Next week Adam and I are starting our major webcomics update schedule – however -an early strip has already made its way onto the web. There is a new Fat Baby strip over at www.fatbabycomics.com.

Fat Baby is one of the projects Adam and I get asked about all the time. There is some confusion as to who the creators of Fat Baby are, it is not Adam and I. To help clear up some of the confusion I have drafted a basic time-line, which provides the entire history of the Fat Baby Cartoon Comic Strip.

A Brief History of Fat Baby

March, 1971: Local haberdasher and known virgin, Marty Limpthumb, conceives of Fat Baby after a friend’s toddler steals and devours his pimento loaf sandwich.

May, 1971: Marty Limpthumb tells his friend Chauncey Watercloset his idea for Fat Baby, the comic strip.

June, 1971: The Limpthumb Family reports their son, Marty, missing to the local Police. Chauncey Watercloset approaches area artist, Upperbottom Bottombottom with his idea for Fat Baby, the comic strip.

July, 1971: Watercloset and Bottombottom complete the first Fat Baby strip via wood etching. The two later embark on a hastily put together, six month tour of  the countryside to promote the strip.

Sep, 1971: Two months into their tour a fan finally asks why they chose to do the strip with wood etchings instead of ink and paper. Watercloset and Bottombottom look into ink and paper technology.

Nov, 1971: After extensive research, Bottombottom determines ink and paper to be the future of publishing, Watercloset vehemently disagrees. After a brief argument, the two abandon their tour and return to the drawing board, literally.

Dec, 1971: Bottombottom and Watercloset submit the first 278 ink and paper strips they have completed since the month prior to the local paper, the Weekly Lump, for publication.

Jan, 1972: The Weekly Lump roundly rejects the Fat Baby proposal.

Feb, 1972: Bottombottom edits the gratuitous nudity out of the original Fat Baby strips, the pair resubmits to the Weekly Lump.

April, 1972: The Weekly Lump, accepts the Fat Baby proposal, the first strips are published in syndication, providing enough bail money to get Watercloset  out of the local jail where he had been locked up for frequent acts of unquestionable public nudeness.

Oct, 1972: Finnish Paper owner, Balto Diphthongs, discovers Fat Baby on a business trip, he has Fat Baby translated into Finish and begins to run it in his papers.

Nov, 1972: Fat Baby discovered to not be very funny in Finnish, re-translated from Finnish to Dutch and published in Holland, where it is mistaken for an instructional cooking comic strip.

March, 1973: Fat Baby comes under fire from sausage impresarios for use of his catch phrase, “ew, I don’t eat sausage, that’s gross”.

Aug, 1973: The Sausage Appreciation Club of Kentwood (S.A.C.K.) publishes their definitive list of things Fat Baby has eaten that are grosser than sausage.

Sep, 1973: S.A.C.K. comes under fire from sausage impresarios because their definitive list does not include every single thing Fat Baby has ever eaten, the sausage impresarios feel this implies that sausage is therefore grosser than any thing not included in the list. Litigation is filed.

June, 1974: Hundreds of Dutch readers poisoned after they mistake a Fat Baby strip as instructions for a vegetarian quicklime casserole.

Nov, 1978: Fat Baby nearly wins the Mayoral race for the town of Punts, England when two out of its six residents write Fat Baby onto the ballot as their choice for Mayor.

Dec, 1978: Recounts begin in the Punts Mayoral Election.

Jan, 1979: Fat Baby comes under fire from religious groups after he eats a bible and critiques it as “tasteless”.

Feb, 1979: Recount results now totaled, Fat Baby declared Mayor of Punts England.

July, 1982: Fat Baby comes under fire again, this time from parents groups who feel that Fat Baby is depicted as skinnier than their babies, who, according to them, are just “big boned”.

Aug, 1982: Fat Baby threatens to eat fire so that he can no longer come under it.

Aug, 1983: Fat Baby re-translated from Dutch back into Finnish and re-published in Finland, where readership subsequently blooms.

March, 1986: The original Fat Baby strip concludes, leaving its creators looking to expand Fat Baby into new venues.

May, 1987: Bottombottom declares radio to be “the next big thing”. Bottombottom and Watercloset begin shopping around their pitch for a Fat Baby Radio programme.

June, 1991: After being stuck in development hell, the Fat Baby radio show finally airs, with basket ball superstar, Scottie Pippen, playing every single part.

July 1991: The Fat Baby radio show is canceled. The official reason cited is Pippen’s total inability to voice-act even one character, let alone 37.

Feb, 1994: Marty Limpthumb found in a London opium den. When shown a collection of Fat Baby strips he remarks that they are “consequentive”.

May, 1994: After months of serious debate, it is determined that “consequentive” is not a word.

Sep, 2003: Bottombottom discovers the internet, begins two years of extensive research into internet technology.

Sep, 2005: Bottombottom finishes research, declares the internet to be “way of the future”. Watercloset and Bottombottom force their barrister, Sexton Chowdercups, to begin shopping Fat Baby around to the Internet.

June, 2006: Chowdercups inks a deal with frequent internet users, Floodworks Studios, to publish Fat Baby. Due to licensing concerns Floodworks only obtains the rights to re-publish the second run of Finish Fat Baby Comics. Ethan Ede begins translating the comics, which have been translated from English, to Finnish, to Dutch, to Finnish again, back into English. Ede understands neither Finish nor Dutch, and his understanding of English is questionable at best. Progress is slow.

Dec 2006: Floodworks artist, Adam Rosenlund decides to just go ahead and redraw the Fat Baby strips all together in order to correct what he calls “Bottombottom’s gross misunderstanding of, and egregiously inaccurate assumptions about, human anatomy”.

April, 2007: www.fatbabycomics.com is launched by Floodworks Studios.

Well, there you have it:  the definitive history of how Fat Baby came to be. Go check out the new strip, and check back every Sunday for a new installment.