Erika Moen, I'm a Fan Ma'am.

I first started reading Erika Moen back in the summer of 2004. I ran into her biographical webcomic Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary late one night while my crazy ex slept in my bed. I really enjoyed the comic I had read so I went back to the very first one to read the entire series from the beginning. Let me tell you, that first strip where she was constantly wondering, "What the fuck am I doing," was and is my life. From that point on I was fan of her work. 

I bookmarked her blog and read it whenever it would update. I was excited for her when she got married and even more so when she finished Dar and started the incredibly funny Bucko. While in many ways Bucko was a large departure from Erika's previous work it still had the same artistic sensibilities and conversational tone that made me love her previous comic. So naturally I read everything I could get my hands on, and then it ended. 

For a while the only updates from Erika came from her Periscope Studios efforts - which is not a bad thing as her art only improved the more time she spent there. Then she appeared in the first episode of Penny Arcade's Strip Search. After all the years of admiring her work and being so excited for her when new opportunities would come along I was a little worried about watching her on the show. I worried that she might not be as cool as I had thought she was; or that the producers on the show would find a way to make her the villain. I shouldn't have worried because she came across as one of the most awesome people you could ever meet. She was warm, kind, and just as funny as I had always thought she was. She was genuinely excellent in every way.

Now she's got a new, weekly webcomic called Oh Joy, Sex Toy (NSFW) and it is just great in every way. Her art continues to improve and the thoughtful and honest writing takes a lot of the natural awkwardness that I have about sex right out of the equation. She's taken the best aspects of Dar, Bucko, and her time at Periscope Studios to create a webcomic that is on my must read list each and every week. Erika currently has a Kickstarter for her Oh Joy, Sex Toy comic going that I'm planning on supporting and a patreon campaign that I will also be joining. I hope that some of you guys and gals reading this will end up liking her as much as I do.