copy of the book regardless. You should too.

The title of this post is from the image shown above. If you’re looking for more, be sure to check out the first chapter of Beware of the Seamonsters, a brand-new animation from Exploding Dog.