It all began with a fetus wearing a red headband.

When junior screenwriting and English major Kari Granlund and Chapman film production graduate Dres Fischer-Centeno created a comic series in 2007 called the “Fetus Adventures,” which features a fetus as a superhero, they did not realize how popular it would be.

Once posted online, the comic received more attention than expected, according to Granlund, inspiring her and Fischer-Centeno to create a legitimate Web site to showcase their writing.

In May 2008, with the help of senior Ben Deeb and alumnus Graham Towers, they created a blog called TheMiddlestChild.com using the service WordPress.com. It features comics, videos and articles about politics, movies, television and random comedy.

TheMiddlestChild.com was ranked No. 30 on the top 100 growing blogs in August 2008, according to WordPress.com, which currently has an average of 4,679,698 blogs. Since its inception, the popularity of TheMiddlestChild.com has grown, averaging 225 views per day with more than 34,500 views total, according to WordPress.com.

“We keep track of how many hits we get a day, which is good, but it’s nothing in the realm of Perez Hilton,” said Fischer-Centeno. “We never thought that we were going to do this well. We just thought we would do OK.”

Articles from TheMiddlestChild.com have been showcased on other blogs. Granlund’s “Top Ten Reasons to Vote for John McCain” was posted on Ibrahim Husain’s blog, ZenCollegeLife.com.

“It’s cool to have people that actually make an effort to read something that I’ve written and express their opinion on it,” said Granlund.

To advertise for the Web site, Granlund and Fischer-Centeno handed out printed issues of the “Fetus Adventures” comic and business cards this summer at Comic-Con in San Diego.

“[We plan on expanding TheMiddlestChild.com] as soon as we can actually design the Web site [the way we want],” said Fischer-Centeno. “If we could do it tomorrow, we would. We just don’t have the money or time.”

Granlund writes about one article a week, depending on her schedule. She often brainstorms ideas with Fischer-Centeno when they have down time.

Filming videos to post on the Web site takes the most time because it requires entire afternoons to film, according to Granlund.

Granlund and Fischer-Centeno have posted two of their videos, “Lessons on Violence PSA” and “iChattin’ with Sarah Palin,” on FunnyOrDie.com and YouTube as a way to draw more attention to their site. The political parody video featuring Granlund and Palin has received 355 views and is ranked as 84 percent funny, according to FunnyOrDie.com, a comedy video Web site.

“A lot of people tend to like [the Web site’s material] and that’s always rewarding,” said Towers.

Aside from the recent addition of videos, the Web site also features the new comic, “Time Fisters!” written by Fischer-Centeno and drawn by Chapman alumnus Jon Washington.

“[Washington] is an aspiring cartoonist, so he is the perfect person to contribute for drawing,” said Granlund.

Washington has been cartooning for about eight years, he said. After graduation, Fischer-Centeno and Washington collaborated to create the “TimeFisters!” comic. Fischer-Centeno did the writing and Washington drew the cartoon for the comic.

Fischer-Centeno plans to continue the blog as long as the contributors keep writing and coming up with new ideas, he said.

“When I can’t finish a script I’m working on, I’ll just go to the Web site because it’s a completely different type of writing,” said Fischer-Centeno. “It’s another outlet that helps me keep writing.”


Contact this reporter: caroline.stegner@thepantheronline.com