ed note: In May of 1998 Callahan's site was taken down off of Gigaplex, and has not resurfaced anywhere else on the net

He's funny, he's crude and now he's on the Internet. That's right John Callahan (often referred to as that cool cartoonist in the wheel chair) has his own site on the Internet.

I had the pleasure to follow the process of the Portland cartoonist from angst and electronic confusion to on-line fireworks.

The story of how Callahan got on the Internet is very similar to many people's experience. Someone called him up and said, "Hey John have you ever thought about getting on the Internet?".

That someone who called John Callahan happened to be me. I had long been a fan of Callahan's work, but way to busy to run out and get the Willamette Week , every Wednesday to see his cartoons. I did however have a little time each week to read the news and look at toons at lunch. I saw the amazing success of Dilbert on the Internet and I figured, Why not Callahan?

It took several weeks for me to track Callahan down, I mean he wasn't on the Internet so I couldn't just e-mail him. After doing a little leg work namely calling Barnes and Noble I found that his publisher was in New York, and was either at lunch or closed when ever I tried to call. After a few persistent weeks, I got a call. It was Callahan and he wanted to take a look at this "Internet thing".

When I first came over, Powerbook in hand, I was intent on showing Callahan how great it would be to have a Web Site on the Internet. The demonstration was more a lesson for me about the potential benefits of Callahan (who is almost fully paralyzed) accessing the Internet rather than my ability to get his comics from my desk.

(Sometimes I think we overlook ways in which we can apply technology to HELP people rather than just entertain them.)

A little taste of the Internet was all that Callahan needed. Just a few weeks later he had registered caltoons.com as his domain name, and Jerry Lazar busily at work on the Web Site. Just this past month (about three months after our first meeting), Callahan had his Web Site. Just a week before it went up, Callahan questioned if he had made the right decision. He had. The site is up, and was mentioned in USA Today only three days after its doors opened. And now over my turkey sandwich, I call up the Callahan funnies, and give a hearty chuckle. I wonder if they'd get an OJ Caltoon in Spain?