So here he is, the character who started it all, and the leader of the gang known as Muggar's Boys. Um, I'm not sure if he's going to actually father someone who is a direct ancestor of the Springfield Simpsons, or if he's like the sibling of their direct ancestor, or what. Maybe I'll figure that out someday, if I ever actually get around to writing stories about the citizens of Western Gulch. (Btw, I have no idea what state that town is in, much like Springfield.) In any event, not only is he the first character I created for "D'WARD's 1890's," he's also the first to feature an anchronism. He likes Butterfinger candy bars, which according to Wikipedia were invented in 1923. The reason I decided he likes them is because, of course, back in the 1990s, the Simpsons, particularly Bart, appeared in a number of ads for Butterfinger. Oh, right. I should also say I don't know what "J.J." actually stands for, but I believe I gave him those initials because the Simpson men (Homer, Bart, Abe) all have "J" as their middle initial. Couldn't tell you if I had anything special in mind when I decided to misspell his nickname "Muggar" (rather than "mugger"), except that I was fond of misspelling things back then. (Hell, I still do it to an extent even now, just for fun.)
What else can I say? I suppose he was also the first character for me to make up some random bit of trivia to write sideways to the left of the drawing, though his trivia was stuff I already knew about him before I started drawing the series of characters. Um... it occurs to me now that there was an episode of "The Simpsons" that revealed that Simpson men always end up being stupid, or whatever, so it's weird that Muggar is actually smart. I'm kind of wondering if something might end up happening to him that starts the dumbing-down trend, on a genetic level. But then again, the series isn't always entirely consistent with itself.
Oh yes, and I should say I started scanning these old drawings and uploading them to my site on Monday, Feb. 22, 2010, the day after an episode in which Lisa learned that pretty much everyone in the Simpson family tree were pretty much no good. Homer even mentioned the words "horse thief," which made me wonder if he could have been referring to Muggar. (Naturally the writers weren't referring to him, since they have no idea I ever created the character, but if the reference is never made more specific, there's no reason I can't go ahead and imagine that's what he meant.)