I’ve been a science-fiction fan for as long as I’ve been able to read, but didn’t start writing in that direction until I was well in my 20s. I started by scribbling short stories — very short stories, usually about four panels or less. While in college I still had aspirations to be a cartoonist, and one day walked into the editor’s office at The University Star, the student newspaper for Southwest Texas State University, and convinced him to carry my comic strip Space Tales. I think I was paid $5 or $10 apiece for the strips, so these comics from 1988 and 1989 were technically my first professional fiction sales. (The pay rate has remained constant). The one reproduced below was probably the high point, or at least the one that people most mentioned if they knew about the strip. Hey, it was college, cut me some slack, ok?