This was actually NOT the first official strip in the series, that honor belongs to the current Strip 3. I drew the two extra ‘Basil Exposition’ strips back during one of the reboots to help explain the setting, best guess is the 2001 hosting move. (I know this because the other strips have penciled numbers on the sides and plus I have the PSP files for the strip. The originals I only have .GIF files for.)
I had forgotten how tiny these were! To be fair back in the day 600 pixels was incredibly large, but not so much anymore. I did draw all of these strips almost life size, so the actual piece of paper is 4×8 inches and was cut out of a drawing pad. It was this size so it would fit nicely in an envelope, which is how I stored them.
And yes the dialog was almost always written after the strip is drawn… because reasons. *shifty eyes* (The pencil scribbles say “Welcome to the future” and “We all live in a yellow gyroscope…”
Scan of linework for Camera Angles Strip 001