When Tess was about seven years old, she was already using the computer. She loved playing around with Paint Shop Pro. One day she loaded all of Michelle’s icons — Michelle is the administrator of a large forum, and has a huge icon collection for it — and began making a picture using them. She started with a field of green, and then placed icons all over it, representing people. She had some of the icons eating a picnic lunch, and some of them playing volleyball, and some just running around. She also had a couple that were walking their dogs. She titled the picture People in the Park. Michelle and I saw that and thought, Wow, that would make a great comic!

We didn’t forget about the idea after that, we just thought that some other webcomic might be better. For four years we tried various comics, before finally returning to the idea of a simplistic-looking comic that takes place inside a computer, with icons for people. So Tess really needs to take the credit for coming up with the original idea.

It’s kind of bizarre. Michelle and I always wondered if Tess would follow in our footsteps, but now we’re following in hers.