The Adventures of Bud
Or, why I don't draw a comic: an illustrated guide.
written by Emily on January 17, 2026

Fuck it. I think I’ll write about this shitty children's book I wrote in the 8th grade instead.

I was in the "gifted" program when I was young. It's not something I talk about fairly often, because I find it impossible to do so without sounding completely conceited. It isn't like revealing that you took honors courses or you graduated early. Everyone did that. The Internet is nothing but a bunch of smart kids whiling away their time. But to actually tell someone that you have been labeled as "gifted"? That, to me, is just asking for someone to call me on the fact that I live with my parents and work in a steakhouse.

Nevertheless, I was indeed one of the select few in my school to carry such a title, which in the 7th and 8th grades meant nothing except that I got to go with all of the other big brained kids to a class called "Special Topics" instead of going to home ec. Special Topics was a class bases around letting each student develop their own academic paths according to their strengths and interests. I was an English dork, so I got to read books and stare out the window. Much like I do now, really.

In addition, we had some projects we worked on as a group. For example, we once spent several weeks on a unit which culminated in an event called "Night of the Notables." Basically, we all had to dress up as someone we admired and give a speech in front of everyone's parents. I dressed up like Larry Bird. And THAT is a sad and very Freudian story that we won't go into here. The greatest of these group projects was when Mrs. Killinger (our teacher, this wonderful hippie woman who wore Birkenstocks all year ‘round and never shaved her armpits) asked us to write a children’s book.

And now that I’ve spent the last several minutes bragging about how smart I am, I’d like everyone to scroll back up to my book’s cover and take note of the fact that I spelled "Illustrated" wrong.

I don’t remember the purpose, what we were intended to learn from the process. All I know is we had to write, draw, and bind the thing entirely on our own, and then read them to all of the other students, as well as some teachers. There was an overweight Goth-in-the-making named Ty who spent weeks filling his book with beautiful, immaculate illustrations, but never got around to writing the story. There was also a horrible abrasive girl named Cassidy, who wrote about a gang war that ensued in her refrigerator after the milk "went bad." I wrote about a cow.

I do not know why. I am not a very country person. I was not raised on a farm. I have been in close proximity to a cow once in my life, and I ran screaming away from it, in fear that it was going to attack me for getting too close to its young. When I was in 4-H I always did my projects on photography, because I thought the really hardcore 4-H kids who raised livestock only to sell it for slaughter at the state fair were wicked and awful. Nor am I a cow enthusiast. I own no cow figurines. I will not be one of those women whose house you visit and find the front door adorned with a wooden plaque featuring a harried anthropomorphic cow head exclaiming, "Bless this mess!" The point here is that I cannot for the life of me recall what prompted me to write this particular story. But the reason isn’t really important. What is important is that I will now ripe apart my creation to taste a sweet moment’s worth of your validation.

So, let’s get to that.

Here we have the blurb I wrote for the dust jacket, which doesn’t really make sense because the entire thing is just construction paper glued to cardstock and bound with twine. The two things to be gleaned from my blurb are 1) My love for hyperbolic, movie trailer-esque descriptions, and 2) That I was a bitchy little 13 year-old Daria who thought writing a kid’s book was really "gay" and thus set out to write the most sarcastic, least morally valuable story I could get away with.

Title page. Not much to see here, aside from my flippant, Pollock-like refusal to use a ruler when writing test. Also, who the fuck is Buo?

Shucks, Pa, that there looks like another dad blum title page. Seriously. I’m not sure why this page is here except to show my awesome mastery of the bubble font. At least everything is spelled correctly. On the right is the date of "publication," as well as the logo for the fake publishing house we made up. I came up with the name "Koob" (book spelled backwards, for those that aren’t Susie Smartypants like me). I don’t recall who it was that came up with the idea to make our logo one of those plastic things that rednecks put on the bug guard of their trucks.

Finally! A story! I’m so quick to turn the fairy tale convention on its ear by making the "faraway land" Nebraska. I can’t believe I didn’t grow up to write Shrek movies. This is also the reader’s first real glimpse at my awesome artwork. And though I describe Bud as "mean, and kind of stupid," brother certainly has a big, white smile. Also, there is a pretty heinous size differential between his two back legs, which I’ve been staring at for a good five minutes, but still can’t figure out which is supposed to be left, and which right.

