Melon Collie Comic Strip Debuts on Newsberg

NEWBERG, Ore.—Joseph Hampton didn’t intend to be a comic artist, he said. He doodled a bit in high school like most do, passing the time during classes and lectures with pen in hand. He would find ways to create “Where is Waldo” style graphics on his various notebooks.

But a running comic strip? Unlikely. 

It wasn’t until he drew a dog with a big, rounded nose who exuded pessimism and sarcasm that Hampton realized he could express his sense of humor through characters.

“It started as just a single-panel comic with these little sad friends,” Hampton said. “Then I started wondering, ‘What if cartoon, cute comic animals were just kinda sad, like the rest of us?’”

And so, Melon Collie was born. Named after a line in a Calvin and Hobbes strip (“What do you get when you cross a cantaloupe with Lassie? A Melon Collie, baby!”—Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, Dec. 5, 1990), Melon the dog—notably not a collie—became the star. Hampton said Melon isn’t a specific breed but is inspired by classic comic strip dogs like Charles Schulz’s Snoopy.

“I didn’t plan to draw a dog-based comic strip,” he said. “It was something I could draw, and then it just made sense to poke fun at that comic strip trope.”

Hampton, who was born and raised in Newberg, stayed in town through high school and eventually graduated from George Fox University with an English degree. He traveled around the country—from Portland, Oregon, to West Palm Beach, Florida, to Oakland, California—before returning home in 2023.

“I think I took one graphic design class,” he said. “But it wasn’t my focus then. I like that it came up organically, without a lot of technical experience. That might have changed my style or originality.”

The single-panel comics—think something like The Family Circus, where the entire episode is one image—grew into multiple panels, mostly to accommodate formatting on social media sites like Instagram. The characters started with Melon and her rooftop co-star, Reggie the Rhino.

With multiple panels came story development, plotlines, and additional characters.

“They developed naturally to fill different parts of my personality,” Hampton said. “There are a few I’m still figuring out, but they tend to figure themselves out as the comic strip evolves.”

Hampton said the comic started as a way to express things and situations he found funny. Many of the comics’ punchlines carry sarcastic overtones and jokes that poke fun at various characters or world events.

“It’s new sincerity, kind of like anti-humor,” he added. “My humor can be very dry, cynical, and dark. That’s what I think is funny, so that comes through in the characters.”

Melon Collie’s Inspiration

Melon Collie follows in the footsteps of modern comic strips. Hampton cites Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes as setting the standard for comic strips, with witty and complex themes that grow with the reader. Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine and Gary Larson’s The Far Side are other inspirations for his work.

“Stephan Pastis and I both struggle with not being technically good at drawing,” Hampton said. “I think his comic is so successful because he works within that limitation and almost highlights it. I try to do the same. The cool thing about art is that you don’t have to be good at everything. You find your niche and style and run with it.”

Upon returning to Newberg in 2023, Hampton started working as a kitchen manager at Mabel Rush Elementary School (which he insists is just a fancy term for “lunch lady”). He began designing the daily food menu with characters from Melon Collie and little food-related jokes.

“It was a bit of a reality check because some of the students saw Melon and asked if she was a mouse or rabbit,” he said. “Children have no filter. They’re not going to pretend something is good if it isn’t. They’ve been a good reality check.”

The next day’s comic featured a grumpy Melon after hearing everyone thought she was another animal, asserting she was clearly a dog.

Before long, a few students showed interest in his drawings and shared some of their sketches with him. Hampton would take those sketches and turn them into characters on the next day’s board. One character, a rock with googly eyes, was named “Rocky.”

“[A student] pitched Rocky to me as just ‘a rock with googly eyes,’” Hampton said. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. He just sits there, shows up randomly, sometimes they talk to him, other times he’s just there. It’s hilarious. This seven-year-old kid saw these comics twice and came up with something hilarious.”

As students showed interest in drawing, some said they couldn’t draw well and wouldn’t try. Hampton encouraged them to try, explaining that art is just expression and that any art is great art. Then, he had a realization.

“I realized I was telling these kids to try drawing because it wasn’t that they were bad at it—they were just unpracticed,” he said. “I realized I was having the same self deprecating attitude around my own work and wasn’t following my own advice. It was a great lesson for me to learn.”

Hampton initially published his comic strip on Instagram but recently removed his content after Instagram’s parent company, Meta, announced it would use images to train artificial intelligence. He pivoted to publishing through Patreon and, as of Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, on Newsberg.

“I replaced the love and validation I used to get from anonymous people on the Internet with the children at school,” he said. “I realized I don’t need Instagram anymore, because I feel like that validation is so fleeting and empty compared to a face-to-face interaction with a kid who is really excited that I drew their comic on the board.”

Melon Collie is hand-drawn and hand-colored. The comic strip will be published weekly on Newsberg and distributed via the Newsberg Weekly Newsletter and website. If you’d like to support Joseph Hampton and see his full collection of Melon Collie Comics, visit his Patreon (free to subscribe, paid to unlock all posts). 

See the first Melon Collie Comic published on Newsberg!