Shrimp Fried Riot

Shrimp Fried Riot is the name of an older project from The Cartoonist, Johann-Octavius Gans, circa 2005 or so, created as a pseudo-self-insert comic. The main character, Octavius, is patterned after The Cartoonist and the other characters are chibified, fictionalized versions of his friends, neighbors and acquaintances from Bellingham, Washington.

This comic, “Shrimp Fried Riot”, originally started as a different comic: A joint project between The Cartoonist and a then-friend, who also wanted to do a “slice-of-life” comic. They collaborated on a couple of strips and after deliberation and input from others, wound up calling it “The Hamster Wheel”, due to living in Bellingham Washington, the inhabitants, colloquially known as “Hamsters”. (It was almost “Hamster CAGE”, but, Gans thought Wheel sounded “cooler”.)

Unfortunately, Gans dropped out of the project briefly for about 3 weeks and change, due to depression and the art block that often comes with it. When he got over that wave, Gans re-connected with said ‘friend’, only to find out that HIS self-insert character had been written out of “his friend's comic”. This 'friend' renamed the project and went on without Gans, so, hard feelings aside, Gans took what shared elements of the comic that were his, re-worked the character designs and went on his own from there. He initially tried another version, starring identical triplets - to triple his presence on the page after having been erased from the aforementioned project, almost out of spite, but, after a while, that petered out and he went back to a Bellingham themed self-insert comic, ALSO somewhat out of spite. he employed the somewhat super-deformed "chibi" style designs after being inspired by Todd Nauck's 'shrimpy' miniature margin-dwelling versions of the Teen Titans in the comic book adaptation of the popular cartoon that was on TV at the time. Thus, Shrimp Fried Riot was born.

The initial run of "SFR" was only 20 strips and two pin-ups. At the end of that run, The Cartoonist tried to reboot it into a different comic. At first, he kept the name Shrimp Fried Riot (2.0), but, after that comic about an evil genius, that was later renamed "Malicious Intent", ran its 18 strip course, and after a couple of years hiatus, the original strip was continued/rebooted with the title of "My Own Personal Apocalypse". The focus shifted slightly from wacky fictional commentary on life in Bellingham to The Cartoonist's own personal issues with self-doubt and feeling unappreciated. My Own Personal Apocalypse was more about catharsis and dealing with personal demons than its predecessor.

The Cast was greatly reduced, as, through most of it, only Octavius and his girlfriend, whose comic avatar was called "Lucy Q" appeared. The comic was technically broken into two parts, as, another comic in the same vein, "Random Instagram Funnies" ran its course in the interim. Random Instagram Funnies were just that. little random one page scribbles made specifically for Instagram posting, but that version didn't last long for several reasons.

Later, when The Cartoonist went back to MOPA, specifically as a sort of self-therapy, a few of the other past friends from SFR resurfaced, urging Octavius to quit the comic. He did so, but, as The Cartoonist has a bizarre form of comic-making OCD, he instead tried to reboot the strip. Several times

Such reboots included: Shrimp Fried Riot: The Next Generation - featuring a fictional son of Octavius and Lucy Q and his bff, "Mutt" and "Jujubee". Versions of the aforementioned identical triplets as either aliens or the cloned children of supervillains in projects like "Plastic Reality" and "The MacCobbs". Another self-insert version with a slightly less chibi style called "Catharcissism".

The entire, semi-linear story of this project's pedigree can be found on The Duck Webcomics under the Shrimp Fried Riot title.

Currently, as of this writing, The Cartoonist has, once again, restarted a chibified self insert comic. The premise is Octavius, literally trying to rebuild the project from the inside out as a method, in and of itself, of putting the past betrayals and personal demons behind him and moving forward. The strip is now called "Octopus Ink", and can be found on ComicFury.