Outta Toon made its debut in April 1987 in CCM Magazine, marking my first professional job as a cartoonist. It was truly a trial-by-fire experience, allowing me to learn the craft “on the job” while sharing my work with a nationwide audience of tens of thousands. At the time, CCM Magazine was widely regarded as the Rolling Stone of Christian music, focusing on Contemporary Christian artists and the industry. Its coverage spanned rock, indie, alternative, and gospel, with occasional features on praise, country, and other genres. Although the magazine has undergone various ownership changes and shifts in focus, I believe it’s still around today.

The cartoon strip was born out of my love for Christian music and served as a satire on the genre during a period of tremendous creative and commercial growth. At its heart were two main characters: Scott Fawlkerson, a devout, traditional, and conservative evangelical Christian, and his roommate, Alpha Armageddon, the outspoken lead singer of a dubiously talented Christian punk band called The Altar Hunks. Their spirited debates and misadventures became a lens through which I explored the quirks, contradictions, and evolution of Christian music and its industry. In many ways, the strip was a love letter to the music that had carried me through my college years, my twenties, and into my early thirties.

Outta Toon ran in CCM Magazine for over a decade before moving to The Christian Musician Magazine for another four or five years. At one point, I considered syndicating it for a broader audience, but the concept never fully developed. The strip came to an end in the early 2000s.

What follows are a few of the later strips, presented in full color.