One of the motivating (though perhaps misinformed) thoughts behind The Sands was that few in-depth, narrative-based comics ever have improvisation at their bases; few actually arise organically, from streams of comic-based practice, play and investigation, to be later refined, reorganized, reconsidered and re-composed. It's rare to see a rough draft in this medium that isn't already based on a fully-formed idea. Most are the same comics as their published revisions, just with smoother "storytelling" or sometimes better or merely darker drawings.

With The Sands I wanted to let the ideas form within the rough drafts, believing that when the elements and details of the story emerge from within a cartooned-context, rather than a thought or writing context, their integrity would make for a unique, richer comic-book experience. This is not a unique idea. The best arts of our culture view this as a standard method; from Beethoven to Bitch's Brew; from novels to plays to paintings to songs, creation often proceeds along these lines. Sadly, the expense of films have excluded it from exploiting this method too frequently, (though the actual stories for Mike Leigh's films are created in an intense version of this method, with tremendous success) and as for comics, who knows why its investigative techniques are so under formed?

While there are plenty of spontaneous comics out there, many of them are just splendid short rides. Most narrative driven comics on the other hand, are often plotted, scripted and completely thunk-up before being handed to the "artist" (even when said aritst is the same person as the "writer.") I wanted to integrate this process more, creating in words, pictures, plot, cartoons and characters concurrently. In order for this book to work, these creations had to be revised and revised, so that structure and planning could buttress and support the spontaneity.

Three chief inspirations surfaced in this process to lead me to a single motivating question:

• Charles Schulz' Sandlot Peanuts, a gorgeous hardcover collection from the 1970s of only the strip's baseball material.
• Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy. Nancy Eats Food is a book simliar to Peanuts Sandlot in its organizing principal. Presented are all the food strips, and the book in its entirety is for me, strenuous, mind-altering, and overwhelming weird. Second, Scott McCloud's 5-Card Nancy game gave me chance to further see these familiar, solid, characters in completely new, random and unholy circumstances. The challenge to me, as a reader, of wrestling these pieces into a narrative in my own mind is thrilling.
• Lastly, I was reminded of "bloopers" often seen at the ends of movies. This prosaic crowd-pleaser of a stunt seen at the end of numerous Burt Reynolds movies from the 70's, and recent movies like "Grumpy Old Men" and "Something About Mary" incline me to ask the same thing I ask of Sandlot and Nancy :

When we have been introduced to these characters in conventional ways, why is it so thrilling to see them all later in almost random, non-linear and/or repetative circumstances?

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