About Zach Martz

In case you couldn't tell from the title of this page, my name is Zach Martz, and I am the creator of the Internet-exclusive comic strip, "Saving Jack's Brain", that is displayed on this website. For those of you who don't know me, I am 26 years old and a 2006 graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as well as a 2009 graduate of George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. In college I was a History major, with a minor in Political Science (which the central character in my strip, Jack Strauss, is a major in).

The first twenty-five years of my life aren't exactly the stuff an A&E biography is made of, but just in case anyone cares, I have lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia my whole life, except during the years 1989-90, when I lived in England. I spent most of my childhood living a pampered existence, playing with my friends, playing video games, and enduring 180 days of school each year. Same thing most of you went through. In first and second grade, I did a lot of creative work, writing short stories and drawing cartoons and fictional video games. In fifth grade I drew a bunch of cartoons in school that many of my classmates thought were pretty funny, but other than that, I mostly stayed away from drawing for the next eight or so years. I wasn't very good at it, and there were a lot of times in my life where I didn't feel very funny at all. I read a lot of Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, and Far Side cartoons, but that was the extent of my involvement with the cartoon world until recently

The summer before my senior year of high school, I started writing a novel about a high school freshman who endures constant abuse and harassment from his classmates. The novel, tentatively titled "Black Cougar", is a work in progress, and I hope to have it completed and published eventually. I spent the beginning of my senior year reassessing myself, and who I was as a person. It was from this introspection that I decided that I was the creative type, always trying new things and trying to enrich his life by creating art. Not to lecture anybody, but I think the type of introspection and self-reflection is a crucial part of growing up and figuring out who you are as a person, and where you should go with your life. In my case, I found out that I need to be creative. But it didn't occur to me back then that drawing a comic strip would be the proper outlet. I was still focused on writing my book.

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