"Just Friends" was the second original comic created by me (JJ Parks) for Improcomics.org. A Day in the Life of Jim was originally not planned to be an impro, and Goin' Postal (the first original made to be impro) comic was more action and story driven, so I thought I would develop a character based story as well. From the beginning the main protaganist Jhon Sparks (named after my brother "Jhon" though similar in name only) was supposed to fall in love with a friend of his, Jen, who wasn't at all interested in him beyond friendship (and hence the title "Just Friends"). Incidentally, a character named Diana (or her nickname"Matchmaker") runs a website also called "Just Friends" which gives people (mostly guys) advice on dating, relationships and love in general. Though little is told about Diana, she was originally intended to play a larger part in the day-to-day life of Jhon, but as the comic has gone so far, she's been mostly a background character giving advice and prodding Jhon this way and that.

After opening the story up to other impro-artists things got a lot more interesting for Jhon and crew. Kaice introduced Jhon's best friend, Kevin, and created a sort of love triangle typical to these kinds of stories. As it goes, Jen was semi-interested in Kevin whereas Kevin really is interested in helping Jen and Jhon get together (similar to Takashi's role in Video Girl AI for those of you who are familar with the story...a personal favorite). Sashi helped continue this storyline and things were going smoothly until our good friend Skippy the Klingon came in. Doing what he does best (mixing up stories and getting people interested in dying series), Skippy injected a good deal of character into the story by having Jhon stumble onto a nude beach (bear with me here hehe), running into Chrissy: a semi-innocent nudist who is interested in being friends with Jhon, and nothing more (again, story of Jhon's life).

After returning home, Jhon writes to Diana and feels a bit guilty about his running into Chrissy, but she assures him that he's a good guy and he hasn't done anything wrong. In school, rumors break out about Jhon and Chrissy as virtually everyone knows about her side life as a nudist (it doesn't help that A Day in the Life of Jim veteran Gary continues to spread rumors about the two). As it stands now, Jhon decides to meet up with Chrissy after school regardless of the rumors and Jen still doesn't know Jhon's true feelings. Where will the story go? Only you can decide ^_^