Bips McCallister’s relationship with comics goes all the way back to childhood, when reading his father’s old comic books made him dream of creating his own. In 2012, he finally challenged himself to finish and publish a comic online, regardless of whether he thought it was good enough, a decision that eventually grew into the Hoomph webcomic. The series officially appeared online in 2015, with McCallister describing it as a place where “pretty much anything goes,” from strange observations and pop-culture references to deliberately weird jokes and unexpected visual twists.
More than a decade later, McCallister is still experimenting with that same anything-goes approach. Hoomph has been published on platforms including Tapas and WEBTOON, where the archive ranges from short, absurd gags to longer multi-panel setups and recurring characters. His work has also received recognition outside those platforms, including being featured in BuzzFeed’s 2015 roundup of notable webcomics. Alongside continuing to create comics, McCallister has been working toward the longer-term goal of self-publishing his first book, turning years of deliberately odd, unpredictable humor into a collection that readers can actually hold in their hands.
