In sixth grade, we’d have time set aside every week to work on our own art projects. It was during these times when I started drawing short comics featuring Charlie Tuna, the mascot of the Starkist Tuna Co. (“sorry, Charlie”) whom I’m sure you all recognize:

My comics were very crudely drawn (I probably picked Charlie Tuna because he was easy to draw—a fish with a hat and glasses) and would usually feature Charlie getting into awkward situations. I remember in one episode, he gets caught trying to teach a boy how to play ding-dong ditch and in another he gets into a car accident.

My fellow students seemed to think these comics were funny which encouraged me to make more of them and soon the stories were getting even more outrageous. I’m not sure when and why I exactly crossed the line, but at some point, I decided that I would draw porn comics starring Charlie and sell them for profit to my fellow classmates.

Back then, I was always trying to hustle scam find entrepreneurial ways to make money from my fellow students. So I suppose selling porn makes sense in a strange sort of way. I needed the income the comics would bring in because every Friday afternoon, the ice cream man would come by the school and I just couldn’t resist those Big Sticks, which cost a whole 25 cents. That’s where all the porn money would go to—to feed my Big Stick addiction.

I put a lot of work into these comics, which I sold for around 25 cents each (the same price as my beloved Big Sticks). I remember having to staple the comics so they must have been at least a few pages long. The plots were simple—in every issue, Charlie would find himself in a situation involving naked women and sex. The one issue I remember vividly told the story of naked female aliens from outer space coming to earth and demanding that Charlie have sex with them or else they would destroy the planet. That’s about as complex as the stories ever got.

Now you may be asking—what does a sixth grader know about naked women and sex? The answer is nothing. The only naked women I had seen were from contraband copies of Playboy and whatever boobies my buds and I could sneak a peek at on cable when the adults weren’t around. Remember, this was the pre-Internet days, it wasn’t as easy for a young lad to find this stuff. And if I knew little about naked women, I knew even less about sex.

Needless to say, if I were to look at these comics now, I’m sure I would cringe at the many errors. I don’t think the comics actually showed any real sex because none of my classmates or I knew what that was. So, in our world, sex mainly consisted of poorly drawn naked women with vaginas that looked like no vagina in the real world, hugging a fish with glasses and a hat.

Still, the comics were a hit and the demand was intense. For a while, I spent all my recesses and weekends producing new episodes. These were all hand-made which meant there was only one copy of each issue so they were very valuable. I had fame, adulation and all the Big Sticks I could eat. But like all great American success stories, the fall was right around the corner.

One of the girls who had purchased my comic, left it lying around her house. Her mother found it and was understandably outraged. This girl, who I thought was a friend, ratted me out almost immediately. Her mother called our teacher.

But it gets worse. The particular issue that my Benedict Arnold of a friend had bought featured a naked female character that I had modeled and named after our teacher. It was bad enough that I was busted, but now I had to deal with my teacher who was going to confiscate a copy of my comic that showed her having sex with a fish on top of a pile of math textbooks while a family of starfish applauded in the background.

So I got called in to meet with my teacher and the principal during recess. I knew my only shot at survival was to somehow convince them not to call my parents. I think my parents already suspected I was some sort of pervert because I was always getting in trouble at school for seemingly sex-related offenses—getting my clothes ripped off by a girl who tried to beat the crap out of me after I insulted her, selecting “Playboy photographer” as what I wanted to be when I grew up during career day show-and-tell—that sort of thing. They didn’t need more proof I was on the road to a life of a degenerate.

I tried to be as sincerely apologetic as I could. I told the principal I’d take any punishment from him if he just wouldn’t call my folks. I explained to my teacher that I wouldn’t have portrayed her as a horny slut who liked to make it with aquatic creatures if I didn’t think she was the hottest and coolest teacher in the universe and the object of every boys’ crush. I gave a performance worthy of an Oscar where I argued, begged, charmed and did everything I could to get out of my predicament.

And somehow it worked. I convinced them not to call my parents. Instead, I had to stay in at recess for a couple of weeks and do chores, which was fine with me. I also had to promise never to produce anything pornographic again. As much as I hated to end such a lucrative venture, I realized I had no choice. So in sixth grade, my future as a porn mogul crashed and burned.

My only regret, aside from the Big Stick revenue that was suddenly lost, is that I never kept any of the comics I made. I sold plenty of them so I suppose there’s a chance that some copies may exist out there somewhere. So if any of our readers happened to attend George Washington Elementary School in San Gabriel, CA during the early 80s and bought one of my creations and still have it—contact me. I’ll make it worth your while.