About the Author

Cos Ryan is a human boy born in the latter quadrant of the 20th century (a child of ‘85, no less). He was born in the Black Country in the midlands of England, and was raised in Failsworth, a tiny shithole between Manchester and Oldham in the north of England. He currently lives in Worcester, a tiny city the same size as Oldham, in the West Midlands. He’d give you his exact address, but feels that this would do more harm than good.

Comicks

Cos was never really a comic book person; he feels that superheroes especially are unrelatable and therefore do not matter to him. He discovered the Mall Monkeys webcomic back in the day, which lasted only 500 strips. It was offensive, slightly racist, and - on retrospective inspection - badly drawn. It was, however, quite funny, and led him to discover Diesel Sweeties and OverCompensating. He liked webcomics a lot because the characters were normal people like you and I, he could relate to them, and the variety of such comics were astounding.

Like a lot of webcomic readers, he acquired the notion that he himself could create an online masterpiece. He set up The Moichido Comic Collective without any thought as to plot, writing or art. It lasted 4 strips, and Cos decided to wait a while before the next one. He was watching The BRIT Awards one year and realised that the music industry in Britain was an abomination. That very same night he created 14 strips for a new comic, with characters he’d never drawn before, and so Tragically Shit was born. The strip went from being poorly drawn and badly thought out strips into moderately drawn and badly thought out scripts. It lasted over 100 strips before Cos decided to end it.

During his time at Tragically Shit, which was then amended to TraGic, Cos learnt how to draw better and about the ups and downs of running a webcomic. He used this knowledge to think up new characters and ideas. He had characters, but no plot or setting. Inspired by the hit TV show Spaced, he decided he wanted a webcomic to portray a situation similar to his own - normal people in jobs they don’t like, doing all they can to make themselves happy. It was to be an online sitcom, and in real time too - if the comic went up on a Monday, it was Monday to the characters as well.

He started mocking up comics from September 2007, and using a full A4 page, as opposed to the standard 3 panel webcomic format, he experimented with making the art as detailed as possible. He tried to think of names that would be interesting and stand out, as well as being meaningful to the content of the comic. Dead Ends seemed to fit - Cos has spent most of his life in Dead End careers.

And so, on November the 5th, this site was launched. There’s no telling whether or not it will become Cos’s dream of an online masterpiece… but here’s hoping.