No time for love, Dr. Jones. Witness, if you will, my interpretation of the globe, in which every continent look like an arrowhead from your back yard.

Isn’t it great that the SECOND paragraph starts with the word, "anyway"? I was already writing like me before I even knew there was a way that "me" wrote. I’m also rather infatuated with my, "sorry toots, I’m on a tight schedule" style of exposition: "Bud left. No one cared. He went to Paris (looking for answers to questions that bothered him so). It sucked. So he went somewhere else." Throw in a hilarious stoner voice and I just wrote a Mitch Hedberg bit.

At left, I kick my illustrating up a notch as But, whom it took a couple of tries to draw, I guess, loses his smile in the face of a creepy woman-hipped Frenchman’s cruel laughter. Also, check out my awesome realization of a Parisian shopping district. Like I just totally lost my shit by the third building, so I just called it "Antique Shop." I couldn’t even be bothered to fudge up some fake frenchy thing. "Le Petite Home Depot," or something. Looking back on this book 10 years after creating it, I’m actually pretty curious as to why the French hate Bud so much. Maybe because he’s from a red state? Political humor! BA ZING!!

To the right, the apparently magical flying cow soars across Europe. I think I must’ve traced this image straight out of a text book. It’s the only explanation I can see for the European Union not looking like a series of Jell-O jigglers. I must’ve also drawn this picture the day after tomorrow, which is why the whole continent is a vast expanse of snowy white.

In Italy, Tony Tinyhead (or, alternately, Bryan Bigarms) is so adamant that a cow not be let in to their already fucked up tower, his word bubble has actually colored itself in. I could comment more on the story, but I’m distracted by the background, where I seem to have drawn a big-booty stick man giving his woman anal pleasure.

The next page contains perhaps my favorite development in the entire saga, in which an unlikeable cartoon cow (or is he a bull? Do boy cows even have spots?) yells expletives at that papacy. More specifically, Pope Ohnomisterbill III. I’m also totally in love with my crappy attempt at setting the scene by drawing like, a road and some pine trees in the back.

As if the story weren’t compelling enough as it was, I then decided to mock the culture of those different from myself! Well, I suppose I had already done that with Pepe Le Tight pants a couple of pages back, but still. What's with little me assuming that Indian men just hang out at the airport waiting for a cow to get off of a plane? Also, at this point I really feel that it’s necessary for me to state, for the record, that the computer on which I typed all of the text for this book was so old that God hadn’t yet invented the backspace key. I’m so ashamed of my typos guys hey come on. L

Not much to say about the drawing on the left, expect I seem to have come to my senses and drawn Asia like a great big loogie, thus returning to form. Also: AWWW, I made the moon all sad and Goth. I may not have dressed in black at that age, but I was already a stereotyyyyype. My name is Emily. My other interests include "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and Bettie Page.

Yeah, I’d just given up at this point. I couldn’t even be bothered to draw Bud’s flying lines.

I don’t care what y'all bitches say. After viewing 10 or so pages of my non-art, non-work, my successful attempt at drawing a cow using a camera is pretty impressive.

Okay, right after making fun of my illustrations, I’m going to turn right around and say that I actually really like this picture.

Why, I might even be proud of it. Granted, the cow didn’t just suddenly jump aboard the Polar Express or anything. The picture has its flaws. There is the rather awkward placement of the logs in the fire. And the way the horse is sitting with his legs crossed just so. And the HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD genetic accident on the end that appears to be a cat’s face grafted onto a sheep. But. . .well. . . Fuck, you try to draw a chicken sitting on a bench, you son of a bitch!!

Finally, we come to the heartwarming conclusion. Or, rather, the opposite of that, in which the heartbroken anti-hero returns to his farm only to be rejected again by the other, even more reprehensible farm animals. If you can’t make out his word bubble, the chicken is saying, "Go back to Paris, fat boy!" Nice.

Thriving in the face of adversity, Bud says, "Eff you, bitches. Wanna know the rest? Hey, buy the rights." Then he sells his story to a cable channel and lives out the rest of his days in wealth and luxury. So the moral is that there is no moral, who fortune chooses to favor is random, and you really can’t go home again. Our last image of Bud is in a stretch limo, about two seconds away from getting a sloppy BJ from a trannie prostitute. How bizarre.

I want you all to remember this image when I’m a hugely successful novelist, swimming in my money pit and doing coke off of a cheerleader’s tits.