Well, for starters, Bruised Oranges is a webcomic. I'm not gonna dick you around -- this comic has strong mature themes. Quite simply, what this means is: Bruised Oranges is absolutely not safe for work and likely never will be! Therefore, we can logically conclude that this is not a comic to share with the following people: Your boss, your grandmother, your clergy, the evangelist nutball down the street, or your children. Children, especially, should not be exposed to this. Not unless you want them getting weird ideas about rescuing train accident victims with clock parts and then doing dirty sexual things with them.
Seriously, don't show this to your kids or read this comic at work. There's a part where a guy gets a blowjob in church, if you haven't gotten a clear vision of the moral depravity going on here. Just don't.
Bruised Oranges takes place in turn-of-the-century Florida, in a small, rural locale called Gator Creek. Its rough approximation is somewhere around northeast Florida, nestled in the swampy expanse some healthy distance away from Jacksonville and St. Augustine. It got its humble beginnings from attracting prospective farmers and immigrants via an advertisement in the newspaper a couple of decades before the Civil War, promising opportunity in paradise with unbelievably cheap land prices. Like most settlements that got their start by being advertised in the paper, it wasn't exactly the tropical fantasy-land it was said to be -- the alligators were mentioned, of course, although whichever shyster put up the ad conveniently forgot to mention that they were man-eating beasts and played them off to be gentle, scaly friends of nature. You can see where this is going. These "gentle" reptiles, alongside disease-carrying mosquitoes and rightly irate Seminole natives wanting their land back, quickly whittled down the early residents of Gator Creek. Some land did manage to get cultivated though, as a few orange groves and family-owned farms persist to this day.
Connected to the outside world only by a set of railroad tracks used mainly by the mail train, Gator Creek nowadays is a small town hidden away from civilization. Almost all of its residents are direct descendants of the folks who first moved down here due to that ad in the paper generations ago, as few sensible people today would find it an even remotely appealing place to live or set up shop. Arthur Peabody would probably be the only one of those few to actually move there, instead of just seeing it on a map and vaguely considering the possibility of only visiting. He even went so far as to open up a pharmacy, to compliment the only doctor in town. He didn't get much business. When people got sick, it was usually due to waking up one day with an alligator attached to their leg. Only shotguns and amputation can cure that. This, combined with the fact that Arthur was a new arrival fresh from England, didn't make him very popular in this close-knit farm town.
Bruised Oranges follows the life of Arthur in this strange, backwater town, given an impromptu crash course by the town's other outcast, Abigail Sabal. While attracted to Abbie, Arthur was born and raised an upper class turn-of-the-century gentleman, which combined with his personality means he has quite a bit of trouble expressing this effectively. Abbie, whose upbringing was nearly the polar opposite, is happy to make up for her beau's awkwardness. More than happy.
About the Artist
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My name is Keaton and I live in Washington with my hamcat and attend a nearby community college, figuring out what I'll need to grind my way towards a library science or archival science degree. I grew up in northeast Florida and I've been drawing depraved images since I was a wee thing, and all of my years of drawing are culminating into yet another borderline pornographic, pseudo-steampunk webcomic to pollute the internet. Hallelujah!
My email address can be found on the bottom-left corner of any given Bruised Oranges page, should you wish to contact me! Please try to keep your emails tasteful, as I really don't want to read your salacious fantasies involving Earl and some butter or hamfisted attempts at getting into my e-pants. Seriously, please don't do that. I'll cry. :C
Bruised Oranges began in early August of 2007, shortly after my birthday, mostly on a whim -- to see if I could make a comic. I can't tell if I'm doing a very good job at it. I'm certainly having struggles with the "updating consistently" part, but I try to keep my readers updated either in the cbox or on the sketchblog on how things are going so keeping on top of at least the sketchblog is advisable, especially since it has a lot of extra goodies, commentary, old vote sketches, and uncensored pages (you MUST be over 18 and logged in to Livejournal to see these).
;_;
Please vote for Bruised Oranges and you can see a bonus sketch not posted to the Sketchblog!