Botched Spot

On March third Botched Spot hit a big milestone: it turned ten years old! My comic has come a long way since those simple old drawings of Olav and Rad Bad that I started with and to celebrate I wanted to look back at some of my favorite types of comics from the past decade!

Great Moments for a Heel Turn!
My “Great Moments for a Heel Turn” comics were some of my most successful comics early on and ones that even people who didn’t watch wrestling enjoyed. Sure, they were a little formulaic, but these are a few of my early comics I can still look back on and feel proud of.

Animals as people!
Any time I get to draw animals talking or acting like people it’s a good day. I’m not even sure the Wyatts have been around alligators all that much, but it’s hard to turn down the opportunity to draw gators as pets/roommates.

Anthem Owl!
Speaking of talking animals, Anthem’s owl obsession gave me plenty of opportunities to draw their mascot bumbling through the wrestling world. I wish I could have kept up the owl catchphrases but after “I don’t give a hoot” there isn’t much left.

WWE Rewriting History!
There aren’t many times I’m able to successfully get my strong wrestling opinions across in a comic like this one. My favorite thing about this comic was seeing it posted in the comments of a wrestling news site with the comment “this is what reddit is for!” above it. There was a single response: “Wow, that took a lot of work.” I think about that response often.

Cartoons!
I’m sure it’s no surprise that I was a big fan of cartoons my whole life, so drawing them in my wrestling comics is always fun. WWE’s own Hanna-Barbera cartoons were fun too, but a little light on jokes about Cena’s backstage politicking.

Be a Star!
There’s nothing better than hypocritical WWE, especially when they’re tackling an issue they directly contribute to. Don’t be a bully kids! Sure, you can pick on people for how they look before you beat them up, but just don’t bully anyone.

WWE’s Women’s Evolution
There’s no doubt that the women of WWE are in a much better place now than they were ten years ago, but there is still so much that needs to be done. There’s nothing worse than seeing a big video package about the Divas Revolution only to have it followed by dudes talking about “manning up” and using “like a girl” as an insult.

Crazy Ol’ Vince
My favorite thing about Vince isn’t the “goddammits” but that everyone’s on board with him being totally crazy. It’s like I can’t go overboard!

The General Weirdness of Wrestling
“I know where the ropes are. They’re on the sides of the ring.” is something my wife and I say to each other regularly. There are so many obvious weird gimmicks and tropes in wrestling that it’s easy to miss out on the mundane things like nonsensical phrases the announcers say or the bizarre names of wrestling moves.

NXT Kids!
I think I played out the poor NXT Kids between their Christmas adventure and their Summer break, but drawing childish versions of WWE wrestlers is always fun. At some point I should probably make a family tree for them.

That time I went on break and published a bunch of fake “reprints”!
This was back in 2014 when I took a two week trip to Japan! It was a lot of work making these fake “reprints”, but it was worth it to see people’s reactions.

Randy Orton!
2017 was the first year I skipped Randy Orton Week, but for five solid years I made every joke I could about the Legend Killer. He’s kind of like Batman in that he’s so serious it’s funny if you put him in any silly situation.

These past ten years have been a fun ride that’s seen a lot of big changes to Botched Spot, the wrestling world at large and to me personally. I don’t know if I’ll make it another ten years, but the one thing that’s kept me going with this comic is all of you readers. I know it’s cliche and it’s cliche to point out that it’s cliche, but I’ve seen a lot of webcomics come and go in the past decade and I would be one of them if there wasn’t anyone reading. So thanks and I just might see you in another ten!