Zoidland!

About Me

My name’s Jeff Burkholder. I’m the writer/artist of this little strip, which I’ve been running more-or-less weekly since the summer of 2003. I’m the father of two (Dante and Zoë), husband of one (the Eponymous Neaner), and master of nothing (Ø), hence my rather lackluster comic artistry. I live in a small tourist trap in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

About the Strip

During my halcyon college years, I took to doodling single-panel comics in the margins of my notes, church bulletins, and generally any scrap of paper I could get my hands on. This culminated in a brief run in the campus newspaper. At some point after graduation, my brother introduced me to the online comic Sluggy Freelance. This, coupled with occasional bouts of nostalgia-filled boredom, led me to resurrect my doodles, but as a multi-panel, sitcom-esque comic with recurring characters (although I did include one character who had made an appearance in one of my earlier single-panel efforts. 50 points if you guess which one!). Speaking of…

About the Characters

Zoid: While the democratically-elected mayor of the titular Zoidland, Zoid is actually the latest in a long, long string of Zoids who’ve served in that particular office. To be fair, nobody else has ever really wanted to run the place, so the Zoids have just seen it as their hereditary duty. The latest holder of the office is a nice guy, although occasionally prone to extreme mood swings entirely appropriate for a comic strip character of diminutive size. Unfortunately, due to the relatively meager coffers of the town treasury, Zoid’s (lack of) salary has forced him to share a large studio apartment with the other three main characters of the strip.

Shermy “Mitch” Delgado: A “serial occupationalist,” Mitch has never found a job which combines his three primary passions: Making lots of money, utter world domination, and doing absolutely nothing for extended periods of time. No, he’s not evil. He just has a supreme disregard for anyone and anything else around him that doesn’t interest him at any given moment. Much better, eh?

Scrappy Stoltzfus: Scrappy was raised on a diet that consisted solely of meat byproducts. While it regrettably resulted in his current complete lack of intelligence, a somewhat unevenly-fought lawsuit provided him with a permanent occupation as a mascot and TV spokesperson for Scrapple®-brand processed meat byproduct. He also has an all-you-can-eat clause in his contract…which arguably helps solidify both his position, as well as his arteries.

Jane Ste. Claire: Born in the Greater Vancouver area, Jane, her twin brother Jon, and their older sister Rainbow were raised by über-liberal Star Trek fans, and grew up on a steady diet of tofu, science fiction television and social consciousness. Of course, things got rather more difficult for the family when a college prank of Jon’s went horribly wrong, resulting in the accidental demolition of the local food co-op. While Jon went into hiding, Jane, Rainbow and their parents moved to the States, hoping to find a new start. The older Ste. Claires opened a beach campground, where Rainbow and her three-year old son also live, work and play. Jane emigrated to Zoidland, where she opened a small, struggling natural-food store that’s on the ground floor of the building beneath the roommates’ apartment.

More about me…

Apart from Zoidland, I also write and draw another weekly comic called, The Social Life of Frank and Linh. This strip began in February, 2010, and is published by my friend, Ken Mueller, on his business blog, Inkling Media. I also write another weekly comic, The Ouro Bros and the Neverending Tour, with art by Jeremy Bentley. Beginning in May, 2010, this strip depicts the surreal life and bizarre times of two brothers on a quest to make music. In between, I’ve also done guest strips for a handful of other comics and donated strips to a few worthy causes.

Outside of the comics realm, I work at YDOP, a digital marketing and social media advisory agency in south central Pennsylvania, as an inbound marketing analyst. Sounds impressive, yeah? I’m also the Director of Technical Arts for Hosanna! A Fellowship of Christians, where you can find me most Sundays, making sure microphones don’t explode and computers don’t decide to spontaneously reboot in the middle of a hymn or something. Previously, I’ve been a statistical analyst, dispatcher, telephone repair customer service rep, librarian/archivist/webmaster, campground cook, chicken fryer and weekend maintenance guy, radio DJ, newspaper editor and columnist, local theater actor/director, and massive, massive geek. I never got paid for that last one; must figure out how to do so, someday.