What is Checkerboard Nightmare?
Checkerboard Nightmare is a webcomic, created and drawn by Kristofer Straub. Originally hosted independently, it moved to Keenspot for a time, before becoming one of the founding comics of Blank Label Comics.It was conceived as a satire of webcomics - the strip is self-aware, using metahumour extensively, and the title character, Checkerboard Nightmare ("Chex") is obsessed with gaining fame as a webcomic character and is willing to do anything necessary to achieve it, an attitude satirising the self-promoting nature of lesser-known webcomics. The setup of the strip does not change beyond 'Chex wants new readers and concocts a hare-brained scheme to get them', satirising the strict adherance to format exhibited by, for example, sitcoms. Its targets expanded as the strip progressed, and shifted from satirising webcomics to the search for fame in general with the move to Keenspot.

In addition, Checkerboard Nightmare was noted for its timely and accurate parodies of other webcomics, including a notable storyline where Chex attacks other webcomic creators with a shovel (drawn in each creator's art style) in an attempt to gain fame by getting rid of the competition, and a well-timed one-shot comic in which a character from Queen of Wands, which had just ended, was run over by Chex and another character in a car as a parody of a similar gag in the webcomic Something Positive. At the height of Checkerboard Nightmare's run, it was well-known in the webcomics community as a razorsharp satirist of the form, and a sign of the growth and strength of webcomics in general.
-- Wikipedia, the bastion of all webcomics information

Q. Has Checkerboard Nightmare returned?

A. Sort of. Not really. The original goal of Checkerboard Nightmare was webcomics deconstruction, deconstruction of the search for fame and how easy it had become on the internet, fame inside a small pond. I feel like it went off the rails at the end of its original five-year run, so this is a return to form. It also has no update schedule -- for notification of a new CxN strip, check Starslip Crisis.

Q.
Who is Kristofer Straub?

A. Artist, writer, songwriter, guitarist, dilettante, lover, mother -- all of these have been used to incorrectly describe Kristofer Straub, but you may be able to derive your own definition from his other sites:

Blank Label Comics - Nine cartoonists self-publish.
Starslip Crisis - Three space travelers learn about art and piracy.
Nightlight Press - One person writes short stories and blogs.
Hard Action Squad - Two cops take on the mean streets.
Interweb P.I. - One detective, one flask, one interweb.


Copyright 2006 Kristofer Straub. All rights reserved.