Turtle Creek was a comic strip I developed in 2002 and pitched to the big syndicates. Its underlying themes were environment and technology, embodied by Huxley, an endangered turtle deprived of his habitat, and Wes, a computer perennially terrified of being made obsolete. (Considering his first-iMac form, his fear has now been realized.) Complementing them were Pam, an idealistic filmmaker trying to document Huxley's plight, and Serge, Wes' owner who works for the company developing the turtle's land.

For the first package I sent, I drew 24 daily strips and two Sundays, in their entirety below.

King Features responded with some suggestions for improvement. One of them was to tone down his unturtlelike nose. They requested another batch. So, in 2003, I furiously brainstormed and drew 24 more dailies and two more Sundays.

After about a year, I received a letter from King saying they weren't interested. They said that my strip would appeal more to comic book readers than newspaper readers. That was in 2004. Maybe if newspapers appealed more to comic book readers, they'd be in better straits.